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Note: These stories are available within the Making Tired Eyes Smile® System. The stories are designed for the facilitator of a family support group to read to the group. They are presented in order of thought provoking complexity. The facilitator would read one story every quarter.
Excerpt from story Who Teaches You?
Sometimes it is amazing who my teachers are. A significant
course in my “life lessons” is as a volunteer in a language arts program for a
group of friends with Alzheimer’s. These seniors who sit on the edge of
memories create a working “how to do life better” lab. The feedback is always
on.
Here are my twelve favorite lessons learned under the
direction of souls still soaring midst the slipping memories. Listen to another
viewpoint from ones who walk on the rough terrain of Alzheimer’s. May it expand
how you see a loved one, neighbor or coworker who lives in the falling away of
the ordinary and every day.
Excerpt from story Sandcastles
When my mother-in-law greets me I know with all certainty
that I have no name. I have no label. I have no history. All there is in the
greeting is who my actions say I am. Each hello is a new opportunity to bring
joy into her life. And it doesn’t take a lot. Just showing up with an open
heart for who she is builds the moment.
Together my mother-in-law and I create the day’s new
sandcastle. Like children of long ago we have no floor plan or blueprints. We
have creativity. We have the fun of doing something together. We pick up things
from our environment like the shells and feathers on the shore. Like a holiday
at the beach this visit is a brief reprieve in a long day where she can feel
the “ordinary” in the mundane landscape of the disease.
I will be the only one remembering. My goodbye brings in
the tide. And that day’s sandcastle is lost forever. But I will return over and
over and over. I am willing to say hello to someone new each time. I am willing
to build in the sand without a preconceived vision of the structure of the
day’s sandcastle.
Excerpt from story As Clouds Go By
It is a little collection of thoughts about clouds from my
friends. It is good to see different things. These words from a lady
walking precariously on a crumbling and narrowing ledge offer wisdom to those
of us on firm footing. It is good to see different things could be a
reminder to all of us about the diversity within the disease, Alzheimer’s.
Think how boring it would be to cast our eyes upward and
see the same clouds as though painted on a ceiling. The novelty we glimpse, the
imagination we spark and the joy of beauty we witness would not be part of our
breathing.
And yet the public images of people living within the
disease of Alzheimer’s are static. The news clips view elderly men and women
coma-like with unresponsive eyes and drooping jaws. These frail sojourners seem
lost to time and space. And we turn away in prayer that this is not the closing
for our lives or for the ones we love.
This skeletal scene may be the view on television and in
print media. There is some truth to the image. But it is not the larger truth.
Some people do unwind to this place of public guise. However, It is good to
see different things.
Excerpt from story Wild Flower
The film purrs through the stationary camera capturing the
poetic nuances to the field flowers from sunrise to sunset. A less than curious
observer might pass the field and declare the wind or an overly excited
bumblebee forces the only movement on the flowers.
But collapse the frames of the film from the twelve-hour
day to mere minutes and the flowers show how they move when fixed into the
ground of Mother Earth. The natural instincts of the flowers orchestrate the
day’s dance.
A flower’s petals smile at the sun and follow the sun’s
trek across the sky. It is as though an invisible magnet bobs the flower’s face
in tandem with the sunlight. For nature’s reasons the flower knows the benefit
of the warmth and the light. No words are exchanged. It just is.
My friends with Alzheimer’s are like the field flowers. A
relentless disease plants them in a firm hold. A casual observer only sees the
bindings. But another feels the faces follow. Sees the smiles. Watches bobbing
heads. Here is someone who is like the sun for them. This person brings warmth
and light. This person brings appreciation for the beauty that just is.
Making Tired Eyes Smile is about you being for
others the warmth and the light in a day where many think nothing happens. It
is collapsing the dreary list of symptoms and shining on the possibilities. My
first question for you: are you a sun or a skeptic?
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