Catching Rain

Sandi Paris

Description

Sandi Paris rediscovers herself by telling stories her lover has forgotten and shares a heartbreaking journey with a rare dementia.
A mature and confident woman is surprised to feel erased when her husband forgets her. As present-day events trigger her own memories, she begins to tell him things he used to know and recovers a complex past she thought had been left behind. Remembering how she became the intrepid woman he loved, her courage and determination resurfaces as she faces the catastrophe of his illness.
While a heartbreaking journey through dementia, Catching Rain, by author Sandi Paris, also offers an extraordinary story of life generously sprinkled with humor and mayhem. Written from a female perspective, these narratives will resonate deeply with many women. However, humans of all ages, genders, preferences, races, and abilities will also recognize themselves.
Catching Rain delivers a profoundly urgent call-to-action when describing experiences with long-term and end-of-life care. It is a must read for medical professionals, social workers, clergy, caregivers, and curious people everywhere. Paris makes us want to do beautiful, hard things.

Sujets

• Personal Memoirs
• Caregiving
• Homelessness
• Caregiver
• Biography
• Homophobia
• Dementia
• Racism
• Misogyny
• Autobiography
• Romance

Informations

• Publié par: Balboa Press
• Date de parution: 20 avril 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798765226254
• Langue: English

Extrait

Catching Rain
A woman rediscovers herself in stories her lover has forgotten.

 
 
 
 
 
Sandi Paris
 
 
 

 
Copyright © 2022 Sandi Paris.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.
 
Balboa Press
A Division of Hay House
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.balboapress.com
844-682-1282
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
Interior Image Credit: Dezerae Jobe Photography
 
 
ISBN: 979-8-7652-2624-7 (sc)
ISBN: 979-8-7652-2626-1 (hc)
ISBN: 979-8-7652-2625-4 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022904981
 
Balboa Press rev. date:   06/27/2022
Contents
Prologue
Note from Author
I — THE EVER-PRESENT PAST
Hold On
Anything but That
We Met in Church
How Can I Help?
Light from a Burning Bridge
II — OH, WHAT THE HELL
Frog Whispering
Lucky Man
Unimaginable
Last Times
Paddling Against the Current
III — SURRENDER
Over the Waterfall
Offerings
Secret Society of Naked Ladies
The Bridge to Nowhere
 
Epilogue
Afterword
Resources
Acknowledgments
 
T his is for the exhausted and bewildered caregivers of the world. For courageous advocates who stand and speak for those without a voice. It is also a tribute to the brave hearts who open their minds and free one another to let fly the secrets that keep us all tethered. Finally, it is for the lovers who choose to stay and bear witness to the brutality of life. They will also be privileged to behold the luminous glow that shines thr ough.
Prologue
MY LOVER HAS left me. There was no note propped on the coffee maker. He didn’t storm out, slamming a door behind him. No other woman, or man, has lured him away. I am no less abandoned.
A sweet smile still warms the moment that Randy catches sight of me, but it does not glow with the heat of knowing like it did before. Before, is when we swam together in a river of words. Talking, sharing, never thinking it could run dry. Now, words are being erased from his brain and the stories they created are lost. Randy no longer knows why he smiles at this face and I am agonizingly unprepared for this kind of alone.
As I slowly lose this intelligent and beautiful man, who is losing himself, I begin to fear that the part of me changed by his love is also in danger of slipping away. The truck loaded with panic that has been parked in my chest since his diagnosis still revs its engine.
I have learned to calm myself by stretching fingers across a keyboard and feverishly pounding words into my computer. It is the way my feet pounded pavement years ago when I was a much younger woman who ran at dawn to escape a soulless first marriage. This time I am processing the unavoidable reality of a rare dementia, Frontotemporal Deterioration (FTD), that crept into my husband’s brain sometime around his 50 th birthday.
I am compelled to share my experiences of his illness but find that I must also describe who we are, what has been lost, and what is being found. Writing delivers a voice more lasting than a tongue. The ancient cave dweller who scratched pigment into stone walls is my brother, or sister.
Randy was my magic mirror. He showed me a woman much finer than I knew myself to be. His ears heard tender, foolish, and sometimes dark tales where he often identified humor and redemption I had missed. The sparkling blue eyes that reflected admiration, amusement, respect, and lust are now as foggy as the Northern California coast where we built our life together. When I get wound up about something, he can no longer suggest with his wry smile that I “might want to settle down now.” I try to remind myself.
I must also remember not to expect gifts, or carefully selected cards with intimate messages. It has proven to be more difficult, impossible actually, to wrap myself up in long arms and describe the ways I am loved. I have short arms and self-doubt.
We all tell stories to make sense of our lives. Our own thoughts and words shape us as surely as those of other people. Randy would often admonish, “You should write that story down before you forget it.” My response would be something like, “You will remember, youngster. Be sure to tell it to the grandkids.” One brow would predictably raise itself over a stern blue eye to accent his reply, “I am not joking.”
I also used to tease, like my friend Barbara, that I married a younger man so he could take care of me in my old age. The irony of this has not escaped me .
Before FTD, Randy was a 6'3" hunk of male tenderness and very human contradiction. He was strikingly attractive, intelligent, playful, often inappropriate, passionate, and wickedly sarcastic. An articulate speaker and skilled writer, Randy had a command of language. He was also a thoughtful and loving partner, largely because of what he learned from the women who came before me. I bow to each of them. Randy was a hands-on devoted father, who loved his son to a depth he had not known possible. A scientist and a thinker, insatiable reader and admitted news junkie , he was also an athlete who trained all winter for the summer season of 100-mile ‘century’ bicycle rides. He could be sophisticated if required and keenly witty when inspired.
Randy could also be ridiculously goofy, even before dementia made him more so. Sometimes forgetting his own height, he bumped his head on things that other people sailed under. His adult feet were the same size they have been since adolescence, but he would miscalculate and trip at unexpected times, bemoaning that “the world isn’t built for people like me.” When he blew his nose, he honked it like a circus clown’s horn, startling everyone in the room and causing children to giggle with astonishment. He pretended not to notice. If we went out to eat, he took forever to order from a large menu because he had to consider every single option available. It was the same with other important decisions. Trying to hurry him up would slow him down. We could spend hours packing the car and preparing for a trip, but as soon as our seat belts clicked, Randy would open the car door again and say, “I’ll be right back.” We knew he was headed to the bathroom because there was something about the sound of a clicking seatbelt that worried his bowels.
Rarely taking himself too seriously, Randy was infamous for downgrading ‘important’ meetings by wearing silly hats topped with fish, eagles, or flamingos. He wore his uniform only when it was required for an official event of some sort. Until he became an administrator, he preferred the costume of a field biologist: Khaki cargo shorts with hiking boots, or sport sandals with white socks, even in the winter. He once selected bright red sandals (size 13) because they were on sale, and because he was red-green color blind. Whatever he saw when he looked at red, it pleased him.
Strolling in late – to everything – was a habit I came to terms with. An exception to this was on Feb 14 th , Valentine’s Day, when he arrived at the office early enough to place candy hearts and small paper valentines (the kind you buy in large bags) on staff and coworker’s desks before they came to work. Later that evening, he would smile mischievously when describing a few people’s confusion or stiff discomfort at such playfulness. He’d say, “I’d like to see those folks lighten up.”
Randy had an open-door policy and encouraged his team to stop in for coffee or to snag candy from the ‘feeding station’ which was a large bowl that he kept on his desk. He reported that women overwhelmingly preferred chocolate. A scientific breakthrough. This was how he took the pulse of the office. He claimed to get as much valuable information during those walk-ins as in most formal meetings. Randy would use personal funds to purchase boxes of Ramones Bakery scones and fresh fruit for staff meetings. He wanted people to feel appreciated. He donated personal leave hours to co-workers who needed them, passed out $5 bills to panhandlers despite my objections, and alternated annual donations to organizations that we both supported. These included educational and environmental groups, a