When the Roll is Called Up Yonder I'll Be There

I don’t want to forget Tuesday night. I probably wouldn’t anyway, but I want to write about it, to tell the world about it.
My daddy might not remember the year he was born, or where the bathroom is or the front door, or how to put on his shoes, but he remembers the hymns he sang for decades in the pews of Marsh Swamp Free Will Baptist Church.
My daughter, Anna, and I stopped by Mama and Daddy’s last night after a visit to the county fair. Mama had a miserable day, and when I left her at suppertime, her eyes were red from hours of crying and frustration. I gave her a big hug, squeezed her hand and promised I’d be back before bedtime.
But it was Daddy who needed me more last night. Nighttime is nightmare time for Daddy. He has what’s known in the world of Alzheimer’s as Sundowners. Once the sun goes down, and actually a few hours before, what’s left of his sensibilities escapes him.
He panics and frets and complains and worries: Where will he sleep? Does anyone know where the bed is? How will he stand up from the couch? Will his feet reach the floor? How in the world will he take off all these clothes? Who will help him put on his night clothes? Who will help him take them off in the morning? Is anyone going to feed him? It goes on and on for hours.
He was in full panic mode when Anna and I arrived. Already dressed in his black and gray plaid pajamas, he was leaning to the right, almost falling over against the side of the couch, worrying aloud and loudly how he was going to get up.
“Will someone help me get up? I’ve got to get up from here.” It’s a common refrain with no real answer. If you ask him where he wants to go his response is: “I don’t know. How in the world am I supposed to know?”
I worked hard to distract him by rubbing his leg, talking softly and encouraging him to relax and calm down. He was having none of it.
“Why don’t we sing?” I said. He didn’t even move his head from its resting spot on the sofa, but his face perked up a little. “Do you want to sing? We can sing some church songs.”
“Those are good ones,” he said.
“What shall we sing?” I asked him. He didn’t have any suggestions. My mind raced through the hymns I grew up with, and I tried to think of ones I could remember. I felt like I was on a stage and sort of panicked myself because no song names came to mind. Then I remembered one:
“I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore. Very deeply stained within, sinking to rise no more.”
Daddy still didn’t move, and I wondered if he was even listening to me.
“But the Master of the sea heard my despairing cry …”
And then I heard it. His weakened but beautiful voice joined in:
“From the waters lifted me now safe am I. Love lifted me. Love lifted me. When nothing else could help love lifted me.”
We sang along until we came to the end. I had his attention! He was distracted! He was singing!
Anna was amazed. I was ecstatic.
But what could we sing next?
Suddenly I was flooded with ideas, and we sang “How Great Thou Art,” “Just As I Am,” “Jesus Loves Me.” He didn’t always sing along with the verses, but by the time I hit the chorus, he would join in.
Then I remembered another song, which I knew was one of his favorites:
“When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound, and time shall be no more, and the morning breaks, eternal bright and fair.”
He finally picked up his head and I saw, I really did, a sparkle in his eye. A recognition. A flash of a memory perhaps. And, definitely, joy.
He sang along with me and really piped in when we got to the chorus:
“When the roll is called up yonder I’ll be there.”
But as soon as we finished, he started worrying again. “How am I going to get up?” he asked Anna.
“Daddy,” I said, “let’s think of something else to sing.”
He didn’t want to sing anymore and asked me to stop. But I’m not one to take no for an answer and asked him what was his favorite hymn. He sang a few lines from “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder “ again, and I joined in.
Then I asked him if he remembered “I Come to the Garden Alone”?
He hesitated for a few seconds, then looked straight ahead and sang by himself, his voice even weaker because I had tired him out. Weaker but even more beautiful and determined: “I come to the garden alone. While the dew is still on the roses.”
Anna looked at her grandpa, her eyes wide open with amazement and on the verge of tears. Tears did fill my eyes, but I started singing and didn’t worry if my emotion showed and my voice cracked.
“And the voice I hear, falling on my ear, the son of God discloses. And he walks with me and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own…”
We sang the whole song. He knew every word. Every word.
But on most days, he can’t tell you the city we live in and doesn’t believe he’s in the right house. And many days he can’t recognize family members. But he knows the words of the songs he sang at his beloved Marsh Swamp Church.
I’ve read that our earliest memories are our strongest memories. I believe that’s true. I also believe I’ll have the memory of Tuesday night for years to come. I only wish Daddy could remember it too.

Loud, stinky stores

I'm really annoyed with stores that find it necessary to play music loud enough to make my brain tremble.
My daughter and I spent most of Saturday morning shopping at Crabtree Valley Mall in Raleigh. I knew she wanted to go to Hollister, but I really dreaded it.
For those tired old moms like me, a trip to Hollister is almost torturous: loud music, dim lights, overpowering perfume apparently sprayed throughout the store like Glade. But we went anyway. I took two Motrin in advance to ward off the inevitable headache.
Nothing had changed since our last visit to the store. The music was so loud that I couldn't comprehend what Anna was saying to me as we looked through stacks of sales clothes in the back of the shop. And when her daddy popped in to check on our progress, I told him where to meet us in a few minutes, knowing that he couldn't hear a word I was saying. Maybe I should have just sent him a text message!
Every few minutes, as the songs changed, there would be a few moments of silence. Anna said the silence was kind of spooky. I thought it was bliss.
Hollister wasn't the only offender on this trip. We were also clearance sale shopping at Abercrombie, which is apparently owned by the same company. Their music is equally obnoxious and their perfume equally offensive to my sensitive nose.
When we got back home, Anna took the new clothes to her room. Within an hour, her bedroom smelled like a perfume counter at department store. We stripped the clothes of their tags and washed them, using a laundry deodorizer to kill the aroma. I hung the clothes in the kitchen, which doubles as my laundry room. The next morning, my kitchen had that same perfume counter smell, even though the clothes had been washed!
Perhaps other families enjoy shopping in the dark while someone screams incomprehensible lyrics and having someone else choose their perfume. But it's not my favorite way to shop!

One Person's Trash

Daddy's getting a new chair this week. Maybe as early as today. It's a geri chair, short for geriatrics. Pictures I've seen on the Web remind me of hospital patient chairs – the ones on wheels with a tray attached. Our hospice nurse recommended it.
We're hoping it will give Daddy a comfortable place to sit. Lately, as Alzheimer's progresses, he's having more and more trouble sitting up. He tends to lean. In fact, sometimes I'm afraid he's going to lean so far that he'll fall off the couch he sits on with Mama most of the day.
But to make room for the geri chair, we had to do some furniture moving. Mama and Daddy's main sitting area is their very small den. The most logical piece of furniture to move was an ugly blue upholstered rocker. It looks like a recliner, but it isn't. I don't put Daddy in it because it's a low piece of furniture, and it's too unsteady for him to stand up from.
I talked to my sister yesterday about the blue chair's future. I told her we could put it at the curbside, move it into the already crowded living room or throw away another chair from the living room and replace it with the blue chair. She suggested we talk to the sitters and see which chair they'd rather keep in the living room, where they often sit. The sitters preferred the chair they already use in the living room because the rocker is just too low and unsteady for them as well. So, it looked like the ugly rocker was on its way out the door. It seemed like the easy, sensible thing to do. I certainly didn't want it at my house, and neither did Susan.
I planned to have my husband move it out last night, thinking someone would probably pick it up from the curbside and take it home with them. I might even call the Red Cross, I thought, to see if they wanted it.
I happened to mention all of this to my daughter, Anna.
"Grandpa's getting a new chair," I said. I told her about the geri chair and how nice it would be to have somewhere that Grandpa could sit upright.
"But we'll have to get rid of that ugly old blue rocking chair," I said. "I'm going to have your dad move it to the curb tonight."
She looked at me with wide-open eyes.
"You can't get rid of that chair," she cried. "That's the chair they rocked us in!"
I looked at her, seeing not the 14-year-old she is now but the blond-headed toddler, clutching a blanket and sucking on a pacifier, sitting contentedly in her beloved grandmother's lap. I remembered a favorite photo of her brother on his first birthday, sitting in the chair in his Uncle Mike's lap. Robert's cheeks are flushed with fever from an ear infection and his eyes look weak.
I shake off the memories and look at Anna's concerned face.
"You're right," I told her. "We can't get rid of the chair."
The ugly blue rocker is not at the curb this morning. It's in the over-crowded living room where it will stay. As it turns out, it didn't need a new home after all.