Jaki Jean on Vignettes with Jean: Breakfast

Since Jean & I have began this journey together several years ago, her doctors have emphasized two things:  nutrition & repositioning.

I have become a fanatic about protein & fresh fruits & vegetables & organics & a diet that includes the body’s need for meat without being dependent upon that need for the core of the body's protein requirements.

And I like to vary her breakfast fare. 

Some mornings are scrambled eggs with a tidbit of salsa & a side of kiwi.  Some mornings are omelet mornings, with a side of fruit.  Some mornings are sweet potato pancakes with warm applesauce.  Or mini-waffles with peanut butter & warmed apricot preserves (I just really like apricot preserves).  Some mornings are Greek yogurt with fruit.

Some mornings we throw caution to the wind & indulge in chocolate croissants or raspberry strudel or ice cream made from frozen bananas, always accompanied by a protein drink.

This morning was Greek yogurt (Fage 2% - 20 grams of protein) with fresh strawberries, blackberries & blueberries.  And honey.

Because Jean, like Jaki Jean, has a bit of a sweet tooth.

After the breakfast dishes had been cleared & I got dressed & it was time to reposition Jean, she held out a tissue to me (Jean uses a lot of tissues) & said:

Jaki, these came out of my mouth & they are alive.

I took the tissue, put on my reading glasses & thought does Jean think I feed her food infected with bugs?

After examining the tissue with the “live” creatures, I understood.

She felt something on her teeth, she used a tissue to remove them & her Parkinson’s controlled hands quivered as she examined blackberry seeds from breakfast & in her perception, they were alive.

Although, for me, this still begs the question:  

Does Jean think I feed her food infected with bugs?

I show her that the seeds are not alive.  I promise her that I do not feed her food infected with living creatures.  I do not bring up the control that Parkinson’s has on her hands & body or our life together.

I want to brush my teeth, she says.

I tell her that she only wants to brush her teeth right at that moment because she thinks her mouth is filled with tiny, live creatures.  We laugh.

I also tell her that first, I am going to reposition her.

I do that, & then I help her brush her teeth.

But before we begin with the teeth cleaning ritual, because I cannot resist, I tell her

Let’s wash all those bugs out of your mouth.

Jean laughs, we laugh.

And all the time we laugh, not for the first or last time, my heart breaks just a little.

History, Memory & Memorial Day

History, like Memory, is not an exact science.  It is a text, written upon & reinterpreted by time & space & culture & change & agenda.  

And sometimes, by forgetfulness & confusion.

Yet History & Memory define us, influence us, challenge us, remind us, heal us & too often destroy us.

And sometimes distract us

Yesterday, as our nation was still at war, Americans celebrated Memorial Day.  A day of remembrance, a day to remember history, a day to honor those who gave their lives so that succeeding generations are free to revel & barbecue.

And to argue about how Memorial Day was established.

A respected friend of mine, who, like me, leans a bit to the left, posted an article by David W. Blight.  Blight is a professor of American History at Yale University. 

Dr. Blight has an impressive CV – a southern boy from Flint, Michigan.

He has won a lot of awards, including the 2001 Frederick Douglass Prize for Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory.

The more I read about David W. Blight, the more I like him.  I hope that what I read about his work is true:  It has been a seminal work in the enlarging field of memory studies.

Which brings me back to History & Memory & barbecue & arguing about how the day known as Memorial Day began as Decoration Day & why that argument matters.

The argument matters because it continues.  How, why, when, where or are you fucking kidding me that this argument about history & memory & what is ”factual” matters.

I found, among my Facebook friends, other versions of the story about how Decoration Day began, who started it, & how it became Memorial Day.

And I found a few rebuttals – including several links to the US Department of Government Affairs, which has its own memory & its own agenda & its own version of how Memorial Day was established.

History & Memory must be shared.  It must be discussed in an open, receptive forum, with everyone present willing to listen to the others’ interpretation, understanding & memory.

I care about Decoration Day & how it was established.  I care deeply about Memorial Day.  I care deeply about History & Memory.

But I care more about being willing to include all our shared memories in our history.

http://zinnedproject.org/materials/the-first-decoration-day/

https://www.facebook.com/TheBlueStreetJournal/photos/a.115278601973876.22563.115272475307822/169236859911383/?type=1&theater

http://www.va.gov/opa/speceven/memday/history.asp?utm_source=3birds&utm_medium=Web&utm_campaign=AUBURNVW_Fun+Facts+About+Memorial+Day

Jaki Jean on Why Waking up to a Post Makes a Difference

Some stories you write because they begin in a dream.

Some stories you write because they begin with a great line.  Usually not your own.

In my first writing course at UH, James Cleghorn said:  In dreams begins responsibility.

In that same course, Dr. Cleghorn introduced the class to Gabriel Garcia Marquez & told us that if we never read any other book, we should read One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Over the last forty years, I have remembered that dreams are the beginning & no one who wants to write can do it without reading One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Today I write a story for someone who never appeared in my dreams, has given me some great opening lines, who has read One Hundred Years of Solitude, & who I know mainly through Facebook & her posts.

We once shared the same time & space & people, a long day ago.  But our paths never crossed.   In El Paso, we had people in common, but never one another.  I recognized her name in posts on Facebook.  I liked what she posted.

I thought, I should know this person.  I should know this woman.  I recognize this name.

Reaching back into somewhere in that space & time, I came to remember her name.  I could not explain the reason or how, but she still allowed me to be her friend on Facebook.

After viewing enough Facebook posts, I now know through & with whom her name was so familiar.

That familiar yet elusive name grew into this amazing woman, an activist, a community leader.  I kept thinking how did I miss this person ?

And then Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast.

And in its devastation, it took the life her beloved niece.

She was very open & frank in her posts after that loss.  In her grief, she brought all who read her posts closer.

While still grieving over the loss of her niece, she lost her mentor, friend, downstairs neighbor & brother-in-law, her niece’s father.

How she felt, how she moved toward recovery, is her story to tell, not mine. 

If I were writing it, I would say that her heart & spirit were broken by the loss of such incredibly loved ones & a Texan stepped in & offered her time & space to heal.

And that she is still healing.  With that Texan.

But, as I said, it is her story to write, not mine.

The other day, she posted that she used to think  she could make a difference.

I wanted to fly across space & time & sit across from her to explain that of course, she made a difference. 

She still makes a difference.

In my life, in the lives of those she worked for, in the lives she continues to influence.

I write this story, not because of a dream or an opening line or even in honor of One Hundred Years of Solitude.  I write it because people who matter, people who make a difference, need to know that their efforts were & continue to be important.

Every morning, I open Facebook & look to see what those I have chosen as cyber friends, & those who have allowed me to be their cyber friend, post.  Every morning, I am challenged & inspired.  Every morning, I laugh.  Every morning, someone makes a difference, someone firestarts me.

Especially that woman living in Mexico with a Texan & too many beige walls.

You continue to make a difference, Cate Poe.  I promise you that, Amiga.

Both photos absolutely usurped from Cate Poe.

On adaptability, flexibility, rigidity, resistance & nurses who rock

During these last two weeks at home with Jean following our latest soiree, I have learned that I can indeed empty & replace a colostomy bag, that we would all be amazed at how much gas we produce if we had to capture it in a little bag & that Lisabeth Blandino’s addition to my annual review over fifteen years ago holds true.

I still need to work on being flexible & adaptable.

Until Lisabeth, who was not my supervisor, but our department manager, added that to my review, I thought I was extremely flexible & adaptable.  I thought she was being grossly unfair, forever framing me as rigid based on one incident.  Tarnishing an otherwise stellar review.  (I had to put that in ;-)

I realize now that Lisabeth was right in her assessment.  In an extremely important, highly visable, high pressure situation, I grew rigid & resistant.  Hours of my work had to be redone because someone in the field missed a deadline.  I was not a happy camper & not a kinder & gentler Jaki Jean that day.

During these past weeks, I remembered that from so long ago.  At the LTAC facility, I hated shift changes & the fact that unfamiliar nurses & CNAs were assigned to my mother.  I hated weekends when food services personnel delivered our trays & did not greet me by name or give us extra condiments.

(I am really obsessive about condiments).

As I planned & coordinated our return home I learned that Chike, the home health care nurse who had taken care of mother for almost a year had gone to work for Home Land Security or Immigration or something very Dot gov.    I did not feel very flexible or adaptable.

But, Loretta, the aide who cared for Jean prior to her hospitalization was available if I could work with her schedule.  Loretta is very popular with patients & their families, I was told.

Loretta is the sweetest, kindest, gentlest person I have ever known.  She is simply the best & of course no one else would do for my mother.  I didn’t care what schedule she wanted.  I just wanted her to help me take care of Jean.

A far cry from the woman who looked up at Lisabeth Blandino that day over fifteen years ago & asked, Are you fucking kidding me ?

(That phrase has been with Jaki Jean for far too long ).

However, adapting to a schedule change for a beloved & trusted care giver is a bit different from adapting to a new nurse.

In the beginning of our return to Home Health Care, when I was told that a new nurse, of course not Chike, would visit two days a week to care for Jean, I understood.

Chike came to this country from Nigeria because, as he told me, I want a life, a career, a family.  He became a US citizen, he worked as a nursing assistant while he studied to become an RN.  He graduated with honors while caring for Jean.  He had ambitions – a fine man. 

I understood.  I was flexible.  I adapted.  I was happy for Chike.  I waited for the new nurse.

And I waited.  And waited.  And waited.

Until I no longer cared about being flexible or adaptable & called & asked  

Where is the nurse?  It is Friday & it is going to be hard to make two appearances a week beginning on Friday.

So, the new nurse came.  He was well dressed (no scrubs & that baffled me), articulate, a great story teller.  Jean & I endured the entire question & answer session & I did not once say Are you fucking kidding me?  OR We have over a years’ worth of nurses’ notes in a folder – are you interested in reading them?

Instead I flexed & adapted & listened to his charming stories & a lecture on giving Jean more water.

And accepted his assessment that the catheter was working fine.

Then there was the weekend.  When the catheter was not working fine.

A new week began & Loretta came & added light to our day, but Loretta agreed with me.

The catheter was not working.  Fine or otherwise.

On Wednesday, I called to ask exactly what two days a week I could expect the nurse who did not wear scrubs.

The nurse appeared, sans scrubs, while Loretta was completing Jean’s bath.  Loretta explained that the catheter bag was empty & urine was coming out of Jean.  He without scrubs was very concerned about the fact that their times overlapped.

The nurse without scrubs took Jean’s vitals, he flushed the catheter, pronounced it working & AGAIN gave me a lecture about giving Jean more water.

On Thursday night, I called the Home Health Director Vincent & told him something was wrong.  I reminded him that his service had our business because the prior service did not listen to me & Jean ended up in the hospital for a week, her kidneys operating at less than 15 %.

On Friday, our caregiver Virginia came & confirmed that I was not acting from a position of rigidity or resistance.  The catheter was not working.  

A nurse (not the one without scrubs) called & left a message on the house phone – in spite of my repeated requests to the service to call me on my cell.  I returned the call & waited.

And waited.  And waited.  Virginia went home.  I called Vincent at our Home Health Care Service.

I began packing in anticipation of going to the ER & hospital stay with Jean.  Vincent & I talked several times until at last, no longer flexible or adaptable, but rigid & resistant, I told him if a nurse was not at my door within the hour, I was ready to go to the hospital & explain that the service was not responding to Jean’s needs.

As the sixty minutes wound down, I gathered my medication, the calming jar, an empty vase for flowers.  I packed a few condiments in a small cooler. 

(I have this thing about condiments.)

I knew I could buy protein filled yogurt at the Signature Kroger across the street from Methodist Sugar Land if Jean was admitted.  I remembered that I needed to grab laundry detergent to wash my clothes & hang them to dry and

The door bell rang. 

I went to the door, expecting no one familiar or trusted.  I opened the door  & gasped in wonder.

There, in all his glory, dressed in deep purple scrubs, was Chike.

I don’t remember when I last burst into tears & threw myself into a man’s arms.  But the sight of Chike, a trusted soul, coming to take care of my mother, overwhelmed me.  I was so tired of the battle & then he was there, a gift.

Chike, who plays soccer on the weekends, gives a great hug.

Of course, Chike took care of the catheter.  But his first act was to lean over the bed & hug Jean, asking Do you remember me, Mama?

Chike took care of Jean & then he & I talked.  About his new job 

A friend told me about it – they pay me so much money.  The screening process was grueling.  They asked me about cousins in Nigeria I forgot were related to me.

He is going back to school, for yet another advanced nursing degree.  The job makes that possible.  He still does work for the Home Health agency, but only part-time.  He was there when Vincent received my last call & told Vincent he had to go & check on us.

We talked about current events, about the abduction of the schoolgirls in his birth country, about Barbara Walter’s retirement, about the media.  Chike tells me that he is forty, & I am speechless.  I had him pegged for so much younger.

I tell him that Jean turned 79 while he was gone.  He laughs & hugs her again.  Then I tell him I turned 60 since he last saw me. 

He laughs & says like the gentlemen he is,  Impossible.

As I sign his timesheet, I realize that the next nurse who walks through that door will not be Chike.

But for this day, this moment, being rigid & resistant beat out being flexible & adaptable.  I wonder what Lisabeth Blandino would think about that.

For about a minute. 

My failure to perform in a corporate situation fifteen years ago did not involve my mother or her health care or her well being.   It did not involve anything live altering.

A deadline was missed & then my deadline was compromised & then when I reworked my report & after those deadlines were missed, life went on.  That publicly traded corporation went on.  The world did not dissolve.  No one went to the hospital.

I will truly continue to attempt to be a kinder & gentler Jaki Jean.  To be more flexible, to adapt to what is inevitable.

Except when I need to be rigid & resistant & insist on the best for my mother.

Sometimes, perhaps during the most important times, even Lisabeth Blandino must agree that rigidity & resistance often result in the best case scenario.

Like Chike at the front door.

Nurses so rock.

Jaki Jean & thoughts on Mother's Day & Why Jack & Jean's House Smells Like Garlic (again)

Yesterday, the day before Mother’s Day 2014 (is it Mother’s Day or Mothers’ Day?), I decided to make Camilla Consuelos’ recipe for Bolognaise.  I readily admit that I am a huge fan of Live ! With Kelly & Michael & over the past few years I have tried & reworked & claimed for my own many recipes from Live !

Many thanks to Michael Gelman for his recipe for Sweet & Spicy Cranberry Sauce.

Yesterday was not my first experience with making Bolognaise.  A few months ago, I cleaned out my collection of cookbooks & retained only those I used or those with sentimental value.  Including a yellowing, splattered small spiral of Italian recipes.  With two versions of bolognaise – one that includes ham, one that includes liver.

However, Kelly Ripa’s mother-in-law Camilla Consuelos' recipe for Bolognaise was different but familiar & promised plenty to freeze for later meals.  Three pounds of ground beef – which I promptly changed to one pound beef, one pound turkey, one pound Italian sausage.

My brother Jason took one peak at the pot of meat sauce as it was coming together & pronounced it the mother lode of all sauces.

My other changes to the recipe were minor – fresh oregano instead of dried (yes, Camilla, I agree – the dried is more flavorful but a fourth of my fledgling herb garden is oregano). 

Olive oil for browning the turkey.  A roasted head of garlic mixed with salt in addition to Camilla’s five garlic cloves.

And the beef & turkey browned with red pepper flakes.

Forgive me, Camilla.  I can never resist embellishing.  (And I also left out the celery – but we agree on the sugar & the carrots & the fresh basil).

The very first dish I cooked as a young bride was meat sauce with pasta.  I didn’t use a recipe – instead I made it from my memories of watching my mother.  Who was cooking for a family, not two people.

Needless to say, those two people ate pasta & sauce for days on end.

Camilla Consuelo’s mother lode of bolognaise brought that memory back to the surface.

Strange to recall a memory from a brief, childless marriage on Mother’s Day.  Perhaps the Bolognaise aroma was affecting my memory banks.

Last night, I gave Jean a preview of the sauce served with mini-penne.

She finished her dinner, pronounced it good & said, as I was clearing the dishes from her tray, pronounced:

Jaki, you need to add more garlic & salt.

My first reaction (unspoken) was not that of a loving daughter.

This, from a woman who has not cooked in how long?

My second reaction (spoken) was to defend myself.

I added an entire head of roasted garlic.  I salted the meats.

Jean’s eyebrow came close to rising, which is a sign that you have transgressed. 

Instead, she simply repeated:

Jaki, you need to add more garlic & salt.

So, this morning, after preparing a Mother’s Day Breakfast (French toast, sliced strawberries & kiwis sprinkled with dark chocolate), I took out Camilla Consuelo’s mother lode of sauce, added five more cloves of garlic, & roasted two more garlic heads to form a paste with salt.

Because sometimes & most times, Mother Knows Best.

Which should have been a fifties / sixties sitcom.

So, on Mother’s Day 2014, Jack & Jean’s house smells of garlic & basil & oregano & a bit of rosemary (Again, Camilla, forgive me).

I thought of all the mothers in my life.  

A diverse group – working mothers, stay-at-home mommies, single mothers, mothers of blended families, two mother families, mothers raising their grandchildren, mothers nurturing others’ children.  My aunts, my grandmothers, my father’s aunts, my paternal great-grandmother.  My sister. 

Other people’s mothers who impacted my life & my sons’ lives.

And Jean.

At the center of all those mothers is a huge, amazing, rich & fertile maternal tapestry of maternal text.  From which each of us pull threads & sometimes entire braids to form our own maternal text & story.

My Omega Son Sam called me in the spirit of the day & to catch me up on his life – he is applying to the school of engineering at UH.  His grandfather Jack, the mechanical engineer from A&M, must be smiling.

Although I have a feeling Jack would prefer maroon & white over red & white.  But red & white suits me just fine.

My Alpha Son Nick called from work to say he would call later.  And did.  Several times until we connected.   Sons remember.  As did my much loved daughter-in-law, the Lady Jane.

 

I called my mother-to-be niece, Felicia Marie, to wish her a happy day.  At this time next year, Baby John will wish her a happy day.

And so my Mother’s Day is complete.

.

Except for Jean’s approval on my final version of Camilla Consuelos’ sauce.

For Camilla’s incredible recipe, please check out the Live ! with Kelly & Michael website.

For the results of Jean’s assessment of Jaki Jean’s version, stay tuned.

(To understand why Kelly Ripa’s husband Mark Consuelos is so pretty, take a look at his mother, Camilla Consuelos.  A beautiful lady & creator of the mother lode of all sauces.)