Comfort Zones and Second Languages

Last Sunday I joined several of my Daughters of Hawaii sisters, along with members of the Hawaiian Royal Societies, at a service at St. Andrew's Episcopal Cathedral honoring the birthday of our last reigning monarch, Queen Lili'uokalani.  It should have been a very familiar service.  It wasn't.

It wasn't the service that was different, but the language.  It was mostly in Hawaiian, from the lovely solo chanting of the processional right through to the closing hymn.  One of the two lessons was read in English, as were the prayers of consecration.  The sermon was preached in English. Announcements?  English.  Everything else was in Hawaiian. We were a part of the regularly scheduled Hawaiian language Mass offered weekly at St. Andrew's.

Hawaiian is a beautiful, melodious language, but I am not a Hawaiian speaker.  I can read the words, but have to work at everything new.  I can grasp the meaning of what I am reading if I am familiar with the English version of the text, but in most cases I am reading words with no understanding of what they mean.  In my struggle with the language, I lost the experience of worship. I was out of my comfort zone.   I left feeling frustrated instead of nourished.

Suddenly it dawns on me that this is the same experience shared by immigrants to the US.  The language is different, and therefore strange.  If I recognize every third or fourth word, do I really understand what is being said?  How can I learn this new language if no one in my daily life uses or understands it?  How can I build a vocabulary in meaningful context?  Is there someone patient enough to help me through this barrier?

What happens when I travel?   Even English-speakers from different parts of the world give different meanings to common words.  Nappies or diapers?  Suspenders or braces?  Fanny?  Accepted slang, or rude and crude?  Note that Americans wear fanny packs, while in the UK they wear bum bags.

Walk through the market, or explore a cookbook.  What in the world is a Swede? (a rutabaga, not necessarily a citizen of Sweden.)  Caster sugar? (sold in the US as baker's sugar)  Treacle? (Molasses, but I am not sure if it differentiates between dark and light varieties) Sultana? (golden raisins, usually made from Thompson Seedless grapes).  In Hawaii we have gulches and streams.  In California we are likely to call them canyons and creeks -- often pronounced cricks.  Farther east, they become valleys and rivers.

As we remember that today is the anniversary of that terrible day in September 2001, let us celebrate our humanity, give thanks for the diversity that gives us breadth and strength, work to get beyond our differences such as language or accent or even where we worship.  Celebrate the lives of those who were lost that day, American or not.  Celebrate the courage of those who responded to help in whatever way they could.

Happy birthday, Eleanor!

Don't forget to pray....

If Can, Can ...

Armed with a brand new pocket-sized camera, Panasonic's FH20 (on sale at Costco for a couple of more days at the best price I've seen nationally), I wandered Kahala Mall.  This t-shirt, hanging in the doorway of one of my favorite boutiques, caught my eye.  I am likely to go back and purchase it as a Christmas gift for my mom.  It says a lot about how one thinks and feels at 96.

If you can do it, do it.  If you can't, you can't.  Don't fret about it.  Worrying over something you cannot do doesn't do you -- or anyone else -- any good.



The sentiment was particularly apropos yesterday.  After appointments and errands taking up a large hunk of my day, I    found this scene behind the 40' or so of front hedge.











And these at the front
door.



If can, can.  My mother had watered and pruned out the front hedge.  Whenever possible she worked from her garden chair.

Then she ran out of energy.

Filling the green waste can was now my task.  It's a big can, but her morning activity filled it about 2/3 full.

Mother's version, after her nap.  Smiling sheepishly.
"You picked up my trimmings.  I was waiting for you to get home and move the [wheeled] garbage can over so I could fill it up."

And then the afterthought:  "Thank you."

If no can, no can.
That's why I am here.   To pick up at least some of the No Longer Can part of her life.

Catching Up

My dad seems to have recovered from whatever was ailing him.  We don't have a definitive pneumonia vs. bronchitis diagnosis.  If he had a touch of pneumonia, the antibiotic must have killed hit, despite the abbreviated dosage and the unpleasant side effects.  If he didn't ... well, it was an aggressive response to a potentially life-threatening situation.

Today he was reasonably clear-headed and conversational, the first time in several weeks he has been that responsive.

"I got up this morning, paid my bills, and since it was still early, went back to bed."  No, but that's OK.  No reason to argue the point.

"I wonder where my brother Willie is these days."  On being reminded that his brother passed away in 1993, he was very quiet for several minutes.  Then he said, "It's sad that I cannot remember."  He agreed that the important memories are still there -- the memories of growing up together, and time and activities they shared.  "As long as you remember him, Bill still lives,"  I assured him.

"What does 1018 [Kealaolu Avenue] look like now?  Is it being taken care of?"  That's the house in the next block where my parents moved when they married.  I assured him that it has been remodeled and relandscaped, and is looking good.

Then there's the issue of my son and his wife.  It's questionable that their status as a family can survive the current crisis.  Right now they are apart.  I am thankful for those who have taken him in and are able to help him find work and a place to live, as I am not in a position to do that.  One aged but otherwise healthy parent, one dementia parent (albeit in nursing care), and one adult child in crisis are more than this mom can handle at the same time.  Especially when I'm not in my own home.

Give thanks for those who reach out to the ill, the hurting, the lonely.
Don't forget to pray ....

Directive -- my version

Ian said it well.  See his entry for 27 Jul 2010 titled DIRECTIVE:  Aging and Dementia

Our dad is a bit better today.  According to this afternoon's charge nurse, he is no longer coughing.  It occurs to me that I  have neglected to ask if he is running a fever.  He ate breakfast, but not lunch.  He is avoiding milk products, including Ensure.  I suspect that he feels they cause vomiting.  He refused the clam chowder today.  Hmmm -- milk based item.  But he's not showing any of the unhappy body emptying that went on while he was on the anti-biotic.

He's had two doses of medication from the nebulizer, but a nurse has to stand at his bedside until the treatment is finished.  Before said nurse gets to the hallway, he has the mask off his face.  Not a good response is the medication is still being dispensed.

Today was my volunteer day, followed by lunch with the Regent and the rest of the Historian Committee across the road at Oahu Country Club.  Lovely setting, excellent company, good lunch.

Give thanks for modern medicines and those who administer them.  Don't forget to pray.....

Patient Advocacy

When someone you love is hospitalized, you want to believe they are getting the best care available.  But what is best?

The care facility where my father has been for the last 20 months is good.  It's not in the Cadillac class, but it is clean, never reeks of urine, and the staff is caring and responsive.  There is just not enough staff to go around.  That's where we, the family, make a difference.  We spend a longer period of time with "our" patient, even on short visits, than staff has time to give.  We notice different things.  We are more likely to pay attention to subtle changes.  

On a visit earlier this week, I comment to my dad that I didn't like the sound of his cough.

"I think I have pneumonia." he said.  "Hurts."  

I asked where it hurt.  He rubbed his hand across his lower chest, near the bottom of his rib cage.  

Part of me said, "He a dementia patient.  How aware is he, really, of his body?"  Another voice said, "He is notoriously unable to accurately describe what his body is telling him."  And in the other ear, "But what if he is right?"  So on my next pass by the nursing station, I asked if anyone had commented on the quality of his cough, or if he had complained to anyone else about chest pain.  

"It may be nothing."  I told the nurse on duty.  "But I'd rather be a nag than miss something important.":  

How did we want to proceed?  "Understanding that we want him to be comfortable, let diagnosis and treatment be the doctor's call."  

Yesterday, he was asleep when I arrived.  There was a wheelchair next to his walker at the foot of his bed.  His clothes and his gait belt were in the wheelchair.  The PM shift had just come on duty.  No one, it seemed, knew about the wheel chair.  Except the charge nurse just going off duty.  He had been in the dining room earlier and got very weak.  He may have vomited.  He was too unstable to walk back to bed.  Hence the wheelchair.  

By the way, his doctor ordered an x-ray.  He does have pneumonia.  It's mild.  He's on antibiotics and a diuretic.  Apparently the combination is making him very groggy.  He had vomited.  He is refusing food.  He does that when he doesn't feel well.  

It could have been a lot worse.  If I hadn't commented on his cough.  If he hadn't complained of pain.  If I hadn't reported my observation to the nursing staff.  If no one else took the time to listen.  

Give thanks for all those medical folk who provide the very best care they can, often under stressful conditions.   Give thanks that they are there to do what we, the family, cannot.  

Don't forget to pray ......  

Ahhhh! Back on line!

... finally, off the mobiles and onto a laptop.  So much one cannot do with just a mobile, but "just the mobile" is certainly better than nothing.

Granddaughters.  Here they are, tolerating the old folk (great-grandmother, grandmother, great-uncle and great-aunt ... and mom) after a day of beaches and other tourist-in-Honolulu things.  That's Katie on the left, the image of her maternal grandfather, who looks like his own mother.  Miriam, center, was part of the family for 10 mos., but headed home to Germany the day after their return from Honolulu.
Meghan, on the right, is the same bundle of energy she was a 3 --- go,go,go, then drop.   She has moments when she is her mother all over again.

Actually, both Katie and Meghan seem to tire more quickly than other teens I know, probably because of their unique physical issues.  Here they are by mid-afternoon Saturday after a morning hike to the top of Diamond Head, a mid-day tour of the Stadium Swap Meet, an hour with another pair of old folks (cousins, of course!) and finally a stop for Pineapple soft serve at the Dole  Plantation.  No wonder they were tired!

Their mother, Christie, has the long, dark braid down her back.  She has refused to cut her hair since she was about 7 and I promised her if she would not brush out the huge tangle at the back of her neck (thinly disguised by a surface layer of combed hair), I would cut her hair short.  She didn't, and wouldn't allow anyone else to help. ...  I thought she looked charming in a pixie cut.  She didn't.  'Nuf said.

Give thanks one more time for the teens, tweens, and younger folk in your life.

Give thanks for Chris and his companions as they head out for a tour in Afghanistan.  It's Chris's second in the Middle East.  Last time he stayed more or less in one place.   This time he'll "be on the road" much of the time.

What ever your feelings about the war, pray for the safety of those who are out there on the battle field.

Don't forget to pray....

Nicole Will Walk

On May Day the 16-year-old granddaughter of a dear friend crashed her car. No drugs. No alcohol. Probably a deer or a fox or a cat on a typical Tuolome Co. Road. For her story and status see nicolewillwalk.com. Then pray, or dance, light candles, or do whatever you do to link with the healing powers of the universe. She's making progress, but it is in tiny steps.

Hug your own grands or the other teens in your life. I am thankful my own are not driving.

Don't forget to pray....