Just a Couple of Old People Holding Hands

Posted on November 22, 2015 by Pam Lazos

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     Today is Carl R. Smith, Jr.’s birthday. I never met him in person, yet I have been inspired by his writings, proffered from time to time by his son, Bill, to a select group of readers over the last couple years. From these musings, it’s apparent that Carl was a deep thinker with a large pool of spiritual ideas and experiences that bestowed upon him a profound understanding of the human condition with nary a grudge or complaint in place to accompany it. He was truly a man who loved others, as Jesus said, just as we ourselves would want to be loved. I thank Bill for sharing the gift of his father’s writings, and am offering them to all similarly situated. May the words of this wise and noble man assist you on your own journey.

“Just a Couple of Old People Holding Hands”:
A Memoir of a Marriage in Alzheimer’s World

By Carl R. Smith, Jr.
Edited by William C. Smith

Post Four – Love in the Time of Alzheimer’s

     Carl Smith and Mary Helen Lawson were married in 1981. For both, it was a mid-life, second marriage. When they fell in love, they lived alone a few blocks apart in Indianapolis, having raised and launched a total of eight children.

Carl and Mary Helen were both refugees from the State of Matrimony. MH was divorced, and, to put it mildly, was not on good terms with her ex-husband. (l will leave it at that, respecting my step-siblings’ privacy and realizing that I have a one-sided view of their parents’ marriage).  Read more here…

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Just a Couple of Old People Holding Hands

Posted on November 16, 2015 by Pam Lazos

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[photo courtesy of the Estate of Carl Smith]

“Just a Couple of Old People Holding Hands”:
A Memoir of a Marriage in Alzheimer’s World

By Carl R. Smith, Jr.
Edited by William C. Smith

Post Three – One of the Sad Sides of Alzheimer’s

Slowly but inexorably, Alzheimer’s Disease steals away the ability to speak. But emotions remain, even though no longer expressed in words.

At the time of the following journal entries, Mary Helen’s speech was essentially gone — aside from an occasional, and often unreliable, “yes” or “no” response to a simple question.

Still, Mary Helen made her wordless feelings known to Carl. She smiled. She laughed. She sighed. She wept.

And Carl listened, and wrote.  Read more here…

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Big Magic

Posted on November 12, 2015 by Pam Lazos

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Big Magic

     There’s Big Love in Big Magic, the new book by Elizabeth Gilbert, love of work, love of mucking around in the primordial soup of creativity, and love of manifesting into being that which makes your Soul sing. Why? Because you can. Because you have to. Because you, and sometimes the world, are waiting for it. Because being human means bringing your gifts to market whether someone wants to buy them or not, whether anyone notices or not, or whether anyone else who is not you thinks those gifts are a waste time or not. Big Magic says you must create because your DNA is hard-wired to create, and to deny genetics is to deny yourself.     Get your magic on here…

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Just a Couple of Old People Holding Hands

Posted on November 8, 2015 by Pam Lazos

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[photo courtesy of the Estate of Carl Smith]

Here is the second installment of journal entries by Carl Smith, nonagenarian, retired Presbyterian minister, father to my friend Bill, who is editing his father’s writings, and husband to a woman, Mary Helen, who had dementia for at least the last decade of her life.  The journal entries are both heartbreaking and hopeful, in addition to being a simply lovely piece of prose.  The writer in me salutes both the words and the gut-wrenching sentiment that went into creating them.   As both Mr. Smiths point out, with demential patients, communication is key.

p.j.lazos 11.8.15

“Just a Couple of Old People Holding Hands”:
A Memoir of a Marriage in Alzheimer’s World

By Carl R. Smith, Jr.
Edited and introduction by William C. Smith

For those who love and care for Alzheimer’s patients, communication is one of the most confounding aspects of the disease.

When symptoms of dementia first develop, family and friends become concerned, and sometimes frustrated, with our loved ones’ mental lapses, bouts of confusion, and choppy speech. We are quick — too quick sometimes — to fill in the perceived gaps in their memory. When they struggle for words, we make semi-informed guesses to complete their sentences. Naturally, they get agitated if we guess wrong, or become embarrassed when their bumbling tongues can no longer keep pace with their racing minds.  read more here…

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Preparations are Underway

Posted on November 5, 2015 by Pam Lazos

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This post originally appeared in the wH2o Journal, the Journal of Gender and Water

Preparations Are Underway

     I met with Matt Lisle and Adrian Leviano, The Seed Guys, at their office in Vance Hall where the Wharton School’s graduate education program lives on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus. Vance Hall is just off Benjamin Franklin’s Way, that divine stretch of walkway that spans 37th Street between Spruce and Walnut Streets whose brickwork contains many of Benjamin Franklin’s pithiest axioms. Franklin himself was an ever-daring, one-of-a-kind inventor and just walking down the path makes you feel more entrepreneurial. It was one of those late summer days where the weather is so hot and muggy you think maybe winter isn’t so bad after all, but weather wasn’t the only thing running hot. Matt and Adrian are scheduled to leave for Kenya at the end of September for a two-month stay as a set-up for the more extended trip next year, and the level of preparation needed to even consider getting on the plane has been enormous.

More seeds…

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Ramblings of an Aging Head

Posted on November 2, 2015 by Pam Lazos

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I can’t say I was ever a Deadhead, maybe more of a Dead dilettante. I’ve always enjoyed their music, had some vinyl and some CDs, and when I get a Grateful Dead song stuck in my head I’ve got to listen to it or it will follow me around for days. Yet, I never became a member of the tribe as some of my friends did, you know, those people who followed the Dead around the country and who would likely follow them to Mars if given the chance.  Dead on…

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All The Light We Cannot See

Posted on October 30, 2015 by Pam Lazos

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All the Light We Cannot See

Combine elegant prose, a riveting tale that alternates between story time, and storyline, a provocative topic, war — unfortunately, always a provocative topic — and the predilection of the human spirit to survive even after losing all that is good in life, and you’ll have All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr, a book so exquisite that you may just weep with the joy of its telling. At the very least you’ll get a few shivers. Let me start by saying that I had no intention of reading this book, mostly because I’m exhausted by the concept of war; we all are, but my friend, Lena, whose judgment I trust implicitly insisted, so I acquiesced. Oh my, people. Why did I wait so long?

read on…

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Just a Couple of Old People Holding Hands

Posted on October 27, 2015 by Pam Lazos

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[photos courtesy of the Estate of Carl Smith]

I’ve spent the last month posting about death and grief and dying probably because my mom died a year ago and I’m still in process. A few months ago, my good friend and colleague, Bill Smith joined the club that no one wants to be a part of — the Parentless Club. It’s a sucky club to be in, but there are some bits of grace that can come from it, like these beautiful journal entries by Bill’s father, Carl, a retired Presbyterian minister. Carl’s way with describing the most mundane in spiritual terms really stuck with me, and I thought it would be nice if Bill could share some of his father’s words, that maybe they’d be a healing balm to others similarly situated. I invite you to take a moment and read some of a wise man’s insights into love and marriage and getting old. Perhaps his words will help you get through some of your own stuff. After all, it’s just us riffraff in charge now, and we could use all the help we can get.

p.j.lazos 10.26.15

“Just a Couple of Old People Holding Hands”:
A Memoir of a Marriage in Alzheimer’s World

By Carl R. Smith, Jr.
Edited by William C. Smith

My father Carl Smith died on June 4, 2015. The last days of his 91 years were in a nursing home room that he shared with his wife, Mary Helen Lawson.

My father’s death certificate lists bladder cancer as the cause of death, but he really fell victim to ODTAAS: “One Damn Thing After Another Syndrome.” As aptly described by physician and writer Atul Gawande, ODTAAS is “what the closing phase of a modern life often looks like – a mounting series of crises from which medicine can offer only brief and temporary rescue.”

Read more here….

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Artichokes and City Chicken – An Interview with Jan Groft

Posted on October 23, 2015 by Pam Lazos

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An Interview with Jan Groft, author of Artichokes and City Chicken

I first met Jan Groft about ten years ago at the Lancaster Literary Guild. I was on the Board at the time and had just concluded a meeting with the Guild’s Director, Betsy Hurley. Jan was coming in as I was getting ready to leave and Betsy asked her if she’d like to write a profile on the author Dinty W. Moore for the Guild’s magazine, Rapportage. Jan was hesitant, worried that her friendship with Dinty Moore would somehow make the piece less honest. I got the job by default because I happened to be standing there. It was my first profile and I’ve loved writing them ever since. All because of Jan.

Read the interview here…

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Artichokes and City Chicken

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Pam Lazos

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For the seeker in all of  us, the question persists:  How can we decipher the voice that knows which path to take, the voice that comforts as we try to find our way, the voice that holds us up with love?

Jan Groft, Artichokes and City Chicken

Read Jan Groft’s new book, Artichokes and City Chicken, Reflections on Faith, Grief, and My Mother’s Italian Cooking, available now at Amazon.

Read the review here!

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