We writers often refer to our “work
in progress” or WIP for short. When we speak these words, often in a
self-depreciating way, we are referring to our current project. I’ve often said
my attention span is too short to write a novel. Oh, I’ve started a few all
right, even completed a draft of a mystery novel, but according to writing
experts my WIP has a major flaw—the heroine turns out to be a villain.
I don’t believe a story should be
predictable. I watched a movie this afternoon and within the first ten minutes
I knew how the story was going to end. Of course, it took two hours before it
got there, but it ended just as I knew it would. After all, it was a Hallmark
movie and people have expectations. They want the movie to end with a sigh of
contentment, not with a “I sure didn’t see that coming” response.
Real life isn’t anything like the
movies with the predictable happy ending. It isn’t even like a well-written
book that ties up all the loose ends. Life is unpredictable and more like
looking into a kaleidoscope with ever-changing patterns.
When we’re young, we all have
expectations as to what we want to be when we grow up. It was hard for me to
accept that being a princess wasn’t going to happen.
After the reality of adulthood sets
in, we still have things we want to do, places we want to see, and goals we
want to reach. Some of us have a bucket list. It may not be written down. It
may reside merely as a niggling sense of incompleteness in our lives.
Unfinished business.
Life happens and plans change. Then
change again. As we age, things either come together or they fall apart. Or
both. Everything might be perking along without a single issue, and then life
slaps us in the face or bonks us on the head.
The defining moment of change in my
life was when Jim developed dementia. We had plans that didn’t include life as
we knew it coming to a screeching halt. We had retirement dreams that involved
travel flush with mountain time, southwest desert time, and, knowing Jim, long
drives revisiting his childhood places. I never had a chance to see the bridge they
lived under in Texas where Lyndon Johnson visited them, lending a helping hand.
Our dreams were sabotaged by a rare
type of younger onset dementia. Jim changed from the decisive, intelligent,
jokester, master musician, and loving, warm man he had been into a person
dependent on others for his most basic care.
Being a primary caregiver is
on-the-job training for a job no one wants. It isn’t that we don’t want to take
care of our loved ones, it’s that we would give anything if the circumstances
did not exist. We wish we could rewrite life’s story. Edit out the hurt and
pain. Replace hard times with good times. Create that happy ending.
Dementia brings a life fraught with adversity:
sadness, unfathomable challenges, and sometimes full blown anger at a disease
that is robbing us of a person we love. Adversity is a two-sided mirror. If we
look at life’s challenges one way, we see defeat. If we look at adversity
another way, we see strength. Most of us will dig deep and find strength we
never even suspected we had.
Odd as it may seem, adversity
determines what we become. It is what gives us the passion to adopt a mission
in life. Alzheimer’s wasn’t even on my radar, but taking up the purple banner
has defined who I am. It has made me the person I am today—an advocate,
Alzheimer’s volunteer, and blogger.
Writing has always been as important
to me as breathing. The first time I put pen to paper was to write a story
about a pet pig in elementary school. No one would want me to suffocate beneath
the weight of an unfinished novel, my work without progress. I should have written
it until “The End” was at the bottom of the last page, but I didn’t.
On the other hand, a blog is an
endless work in progress, just like I am. A match made in blog heaven.
Copyright
© January 2016 by L.S. Fisher
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