Vacation—Recharging Batteries

Colorado mountain pines whisper my name and beckon me to the quiet hush of a cool mountain morning. I always referred to vacation as a time to recharge my batteries, but it doesn’t have quite the same meaning it used to have.

I fell in love with the mountains on our first camping trip in 1983. To humor Jim, I agreed to camp at the Moraine Park campgrounds in Rocky Mountain National Park. Everyone expected us to be home after a few days because, to put it mildly, I never considered camping to be a relaxing experience. Sleeping on a hard surface in extreme Missouri heat, while slapping mosquitoes, was not my idea of fun.

Jim was an accomplished camper from a lifetime of outdoors adventures. He loved the Colorado mountains and each year we set aside a week to get away from everyday stress and recharge our spiritual batteries.

Jim spoiled me on our vacations. On cool Colorado mornings, he would rise before the sun peeked over the mountains, build a campfire, and brew coffee. Jim would open the van door, and hand me a cup of coffee while I huddled under the heavy quilts in bed.

“Breakfast is almost ready, Princess,” Jim would say. The scent of bacon frying on the Coleman camp stove promised a tasty, hearty meal. “Get up sleepy, head, we are in the mountains!” Joy would shine on Jim’s face as we planned the day—an aerial tramway ride, hiking, and an early evening drive through the park to watch deer and elk.

In retrospect, I can measure the progression of Jim’s dementia by our trips to Colorado. By 1997, camping was beyond Jim’s capabilities and although we still drove to our beloved mountains, we stayed in a hotel. Then, the trips ended as Jim became more confused and eventually entered long-term care.

After Jim’s death in 2005, I made a bittersweet return to the mountains. Long’s Peak looked the same, but I noticed other changes. We used to walk around the Beaver Pond to watch ducks and fish in the clear water below. Now, a small trickle moves past a truncated ramp near the reclaimed meadow. A drive up the Big Thompson doesn’t seem as great without browsing the Glen Comfort store filled with exquisite Native American pottery and storytellers.

Now, instead of camping at Moraine Park, I find a hotel with high speed Internet. The batteries I recharge are in my Dell netbook, camera, and cell phone. Instead of getting away from it all, I take it all with me.

Maybe it’s my age, but I find some of the changes to be good. I can idealize past vacations through selective memory, but a lot is to be said for having a private bathroom, satellite TV, air conditioning or heat as needed and a comfortable bed. The cell phone and Internet keep me from getting behind on everything happening back home. Now, I can take hundreds of pictures on my camera and never have to buy a roll of film.

Yes, many things have changed, but vacation shouldn’t be an attempt to recapture the past. It should be a time for new experiences, to breathe the fresh air of today and appreciate the beauty of now. When I look at the majestic view from Trail Ridge Road or gaze at the reflection of the mountains in Bear Lake, I feel a small charge of electric current flow through my spiritual self. Can that be my batteries recharging?

Not so Friendly Competition

This year at the fair, I controlled the energy bicycle. Dawn, one of my co-workers, gave me a quick demonstration when I took over for her.

“Flip on the fan first,” she said. “Anyone can get that going.” The idea was to peddle the bicycle to generate enough energy to light up a series of items. “I do the florescent light next, because it’s easy too.”

I gave it a try. I got the fan going and the florescent light flickered feebly. Then, the bike felt like it hit a brick wall—and I was done.

I felt like a Carney beckoning people to step up and show their skill. Most people could start the fan, a lamp, a teensy TV, and the florescent bulb, but when I switched on the 25 watt bulb, the game was over. Another loser! Five bulbs remained unlit.

My boss dropped by the Co-op Building and hopped on the bike to show what he could do. He pumped away without showing any exertion—ah, to have the energy of the young again. I flipped switches working my way from bottom to top. He began to breathe harder and with only two switches left he couldn’t budge the pedals.

About an hour later a teenager wanted to ride the bike. Her mom signed the permission slip, and she hopped on. She peddled, and I flipped switches. Her face turned red, but she kept on pumping. She stopped at the same level as my boss.

“You’re tied for first,” I told her. Her mom immediately signed a slip for herself and tied the daughter. Not to be outdone, Dad straddled the bike. He peddled until his face was beet red, but he slightly edged out his daughter and wife by making the last light burn brighter. I really hoped he wasn’t going to have a heart attack on my watch.

“You must be a competitive family,” I remarked to the mother at their not-so-friendly competition.

“Oh, yes, we definitely are!” she said.

“I understand,” I said. “I come from a competitive family too.”

Could that be an understatement? I thought Jim and I were going to come to blows a few times over cards. He and Aunt Nita were the most infuriating pitch players I ever saw in my life. Uncle Johnny and I couldn’t seem to beat them very often. They bid like lunatics. “I’ll bid eight, on my partner’s hand,” Jim would say. Then he would toss a small card out, but if I put a point on it, Aunt Nita would throw a bigger card on. The next thing you knew, she would dominate the round with all the big trumps.

When Jim developed dementia, he became confused about which cards to play. His mom helped him. He was competitive enough to bid. From the look on his mom’s face, I knew he was still bidding his partner’s hand. From experience, I knew it would work most of the time.

Jim was always competitive with his Uncle Vic and Uncle Orvie. They played checkers at a furious level. The bet was the checkerboard itself. The loser had to sign away his championship and give the board to the winner. Uncle Vic had possession of the checkerboard when he died unexpectedly. He left the checkerboard and the championship to Jim.

Jim and Uncle Orvie were Mario Karts aficionados. Uncle Orvie’s rheumatoid arthritis twisted his fingers into odd shapes. You would think Jim would have cut his uncle some slack due to his handicap. No way. Those two played game after game. “Let’s go for the best two out of three,” the loser would say. “Now let’s play for the championship—the best nine out of ten!” On and on they played. Each wanting to win the fierce, not-always-friendly competition.

In “You’re Going the Wrong Way” published in A Cup of Comfort for Families Touched by Alzheimer’s I describe my dismal Mario Kart experience. I not only couldn’t beat Jim, I couldn’t keep my kart on the track going in the correct direction.

“I don’t know how to play,” I would tell Jim after I lost another game. “Which buttons do I push?”

His aphasia had limited his communication skills and he couldn’t explain the game to me. “I have no idea,” he would say, using one of his stock phrases.

Right before he zipped Toad across the finish line, he would remind me, “You’re going the wrong way!”

He would tell me how to play if he could, I always reassured myself. Surely that was not the gleam of not-so-friendly competition in his eyes. Or was it?

Country Living—Not Just for Farmers

The State Fair started Thursday with a parade and $1 night. By the time I got off work at 6:00, we had already heard that traffic was snarled and you couldn’t get close to the parade route. Without giving it a second thought, I headed north toward home avoiding the whole mess, fair and all.

Our fair always has a theme, and this year the theme is “Rural Lifestyles Showcase” with an emphasis on “Country Living—Not Just for Farmers.” I’m not sure which is really the theme, but it would seem that the Children’s Barnyard beat out the carnival for top billing this year.

The State Fair changes everything in Sedalia and puts a crimp in our rural lifestyle for the duration. Getting across town usually takes about fifteen minutes on a high traffic day, but during the fair, traffic jams up from one end of town to the other. We have two kinds of locals—those who spend a lot of time at the fair, and those who leave town.

I’ve lived in Sedalia since 1972, and I’ve seen a lot of fairs come and go. I have fond memories of Tammy Wynette singing to Jim, a lot of great concerts, free shows at the Bud tent, herding kids through the carnival, corndogs, ice cream and snow cones.

The last time Jim went to the fair, his dementia had advanced to the point he needed to be supervised. I had asked Jim if he wanted to go to the Clint Black concert with me and he emphatically declined my invitation. I made arrangements for my niece, Rhonda, to go with me instead. At the last minute, Jim changed his mind. When I couldn’t get a seat anywhere near ours, I bought two tickets and asked his sister, Ginger, to take him. It was quite an adventure for Ginger to try to keep up with Jim. She had to be pretty quick to pay for the water he pulled out of the barrels in front of the vendor carts. After a busy afternoon and evening at the concert, we walked to the parking lot together. Rhonda and I pulled out, while Ginger and Jim sat in his Nissan truck. I figured they would be along soon. When they finally got home, Ginger told me she turned the lights on, but each time she let go of the knob, they went off. Jim laughed at her, but couldn’t tell her how to get them to stay on. They sat in the lot until Ginger finally figured it out.

Yes, I have fond memories of the fair, but I also remember sunburns, blistered feet, sick kids, lightening and wind storms, and suffocating heat. A few years ago, I took my grandkids to the fair and if they hadn’t helped me find the car, I might still be wandering around the parking lot looking for it. Last year, I found my car after the Air Supply concert, but in the unlit parking lot, I drove around looking for a way out that didn’t involve a deep ditch. I finally followed another car out of the lot that seemed to know where the one driveway was. It almost makes me think I shouldn’t be attending the fair without supervision, at least after dark.

I plan on working a few hours at the Rural Electric Co-op Building this year. That will probably be my one and only time at the country showcase. Other than that, I plan on avoiding town until the fair is over and our rural lifestyle returns.

Hurry Up Patience!

On this hot August Saturday morning, I grabbed a cup of coffee and hopped onto the Internet to check email before making my weekly blog post. “Hopped” may be too bold a word to describe dial-up in a high-speed world. My computer looks like the one on the right in the commercial—the one that has loaded a sliver of data while the one on the left displays a complete picture.

My first introduction to a computer was in 1980 when I was hired to enter customer information on an IBM System 34. I typed data onto a screen, pressed enter, and waited a half minute or so for the information to be added to the file and display the next input screen. It all seemed pretty fast compared to the handwritten sheets we filled out in the subscription department of Full Cry magazine.

My home dial-up has become a virtual turtle in comparison to the high-speed Internet at work. To make matters more inequitable, this week our IT department installed a new Dell computer with two gigantic side-by-side screens. Now I can open up a dozen programs and slide displays around until I can see them all. It makes me feel like an interior decorator. Does my calendar look better here, or here? Oh, heck, I’ll just slide it on across to a different screen.

On my dial-up, I find myself gritting my teeth while I wait for a graphic laden website to load. I remind myself that patience is a virtue, but why can’t it just hurry up?

I’m torn between wanting speediness and longing for a more relaxed lifestyle. This Saturday morning is so different from the days I spent, lying in bed drinking coffee with Jim, waking up slowly and not being rushed to do anything. The two of us would fix breakfast and sit at our kitchen table laughing and making plans.

Of course, as dementia changed the entire fabric of our lives, mornings sometimes started with Jim pouring water into the pot without a carafe to catch the coffee. Or I might wake up and find him missing, jump in the car and drive down the road looking for him. Relaxation changed to stress, and I discovered that for a person without patience, I learned to accept our life’s changes remarkably well. The Serenity Prayer became more than a plaque on my wall.

I was never able to revert to my days of leisurely plans and now have a mental To-Do list that nags me constantly. Sometimes, I have to re-enforce my memory with a written list, an electronic reminder, and sticky notes plastered to everything. I need beeps, bells, and visual aids to keep me moving forward. All I need to figure out now is how to multitask multitasking.

I became a blogger on Wellsphere this week and Wellsphere encourages members to set goals and share those goals with like-minded people. So far, I haven’t set any. My goals are planted in my head and can keep me awake at night with small encouragement. Doesn’t a goal of a more laid-back lifestyle seem counterintuitive?

My brother-in-law, Terry, calls people who are constantly on the go “busybodies.” I find his meaning to be more fitting that the traditional definition of the word. I’ve become a busybody, and don’t have time to be patient. Heaven help me, I have a high-speed mind in a dial-up body!

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Check out my Profile and Blog on Wellsphere! http://www.wellsphere.com/l-s-fisher-profile/143451

Compassionate Allowances

On July 29, the Social Security Administration held a hearing on the need for Compassionate Allowances for individuals with younger-onset Alzheimer’s. Harry Johns, president and CEO of the Alzheimer’s Association, was among the experts who testified for a need to streamline the application process for Social Security Disability. By including younger-onset Alzheimer’s and related disorders on the list, the waiting period for benefits will be greatly reduced. In his testimony, Johns said, “Through the Compassionate Allowances process, Social Security can avoid the extra costs to the agency of numerous appeals and families can avoid the financial and emotional toll of going through a long decision process.”

I was interested in the testimony about primary progressive aphasia. Although many people are aware of Alzheimer’s, including early onset, they are not aware of the lesser known related disorders. When I read the testimony of Darby Morhardt, LCSW, in support of primary progressive aphasia, I was surprised to find that Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) was placed on the Compassionate Allowances list in 2008, but not Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders.

Considering the difficulty of diagnosing which particular type of dementia a younger person may have, I don’t understand how FTD can be on the list and not Alzheimer’s and related disorders. Placing FTD on the list was a proper move, but that addition in itself speaks to recognition of the devastating financial and healthcare problems caused by dementia when individuals are too young to qualify for regular social security.

If younger-onset Alzheimer’s and the lesser known related disorders are added to the list of Compassionate Allowances, it would speed up the social security process for this group who falls between the cracks.

When Jim was diagnosed with dementia of the Alzheimer’s type, his attorney told us it could hurt his social security disability claim. We had gone through countless appeals for disability based on Jim’s loss of motion and constant pain in his neck and shoulder. We were in the final appeals process when Jim began to lose his ability to communicate. His aphasia made it impossible for him to present a coherent testimony at his own disability hearing. Our attorney asked us to wait in the hallway while he presented the successful appeal to the judge. We had been in the appeals process so long that Jim received back pay and retroactive Medicare.

The very nature of dementia impedes the disability process. Jim was one of the lucky ones. Not lucky in receiving his social security in a timely manner. He was lucky because I had a job with health insurance.

What happens to those with younger-onset dementia who get stalled in the process because they cannot speak for themselves? How does a family survive when a person with Alzheimer’s cannot work and requires constant care?

Too many times a person with younger-onset dementia loses his job before diagnosis. Often a loss of employment means the end of health insurance. Without a job and the inability to get a new job, it is impossible to afford COBRA. It can easily take two years to get a diagnosis of early-onset dementia and even longer to receive a favorable disability determination.

When a person of any age is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or related dementia, it places the entire family under emotional stress and financial strain. To include younger-onset Alzheimer's type of dementia on the Compassionate Allowances list would relieve families of one of the frustrating worries following diagnosis.

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Source: http://www.alz.org/

Living Words: Therapeutic Writing for Early-Stage Dementia

Lauren Holland, a student at Wofford College, came across my Writing as Therapy blog post and sent an email two weeks ago about the Living Words program. I answered her email and casually goggled Wofford College to see where it was located. My Goggle search informed me that Wofford is in Spartanburg, SC.

That information made me smile because that’s where my good friend, Ralph Winn, lives. I met Ralph at the 2000 Alzheimer’s Association Public Policy Forum in Washington, DC. Ralph and I, both board members at our local associations, were attending the forum with our respective executive directors. We hit it off at the executive directors’ reception. “Oh, you are a board member, too,” Ralph said with a charming southern accent that immediately made me realize he was indeed a southern gentleman. “I guess we are crashing this party,” he said. Ralph figured he might be distinguished as the oldest participant at the meeting, but he was determined to be an advocate for his lovely wife who had Alzheimer’s.

The next morning I was free to explore Washington, DC, while my executive director was in a meeting. I called the front desk and asked to be connected to Ralph’s room to ask him to go with me. He wasn’t in his room, so I decided he might be people watching. Sure enough, I found him sitting in a big comfy chair in the lobby. That day we toured the Smithsonian and our friendship was born.

Today, I received a second email from Lauren in Spartanburg, SC. This time Lauren mentioned their website and I decided to visit the site to learn more about the Living Words program. This therapeutic writing workshop is for individuals with dementia and a caregiver or friend who accompanies them. I read blog entries, sample stories, program descriptions, and followed a link to a newspaper article about a father and daughter reconnecting because of the program.

I know from personal experience that writing is cathartic and have always recommended it as a way to cope with stress and grief. I knew from the stories submitted by Tracy Mobley and Charles Schneider to Alzheimer’s Anthology of Unconditional Love that writing helped my friends with dementia. Tracy tells me that writing helps her express herself better than speaking. Writing gives her more time to think about what she wants to say. Writing is not easy for her, but it is well worth the effort.

The Living Words website chronicles the writing program in sufficient detail to allow the implementation of this program in other communities. The website serves as a template for support groups, facilities, or other organizations to help families touched by Alzheimer’s benefit from writing.

Participants are not pushed into writing, but gently nudged into exploring their memories or stretching themselves to creatively answer writing prompts. Workshops are conducted with humor and encourage camaraderie between caregivers and their loved ones with dementia as they share their ideas, thoughts, and reminiscences with each other. Living Words is a concept with the potential to use the therapeutic benefits of writing to improve quality of life for families living with Alzheimer’s.

Visit Living Words website at www.livingwordsprogram.com and see if you can be inspired to offer a similar program in your community.

Life is Good

I found myself in a funk—tired, rundown, and overdrawn on vitality. To regain my normal optimistic outlook on life, I decided to take a mini-vacation with nary a single plan to clutter up my do-nothingness. Usually the idea of taking three days off work in the middle of a Missouri July means chilling out under the air conditioner.

Wednesday, I went to Kansas City and wore one of my “Life is Good” T-shirts for luck. I ventured into Dick’s Sporting Goods to see what kind of mid-summer bargains they might have. I practically glowed with optimism when I found my favorite T-shirts on sale and snapped up four “Life is Good” long-sleeved T-shirts. Well, I figured I couldn’t wear them until fall, but knew I’d get my money’s worth then.

When I was in Boston last year I visited the original Life is Good store. That’s where I heard the Bert and John Jacobs’ story. These two guys made their start by selling T-shirts out of the back of a van. With a creative idea and a vanload of optimism, their achievements must have exceeded their wildest optimistic dreams.

Sometimes in my life, it’s been hard for me to remain optimistic, but it is in my nature to look for the good in life. That is part of what helped me make it through the ten years of Jim’s dementia. I sought out the good times, the quiet times, the loving times. I found that by cherishing those small moments of joy, I could make it through the bad times.

As we travel the river of life, we hit snags, whirlpools try to suck us downward, and sometimes we wind up high and dry on a sand bar. When we navigate through dangerous rapids we find ourselves in mortal danger as we cling to life.

We can recognize the dangers of a river, but often don’t recognize the risk of stress. Warning signs are everywhere—high blood pressure, chronic fatigue, depression. We need to find a calm, quiet place and mentally regroup. We all need respite from the pressures of life. If we don’t take time for ourselves, our inner optimism will die from lack of use.

My mini-vacation became respite from work and hot weather. A friend and I had a backyard barbeque Thursday evening and as we relaxed in lawn chairs a cool breeze sprung up. Who would have thought we would have 70 degree weather on a mid-July evening?

Today, I awoke to 60 degree weather and guess what? I broke out one of my Life is Good shirts. I removed the tag and realized that my shirt is named “Acoustic Jake.”

I still find joy in life’s small treasures. I find comfort in reading inspirational books like Joel Osteen’s Your Best Life Now and Become a Better You. This morning, my uplifting reading came from a tag off my Life is Good shirt. These words surround the logo on the tag: “Do what you like. Like what you do. Optimism can take you anywhere.”

Life is good.


http://www.lifeisgood.com/
http://www.joelosteen.com/

Thinking with My Heart

This week I received email newsletters from two trusted sources, Alzheimer’s Weekly and the Alzheimer’s Association, about a Swedish/Finnish study. The crux of the study was a marriage, so to speak, between dementia and committed relationships. I perked up when the researchers concluded that widows (like me!) were three times as likely to develop dementia as married women. I read new studies the same way I read a horoscope—I pick out the parts I like and bah-humbug the rest.

The researchers say that social involvement will help offset the dementia risk of living alone. That’s good news for me since I am by nature a social being. I have been an Alzheimer’s Association volunteer and advocate for the past fourteen years. I’m an officer in a local business women’s group. Talk about an active club! We move from one project to the next, and have monthly meetings, weekly friendship luncheons, and several great conferences each year. Last, but certainly not least, I’m president of the Columbia Chapter of the Missouri Writers’ Guild. Oh, and did I mention I work full-time as office manager at a rural electric cooperative? So, I think I have “social” covered.

When the Alzheimer’s Association first unveiled their Maintain Your Brain program, I had mixed emotions. My friend, Diane and I were delegates at an assembly meeting in Chicago when we first heard about the program. Diane’s husband had recently died from early onset dementia, and she was concerned that people would begin to think that dementia was brought on by unhealthy habits. I had to agree with her.

Yes, we all want to do things to keep our minds healthy, but what about people like Jim? He read, played the guitar, knew the lyrics to hundreds of songs, and he was only forty-nine years old. He certainly was not at risk for dementia.

After I learned more about the program, I liked the common sense idea behind the science. Maintain Your Brain can be condensed into a few basic categories: stay mentally, socially, and physically active, and while you’re at it, eat brain healthy food. How to develop these simple, but effective, brain healthy habits can be found on the Alzheimer’s Association website at http://www.alz.org/we_can_help_brain_health_maintain_your_brain.asp.

Heart and brain health are connected in many ways. So think with your heart, but before you sign up for e-harmony.com consider other factors that can reduce your risk of dementia. A good rule to keep in mind is that if it’s good for your heart it’s good for your brain.

Music Therapy Stimulates Memories

Music stimulates our memories and unveils feelings we thought we had forgotten. Have you ever noticed how a song can bring back a flood of emotions? A familiar melody can take us back in time, and although our physical appearance might shriek middle-age, our emotional age is the era of the song.

If you don’t think music can transform you internally, pay attention to the songs that give you happy feet. Even if your body isn’t up to the dance moves of your youth, your heart hears the music and your feet want to dance.

Throughout the years of our marriage, Jim played his guitar nearly every morning. He called it his therapy. At work I often listen to KDRO radio, a local station that plays country music and almost every song makes me think of Jim. One of the saddest things about dementia was when Jim began to have trouble playing his guitar. One day he asked me to tune his guitar. Jim, the man with perfect pitch, wanted tone-deaf me to attempt something I had never done in my life. I knew his request was beyond my abilities, but I called his brother and he took care of it.

Music has been a family tradition in my mom’s family. I grew up thinking that all normal families played guitars and sang. On Saturday nights my mom and her brothers, neighbors, and friends sat on wooden kitchen chairs and played music for hours. On those Saturdays at Grandma and Grandpa Whittle’s house, my Aunt Venetia always sang my grandma’s favorite gospel songs.

My mom, Aunt Labetta, Jimmy (my brother), cousin Reta, and Gene Branch play music at the nursing home one Saturday a month. Recently, I dropped by Good Shepherd Nursing Home in Versailles to listen to the music. I wound my way through the halls to the dining room where they were set up on the stage. Several residents tapped their toes and sang along with the songs they knew. At the front of the room, my Aunt Venetia sat dozing in her wheelchair while my cousin Jan attended to her.

My mom and Aunt Labetta, as always, dedicated a special song to their sister-in-law. Aunt Venetia is in the late stages of Alzheimer’s, yet she perks up when she hears the music she’s loved her entire life.

When Jim was in the nursing home, his favorite channel was GAC. His eyes were glued to the set when his favorite entertainers performed. His foot would tap in time to the music that he once effortlessly played.

With the special bond music has to our memories, it is no wonder that eyes sparkle at certain songs. Sometimes the sparkle is caused by unshed tears, but often it’s just memories dancing in our brains that bring life to our eyes.

Home Videos: I Cried Until I Laughed

Yesterday, I decided to sort some of our old home videos. Jim was the cameraman and captured every vacation and important event on tape. Sometimes, I would get irritated with him for turning our lives into reality TV. Usually, I preferred to unpack while he played the tapes for the family.

While Jim was in the nursing home, I couldn’t bear to watch any of the tapes. By then, he had lost his ability to carry on a conversation. He was my best friend and I missed how we shared our deepest thoughts and feelings, our hopes and fears. After aphasia stole his conversation skills, he became more and more silent and spoke only a few words in repetitious phrases.

Jim had meticulously labeled each tape with his initials, JDF, and when, where, or what the tape contained. I picked up a tape labeled: Colorado 1988 and popped it into the VCR/DVD player. My screen was filled with majestic mountain scenery, deer, elk, and coyotes as Jim taped one of our animal watch evenings in the Rocky Mountain National Park.

Jim taped our campfire breakfast the next morning, and to keep him from running the video camera while driving the curvy mountain roads, I taped our drive through the park. Jim, as usual, narrated. I turned the camera on Jim and he began to talk about our plans for the day. “We’re having the time of our lives,” he said.

Tears welled up as I watched Jim on the video and was reminded of the man he was before we knew anything about dementia. He spoke in his quick-witted manner, relaxed, and happy in his beloved Colorado. The mountains worked their magic on him giving him an inner happiness and peace that he didn’t have in our normal world. I was beginning to think that watching these films was depressing and a really bad idea.

“We are going to the Big Horn Meadow,” Jim said. “I’m going to feed the chipmunks.” Jim was pretty good to follow all the rules and regulations in the park, but he had always fed the chipmunks.

“Why not? It’s only a $25 fine—per offence,” I said.

“We can afford $25,” he answered.

Jim’s bantering from more than twenty years ago chased away my tears, and I found myself laughing out loud. Somehow in my memories, I had forgotten Jim’s great sense of humor.

During one of our hikes, Jim had the camera, and he said, “I’ve dropped back to film because Linda doesn’t like for me to film her from behind. Ooops,” he said as the camera caught my rear view. He swung the camera aside and then back, “Ooops. And ooops.”
As we drove up Fall River Road next to a sheer drop off, Jim teasingly asked me if I wanted him to get closer to my side of the road so I could get a better picture. “Oh, no,” I said, “I’m fine.”

When the tape came to an end, I popped in a couple of tapes marked “Idaho” to see what they were. At least that’s what I told myself. One of them was a trip Jim took to Idaho without me. Jim shot footage of his cousin Joe in Idaho and in the next segment the camera zoomed in for a close-up of a McDonald’s sign. “Hey, honey, guess where I am! This is the only McDonald’s I ever liked to eat at.”

“Estes Park!” I said from my seat on the couch where I still held the remote in my hands.

“Estes Park!” he said…as if I wouldn’t immediately know.

There’s no danger that I will ever forget Jim as long as I’m breathing, but memories are limited. Most of the moments caught on film were buried so deep within my brain I would probably have never retrieved them. Watching the tapes are a way of reminding me of the wondrous moments I’ve lived, even if nostalgia makes me cry until happy memories make me laugh.