A Season to Mourn

This bird is named a "Boat-Tailed Grackle."

In the truncated language of my local dialect, we (at least those of us who didn't just call them blackbirds -- grouping them with red winged blackbirds, blackbirds, starlings, and cowbirds) called them "bow-tails." I always thought it was because their long fanned tails looked like the ends of a big bow tie. But as I learned the real name, I had no idea what boats had to do with the tails of these birds, nor do I at this present time.

What I do know about them is that when they arrive in the spring, you know that winter is finally broken, and hearing their characteristic 'click' and 'buzz' call in the mornings of March or late February mean that violets and troutlilies will soon be blooming, promising another season of new life.

This one was prowling in my mother's yard in Pennsylvania a couple weeks ago. The grass was still green, though a bit parched at that time.

The green of my mother's yard is brown now. They have had no appreciable rainfall in an area where rain is supposed to happen every three days or so at least. Flying in to Central Pennsylvania on a little commuter plane, I looked down and saw not verdant fields and lawns and forests, but ugly brown expanses. Not good.

For a while the weather services were predicting rain for tomorrow, but they've backed off that again. "Well, maybe, but not likely," is the forecast.

Another season of new life. How I wish that there was some bow-tail to herald such for my mother and my sister! But as my mother's lawn has withered, so has her grasp on reality. It's funny, she can still dress herself and keep herself clean, but she can't remember that she's not allowed to drive anymore, or that Jan is in the hospital recovering from two heart attacks. She knows she can't find the keys to her little truck (I removed them all after her license was suspended) but Sunday morning I caught her trying to use the car keys (from the monster station wagon that is inoperable in her garage) to open the truck and drive herself to church. She knows, at least at some level, that she is no longer allowed to drive, but the "core personality" that Alzheimer's is exposing believes that rules are made for "other people." Mother will do what she will, as she has always done.

I took her to church, but it was nerve wracking. She is having a hard time understanding what I say to her. She can't figure out how to do what she needs to do, but she won't admit that she's having problems. After we went to church, I cleaned her kitchen table and her sink, which were filthy. Watching me wipe down her table with paper towelling, she said, "Here, this is what I use," and tried to hand me a disgustingly dirty, many-times-used wad of paper towel. I tried to tell her it was too dirty to use, but she didn't understand. Finally I just took it from her and threw it in the trash, and then scoured her sink with cleanser, trying not to gag.

Each room in the house is in some sort of disarray, with dozens -- maybe hundreds -- of plastic grocery bags filled with unknown contents in every conceivable corner.

Everyone who knows her is scared of what she will do next, because inevitably, her stubbornness and denial are going to run headlong into some sort of disaster.