The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom.
~M. Angelou
But, maybe he never forgot that.
Maybe he wasn't singing.
Maybe he was screaming.
Myrtle talks ceaselessly about going home. She doesn't know where that is but she resolves to go there at least 50 times a day. Earlier this week she tried to puzzle out how she would get to center city Philadelphia.
Myrt: I can take a train to center city, can't I? Does a train run past this hotel?
Me: What will you do when you get to Philadelphia, mom?
Myrt: Go to my home.
Me: How will you get to your home?
Myrt: I'll take a bus.
Me: But, mom, you live here and you don't have a home in Philadelphia.
Myrt: I have to have a home there!
Me: Why?
Myrt: Because that's where the bus GOES.
Me: Ah. Hey, let's build something with these blocks. Watch me ....
And I show Myrtle how the tangram blocks can be arranged together to make any shape in the world. She starts to move the pieces. Slowly, ever so slowly. It is hard for her but she concentrates on it for a good while and I clean up my kitchen, fold laundry, and get James to do his Latin homework.
When I come back she shows me what she made. Pretty cool, mom, what is it?
Myrt: It's a bird. It's a lucky bird.
Me: Oh, I see it! Yep, that's a bird alright. Hey, I'm impressed. So, why is it lucky?
Myrt: Are you kidding me? It has wings. It can fly.
Myrt and the tangram block bird
Myrtle notices birds. She enjoys watching them. My dear husband put a bird feeder right by the window of her room and she always stops to closely watch the customers that come to nibble (the Eastern Bluebird is her favorite). Maybe she is imagining their immense freedom. I wonder if she longs for her youth when she was as nimble. I wonder if she thinks about her life before her wings were clipped and her feet were bound by this ghastly condition which consumes her soul piece by little piece each day. I wonder if birds are her spirit animal.
As I was settling her in tonight, she called out in a shrill, frightened voice. "Wait, Rosemary!"
Her face was pale and her eyes were terror-struck. "I'm afraid to drive the car", her voice quivering. "I'll need someone to drive me to the train. Ok?"
"Sure, mom. Don't worry. I'll drive you. Everything's ok. Everything's good."
Her head falls back in relief and she begins the soft recitations and wailings which precede her sleep. It is a kind of singing. Whimsical intonations. A lonely lullaby. Her birdsong.
My husband's gift to Myrtle
Dementia is a parsimonious opponent. Whatever it delivers, it simply demands to be enough, but it never, ever is.
She has no memory of the flowers and gifts her children have showered upon her these past 10 years - that is how long her mind has been hijacked and broken and glaciated. All you ever have when a parent's soul is pierced with this permafrost are the brief moments, in between their bouts of hallucinations, rage, confusion and psychosis -- the brief, imperfect moments of recognition, gratitude, or pleasure. And you hope against hope that this is enough; hoping even in that moment when you see these things flicker and falter and fade into nothingness.
Dementia - the most execrable eternal footman.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
~ M. Angelou
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