Summer 2008: All about Dad

A year ago, I couldn't have written this because the wound left in my heart, as a result of my Father's death was too fresh and the topic still too sensitive. But it is now one year and three months since my darling Dad passed away and time has allowed me to step back and grasp this major event in my life with better insight and understanding.

I admit, I was my Daddy's girl, and we were so very similar in temperament and outlook on life. My Dad was an optimist, and he always promised that "everything would be o.k.", whenever I was in a state of worry over my child, or my finances or even his health status! I relied on his presence to help me believe in that, and now that he's gone, I no longer need him to tell me that, for it is now engraved in my own heart and it is my turn to be the strong parental figure. He passed along his own brand of wisdom and in later life his disposition became sunnier and more lovable than before. It was as though he was a Buddhist, who transformed toward a new mission of love of mankind over love of self. At the Abby Club, he participated along with my Mother, coming along at first for (her) moral support but later embracing a role of "mayor" of the Abby Club. He always had kind words for people, would sit and talk endlessly with new and old friends, and would try to make new members feel at ease. He loved the staff and he loved participating in the life of the club.

Although he didn't have AD, he did have a stroke, which had caused his mental processes to slow down. When he was sick with his second stroke which debilitated him, he was still his old sunny self and charmed the staffs at the various hospitals and rehabs that he was in. He taught me, even then, that everything boils down to human to human contact...not money, fame, possessions or status. He was so appreciative of what people did to help and he was often concerned about other people's feelings. Once, when I found out that he had fallen out of bed at the Rehab and proceeded to seek out the "supervisor in charge" so that I could "chew her out", he simply said, "don't" and shook his head. It was said, not in a spirit of defeat or despair for being unable to change things, but more in a spirit of "let's not make a big deal out of it...it's not her fault". And really, what would it have accomplished...I would make myself feel big and she would feel small and guilty? Of course it's never right, when somebody falls in a supervised situation, but it happens...and those people in charge feel badly enough, without some lunatic daughter screaming at them adding insult to injury.

So my father is gone, and I miss him every day...but somehow I feel his energy still; maybe more now than ever. I feel that he taught me so much in that last year of his life..not overtly, but through his actions. He taught me lessons about parenting my own, now nineteen year old child, about interacting with others and understanding human greatness and folly and lessons on the importance of faith in God and fellow men.

About a year ago, when I was visiting a college in Philadelphia with my son, I picked up a poetry book in a café (it serendipitously happened to be on the table) written by Czeslaw Milosz a Polish poet. I'm not sure why, for my father wasn't even gravely sick with the second stroke yet, but I felt compelled to write down this particular poem written by the poet for his own father, and kept it safe. Now I am able to read it and understand its importance and share it here, with you and dedicate it to my dad, Mike Saschuk...

Happy Father's day to all of my sweet guys at the Abby Club, Tom, Abdo, Charlie, Warren, Al, Frank, Will and Kamal and also Joe V., John M., Richard K, Aldo D., Deacon Hank and Frank W.

Julie Wesolowski, Program Director

Dads are most ordinary men turned by love into heroes,
adventurers, story-tellers, singers of songs.
- Pam Brown

July/August: Summer Reading

I love to read. I love the classics, children's books and travel narratives. I love essays and biographies, books on gardening, self-help novels and daily reflections. I'm pretty much open to suggestion, and I'm likely to go "on-line" and order up a book I've just read about in the book review section of the Boston Globe or a favorite magazine.

My love for reading began early on, in grammar school, and I always remember the summertime as the season of my most intensive reading. I recall spending, what seemed like an endless hour, crouched amidst the stacks of our town's library, scanning for the interesting title among the long multi-colored stretches of books. In the heat of a summer's day, the library was a cool, collected respite so welcome from the blazing hot backyard or playground of youth.

For a child, a book is a wonderful companion, traveling easily up to a willow tree perch, or inside a girl-scout-camp sleeping bag. Books help us to explore new or foreign lands or transport ourselves back in time to an era that we for-some-unknown reason might relate to. We actually can become attached to a book's characters, landscapes and auras- thus, giving rise to serials or sequels. Books allow us to be swept away for a time, allowing our minds to dream or merely to stretch to embrace new ideas. Reading is a brave new world to a six year old novice and a comforting old friend to an elderly, sedentary soul. It is an ancient occupation which has not dissipated over time.

This summer, take a trip to your town library, and renew your library card. Then spend an hour or two perusing the stacks, forgetting all commitments for a while and drinking in the serenity within. My old town's library had a goldfish pond in the reading area and the babble of the water amidst the silence was truly sedating! Maybe you'll even be inclined to volunteer to read to children or to help out in other ways! I happen to know that the Braintree Town Library is always looking for used books for their downstairs book sale (which helps keep them going!). So think before you toss those paperbacks!

The life of an Alzheimer's caregiver is difficult, and escape through books might be one way of keeping your balance! Keep me posted on your book recommendations!

Julie Barcelo, Program Director