I Did Exist, I Have Existed, I Still Exist

This Fourth of July is a bit of a study in contrasts. This morning and well into the afternoon I spent my time with Veronica, the lady who has become a surrogate mother, or rather, to whom I have become a surrogate daughter, at the nursing home at which she now resides. It was my first, but the home's annual celebration of the founding of this country, complete with music and barbecue and flags and root beer floats. The location of the place at the highest point of Culver City made the afternoon idyllic, for me at least. View, sun and breeze. It was magical.To me, objectively, of course, it means better care in a less crowded atmosphere, and that is good. But to them, the flowers and the breeze are only something that can be enjoyed  only between the moments of pain and confusion. Still, there are those betweens when it becomes clear that who they were still peeks through for the rest of us to see. And they so enjoy those specks of time.

I saw several today. A volunteer played many of the old time tunes, I mean, really old, like "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" or every military anthem that used to make people proud, every Good 'ole American Yankee Doodle Dandy tune.  There was 101 year old Audrey, who seldom speaks, and eats even less (except for nuts that are on her walker's shelf) without prompting, a former ballerina and dance teacher waving her arms delicately to every song layer on the portable piano. And Neal, who actually isn't resident, but is, at 93, a donor and the husband of a woman who used to reside there before she died, showing us pictures of himself and his wife from the 1940s. He still comes and spends dinner time with the residents, though he is able to be independent, and still plays golf and drives. There he is in his Navy uniform looking exactly the same, except for the loss of that heavenly head of hair, next to a woman perfectly dressed and coiffed as all were in those days, the woman he would soon be marrying. Then a picture some 50 years later when they were celebrating either a birthday or an anniversary. They are all in his wallet, these pictures, a little dog eared, but proof of a life well lived, and a past that promised a future now already had and gone.

Then there is Nana. Also 92.  She never speaks at all, and has difficulty swallowing when she eats. Her eyes tell of a woman once articulate, bright and giving, still absorbing the universe around her but not understanding it any more, mostly. And then her daughter brought out a photograph from 1945. Nana was in the Navy. She was one of the rare WAVES during the war. She had even been a pinup runner up. I could not stop darting my eyes from the picture to the woman in the chair, and then I said something about this beautiful girl in the photo, whose eyes still are beautiful, and she smiled so broadly that it seemed the dementia (or whatever) that has ravaged her would retreat, just for a moment. And let her be who she was.

Now I am sure why I like photos and memoirs, or journals, even the most flimsy of them. Because they are a reference point, from then to now, to posterity. If it were up to me, every photograph of every life would be stored in some safe place. I lament privately that photos I have (and many were lost to a damp garage some years ago) I have of my family will end up in a junk heap when I die, since my Father's line ends with me. I have photos of other people not even my family, whose own families are either not interested or gone. Veronica had photos of a woman and her family who apparently are gone now.

Perhaps in the cosmic scheme of things it does not matter if there is proof of our existence in this world after our memories fade, or our lives end, for as a religious person, it is only Eternity and God that make the ultimate difference. But as a human being, here, now, existing today, there seems to be something of a matter of honor to create some legacy of each person here, to prove that they existed, each and every one. And, so many of them away from daily life as it used to be lived, a moment for the rest of us to stop and acknowledge that they had these full lives and are still here to be accounted for. Or something like that.

I said that this day was a study in contrasts. My second Fourth of July event will be to the Hollywood Bowl, Smokey Robinson and Fireworks. Very much in the present. Not so wistful an event, but certainly to be well enjoyed.