Thursday with Pauline

By the time I return to Buffalo Sunday evening June 7th, I will have spent four weeks in the Carolinas. So it seems appropriate that my last long drive weaves between both States.

I have written about my times with Pauline, my son-in-law Peter's mother, who has Alzheimer's. I have known Pauline since Lizanne and Pete married in 1987. She is a lovely, sweet, considerate, Christian woman who, as a mother, has had the trials of Job. Job must have been a glass-half-full kind of person. I know Pauline has tried her best to see the glass half full . . . but the years, fears, and tears took their toll.
Of her four children, two (Pete and Janice) are wonderful people and parents, pillars of their communities. One (David) died in his mid-20s from a brain tumor he battled since early childhood. His short life, however, would be a model for living with adversity, as he always gave more than he took, while managing to earn an engineering degree and landing a good job with a major firm. The 4th child (John), graduated from medical school, but then had a breakdown and has been largely dependent on his parents ever since. (Very similar to my breakdown after law school, at which time my father was already deceased and my mother was in a nursing home. My children were grown. I had no choice but to manage on my own.)

Still, there is no way to undo the past, and so we move on, dragging the past with us.

At this time, Pauline no longer seems to think. But she feels. She expresses emotions very clearly: anger, sadness, happiness, jealousy. And fear, I think, but it is hard to separate fear when it seems mixed with anger or jealousy. She does not respond to verbalizations, but she does respond to facial expression, to laughter, to tears, to smiles, to expressions of pain.

Yesterday I took her for what turned out to be a 5-hour drive.


I attempted to get her to look at the camera for a picture when we were at Pretty Place. The Symes chapel there is simply lovely with a breathtaking view. On a clear day. We had a miserable day for picture taking, but a lovely drive all the same.

My first stop was at Caesar's Head. I think both sites are on Cedar Mountain, though the mountain names seemed to change with the turns, many of which were hairpin with a sudden angle up of 20 or 30 degrees.

The GPS I'd set for 200 Solomon Jones Rd, Cedar Mountain-- the address I'd found for Pretty Place (part of Camp Greenville). Most of the mountain driving was with "lost satellite reception," but it kicked in just in time to say, "arriving at destination." Hello? Nothing but a single dirt road into the woods. So I took it.

By the time I'd managed to get turned around and back on the "main" road, I realized I was on "Solomon Jones Rd," my set destination. But the road was long, and winding.

I took a few pix at Caesar's Head, no view to be had because of the clouds and rain, but still a lovely place. There, as at Pretty Place, I did not take Pauline out of the car. She seemed best, and least agitated, just chatting away in the confines of the seat belt. I didn't want to be physically fighting with her to get her back in the car.





Table Rock is another name and/or area in this part of the mountains, and the park ranger at the visitors center showed me how the roads I'm traveling wend and wind between North and South Carolina. The elevation at Caesar's Head was nearly 4,000 feet. Pretty Place seemed to be slightly less.

The last picture on our way down the mountain:
We'd had bottles of water. I never got to mine as it ended up under Pauline's feet, and she refused each offer of the straw in her bottle. She'd had a couple bites of chocolate (I know because I'd placed them in her mouth) and I thought she'd eaten most of the gummy fruits which I'd bought at the visitors center. I had put a few into her mouth, one at a time, of course; and soon she was waving the empty bag around. But when I returned her to Alex, as we helped her out of the car, I'm finding gummy fruits stuck all over the seat and legs of her pants. She looked like Christmas.

It must have been hunger that motivated her to gobble up four chicken nuggets and take a few sips of vanilla shake along our return route. She very much liked the chicken nuggets.

Spending time with Pauline this past four weeks has been an honor and an adventure. Caring for her at home can only get more difficult for Alex. I wish them both many travels and happy trails.