Of Light Bulbs and Genie Lamp Wishes

This will be a quick, fun post – wanted to write it while I am thinking of it.

Yesterday, I received a desperate phone call at about 5:30 p.m., right before I left work. I was trying to hurry, since I had to take J to church across town by 6:00 pm (not gonna make it by then!).

J is very excited on the phone – there’s a “disaster” at home – an emergency – I tried to get her to tell me what it was and she said “he won’t let me” (he being her dad). Why she just didn’t tell me, I don’t know, but she finally gave the phone to him and he said there was a big breaking sound in the bathroom when he turned on the light. The light didn’t come on, and the “disaster” part is when the lights are not working in J’s room. I assured them I would be home as soon as possible to check it out.

Turns out, a lightbulb blew out in the bathroom, sending a blue streak of electricity out from it, which is what M saw. I reset the breaker and power was restored – minus one recessed lightbulb in the bathroom.

Relieved that power supply is back in her room, J goes to wait for me in the car; I spend a few minutes listening to M repeat his story a few times, about how the light blew out and he saw the blue streak. Then he sits on the couch and catches his breath, rolling his eyes a bit for dramatic effect, telling me he has something else to tell me. I’m thinking, “Oh, boy!”

Once he’s a bit calmer, he advises me how hard he has worked all afternoon to try to remember something he had heard at his brain injury support group meeting earlier that day. Eyes focused on the ceiling (to help remembering, I think), he tells me about “something he heard about called a joke.” It goes like this:

There was a genie and a lamp and three guys.
The genie told the three guys they could each have a wish, but only one wish.
The first guy wished to be with his family in California.
POOF! The genie granted his wish and he was in California.
The second guy wanted to be with his family in New York.
POOF! The genie granted his wish and he was in New York.
The third guy tells the genie he misses his friends and wishes they were there to help him.
POOF! The first and second guys are brought back with the third guy.

M wasn’t sure what California and New York and a genie are, but he said everyone laughed a lot after the joke and he tried hard to remember it so he could tell me.

At bedtime, I asked him if he remembered his joke, and he shook his head no. I recited it back to him and he just kind of blinked at me and said he was tired.

It was a pretty good joke, and a sweet gift that he won’t remember.

But I will.

Time Spent not the Same as Money Spent

(I wrote this at end of July – then held it, uncertain whether to post – then decided to post it as I originally wrote it, unedited due to the change of scene, as an example of how the pendulum swings, for what came later/after was better, then worse, then better. Maybe this should have been called “The Pendulum Swings” – don’t rule it out as a future post!)

Time Spent not the Same as Money Spent

July is coming to a close sooner than expected, the deep heat of summer marked by drought-felled yellow leaves showering down in the back yard instead of rain. This year has flown by, yet the treadmill of time keeps spinning in its place of sameness. For the most part, it seems things are the same, yet sometimes it seems as if it will never be the same. Of course, it will never be the same again – it won’t even be the same as it was five years ago, which, come December, will be the five year mark of Mike’s first fall.

I feel as if I am in that Twilight Zone time warp we so often joke about – I can’t quite wrap my thinking around the fact that it’s almost five years. Yet it’s really been two years since the more serious of the falls in 2010 that resulted in Mike’s current condition.

A few months after the May 2010 fall, when I felt the frantic need to read or tell stories to him at bedtime, one night, he said, “Just sit with me,” and I realized that he wanted the time I spent with him more than anything else.

Time is a premium commodity, with too little of it available, or what is available never seeming to go far enough or being spent wisely enough, like a monetary budget. M and J fight constantly about the time I spend with one or the other of them never being enough. Their jealousy pecks at the minutes on my clock of consciousness like birds pecking road kill. No matter how I try to explain to them, neither seem to realize that they are consuming all I have to give them, and starving for more. Does this mean I am a bad time manager? Or just a bad mother/guardian/spouse? Neither wants to yield because that would signal defeat and one would “win” over the other.

Money spent is a poor substitute for time spent, rather like letting the television babysit small children – temporary appeasement but not lasting and generally not really empowering. Time spent spending money rises only slightly higher on the Needs Hierarchy list. After M came into the state of perpetual childhood, his mother would (and still does) buy him toys sometimes. He loves remote controlled vehicles, especially helicopters. After he got one, he would want her to get it ready for him and play with him – one time I heard her say, “I bought it, now you go play with it.” Again, the idea that money spent is an acceptable substitute.

He is yearning for a playmate, for understanding at his own level, for attention uniquely his, unshared by anyone else. I have failed to provide that for him, so wrapped up am I in the quest for survival and provision, ensuring that the money is available to be spent on every whim and wish that’s a substitute for time spent. He happily consumes the time I am able to just be with him and his wrath is vengeful when he feels I give more to J than to him, not caring for the rationalization that she requires certain needs because she’s a girl, a young woman, a busy student in the prime of her teen years who doesn’t want to and shouldn’t be required to give up her own life yet tries to understand the need to share her mother with her father/baby-brother.

Often, his discontent is satisfied with a trip to the Dollar Tree store – he loves to go there. When I ask him if he wants to go, he says, “Do I! You don’t have to ask me if I want to go to the Dollar store! I always want to go to the Dollar store!” Can such a trip dispel the current embitterment?

We live in a house of broken hearts, each piece clamoring to be put back together so the pain will go away, yet unwilling to listen to the other pieces sending out their own SOS, their own screams for help. If I had ten more hours in the day to divide between them, would it be enough? His current rant rails around J’s decision to stay in a certain school program that he thought she was going to let go of; he is enraged because of it, unwilling to listen to any form of reason – he sees her decision as a personal affront to him, an attack or something – I don’t even know what the real issue is for him. He doesn’t want her to speak to him, or be near him because of it. He is unwilling to yield in any direction, and sees her activities as a direct threat to his presence in the home. He is angry she changed her mind and wants to continue, and I can’t figure out what difference it makes to him. He says he doesn’t want to hear about her feeling stressed or unwell due to her heavy schedule. I told her she has to find a way to deal with all the stress related to it, without outbursts. She wants to try, but we have no support or tolerance from him at all – only a rage of inequity where he feels devalued by something that has no direct impact on him. He wants to make the rules, hard and fast, that squash life outside of his own.

I feel left in a daze of whirling dervish dust where I can’t see the spiritual solution to this; the tug of war of their wills seems greater than the rope of my will can withstand, yet I go forward into each moment, attempting to control my own expression of how I spend time with them. My own anger solves nothing – they are impervious to it; it serves as gasoline to the fire of their own torment. My attempt to be peaceful and seek a calming resolve is presently fruitless in results. M’s glaring disapproval cuts like a knife and I know I shouldn’t let it bother me – it’s his issue; it’s his lack of understanding, yet I want to bring resolution to the battle-weary, a willing compromise that is acceptable to all parties. Can it be done?

The question’s obvious answer: “With God, all things are possible,” so I remain open to possibility.

Where there is discord, let me sow peace.

Peace, be still.

What is the value of Memory?

What is the value of memory?  So much emphasis is placed on the good old days, and way back when, and remember when, and we have photo albums filled with pictures from another life acted out and experienced by people we no longer know, by people we no longer are.

A lot of time has gone by since my last post.  In many ways, perhaps most ways, things are pretty much the same as they have been.  But April 15th will mark two years since Mike’s third fall, not the one that took all his memory but one that brought to light the more serious level of memory loss than we had realized.  On that day two years ago, Mike was home alone (when I thought it was okay); we had just moved into a duplex after having lived with his mother for four months, and were getting settled in.  I had told Mike not to go outside on his own when I was not there.  I was at work and J was at school.  About 3:30 pm, I got a phone call from J saying that she had found her dad wandering around the area where she got off the bus after school.  His shirt was torn and bloody, he had broken his glasses, and he had two large bumps on the front of his forehead.

I came home to inspect the damage.  Mike insisted he was OK and affirmed he did it because he wanted to prove he could (it was really an act of defiance that went wrong, as most acts of defiance tend to do).  As luck would have it, we received our tax refund that same day.  Things had been very tight and we needed groceries so we went to the store.  While on the way to the store, Mike was sitting in the back seat and as we went around a curve he opened the door, which alarmed us greatly.  He said he was ready to get out of the car.  This became a cycle for quite a while, though he doesn’t do it much anymore (now he just puts the window down and calls for help when he’s mad at me or I’m not letting him do something).

When we got to the store, we were walking around, and when we were almost finished I remembered something I needed from the other side of the store.  Mike was tired of walking around and so I had him sit down on a bench and parked the cart next to him and told them to wait for me.  I walked a few aisles away from him and when I came back he was gone, nowhere to be seen. J and I panicked and started searching the store.  We finally found him in the opposite side of the store, and he said he was looking for us because he was tired and wanted to go home.

If I thought things had been stressed and difficult before, they were just getting started.  Mike’s behavior, while in some ways sensible and seemingly normal, in other ways was changing drastically.  I freaked out every time he wasn’t where I thought he should be.  He would get mad at me for telling him he could not go outside, and then he would sneak out and walk down the street.  I don’t think he was aware of the danger of nearby cars.  He had been able to show me where he fell off the side of the road on the 15th, but after a few days he lost his awareness – or memory – of that location.  On more than one occasion when I came home from work I would find him standing on the street corner at the end of our block dancing and waving at cars as he listened to his radio.  I would make him get in the car and go back home and find out that J wasn’t even aware he was out of the house, because she was in her room doing her homework when he snuck out.

Another time when I came home from work, I called for him and he did not answer.  I started to look for him, and then the door of a closet near the entrance of the house flew open, he jumped out, pretending to hold a gun and his hands, and shouted, “Hold it right there! Put your hands up, Mister! You’re under arrest!” And then he would squeal with laughter, oblivious to my lack of amusement, even though there were times when I could not help but grin. He had a fascination with gangster type behavior, and was obsessed with watching Cops on TV.  I put a halt to watching police programs or anything displaying violence, criminals, weapons of any kind such as guns or knives, because Mike wanted those things, and even though he wanted to be the good guy or the policeman, I did not want to pretend to be the bad guy and be arrested.

Even then, and still, the business of day-to-day living prevented too much attention on the facts that Mike had no personal memory.  While I plan to write about the significance of “now” someday, I feel slightly haunted by the lack of history.  With the breakdown of the family – that is, everybody’s busy doing their own thing -it feels like there is no place for history.  We are consumed with the “now” – it demands all of our attention, at least all of my attention.  The links between who we were and who we are have been broken and there’s no connection to the beginning, to strangers who met and started a life, never knowing, never dreaming, never imagining how things would change.  It’s almost as if we’re floating on a self-contained cloud that has no memory of land, or rainbows, or sun beams.  No, of course our lives are not horrible, and things level off from time to time, but it is my heart that remembers everything: the good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly, sometimes swarmed together in a tormented tangle of supposed to be, and could’ve been, and might someday be.

Aside from the continual struggles of Mike and J’s relationship, which is its own roller-coaster ride, we seem to be in a plateau of sameness, the place in “now” that has no room for memory, or memories of things that are strange and unfamiliar with the new day.  When Mike calls me at work, if I am away from my desk or on the line and the voice mail picks up – my voice giving instructions to leave a message – he gets upset; when I talk to him again he tells me that he doesn’t want “that other person” to answer the phone.  He doesn’t understand or cannot recognize that it is my voice leaving the message.  Instead, he wants the familiar greeting of me saying that I’m his Buddy and he’s my very special good boy (because that’s how he identifies), and the ritual when we end the conversation, that certain order of words spoken that bind him to something he can connect with; he asks me if he will have time for his nap and snack before I pick him up at his mom’s, and I say yes, he has plenty of time, and he says, “OK, Buddy. See you wayter.” We play tag with goodbyes, and I have to say goodbye a dozen times in a dozen silly sing-song ways before he will hang up.

And I remain haunted with memories and dreams and history that have no place in “now.”

Time Moves so Fast when it Stands Still

It’s hard to believe it’s been so long since I’ve posted anything here. Where do the days go? The days of Christmas just a few weeks ago, yet so quickly before us? The days of Spring with its fresh new promises carried away by Summer’s dry wind and dashed among the leaves of Autumn’s race down the path of the impending Auld Lang Syne?

What changes can be categorized by a condition that, though named, has stolen the Name one uses in identity? Emotions run rampant. Sibling rivalry rears its head day in and day out. It’s the new status quo (a future post will deal with the idea of The New Normal).

I can’t tell if Mike’s condition has changed much over the past few months. Perhaps that’s why I’m reluctant to post anything, even though I started this with the intention to track the journey. Yet the journey seems so dormant at times and the seconds, minutes, hours, and days are consumed with survival in the tempest of feelings that rise and fall in greater variance than the stock market ticker. Moments turn on a quarter, a dime, a penny, so quickly morphing from happy banter to accusations and blame over what? When all is said and done, it’s never more than a word or a look – something one or the other of them (M and J) interprets in their own way, without taking into consideration how the other intended it.

Mike continues to take great delight in absolutely tormenting J over every little thing, yet is greatly insulted when she defends herself or stands against things he says or tries to get him to stop the annoying behaviors that are part of his everyday life. I can’t get her to realize his reality is different now. Most of the things he says and does are not planned – not premeditated – except to the extent he had a period where he hid rubber snakes and bugs in her bathroom and bedroom, laughing hysterically when she would come screaming bloody murder upon their discovery.

Where does the boy begin and the man end? Where does the man begin and the boy end? They are forever intertwined, with the man no longer there – the man named Michael – who is the boy Mike or Mikey now; he prefers to be called Buddy at home. He is my Buddy and I am his Buddy – his Best Buddy. I call him my Very Special Good Boy, because how do you look a six-foot-tall man in the face and say “I’m so proud of you, my husband!” when he has no concept of what that means, but takes great pride in being the very good little boy? I can’t speak of him as a grown man – it doesn’t feel right, because that’s not who he is now. Despite his size, he’s a child in his thinking and behavior, some days defiant, some days spoilt, some days reveling in that identity to its innocent fullest, not knowing, caring, or understanding that the Man who is gone is the one being sought as Father to a Daddy’s Girl, the Man who was companion and co-supporter in the family. No longer is the Man of the House at home, but the Boy of the House, who in no uncertain terms makes his presence known.

The roller coaster that is daily life produces its own Whirling Dervish of confusion, frustration, instant anger, often confused-yet-unconditional love and forgiveness unquestionably following actions that none of us seem able to control all the time.

The days go by with routine that is expected, flowing into each other at a jolting pace sometimes, birthdays, holidays, and Mondays rolled into each other without definition other than where we are in a particular moment.

Time stands still the most when Now is all you have, blurred together from the fabric of days gone by patterned by the days to come.

Paper Emotions – Part 2 – an Anniversary and a Check-up

Back in October (2010), I wrote about “Paper Emotions – Part 1.” That post dealt with obtaining a guardianship for Mike and the legal loophole it turned out to be. It was accomplished on July 7 last year, and we passed our first “anniversary” of my legal guardianship of him earlier this month. It was hard to believe that a whole year had already passed.

In August, we learned that his disability application had finally been approved, but it would be a while before any money started coming in. A few months after that and before his Social Security payments actually started, I learned I had to establish a special bank account for his disability payments. Another legal loop I had to jump through to ensure that I didn’t make off with his funds; As “Rep-Payee,” I am allowed to receive his payments and handle his account. The bank account had to be titled in a certain way and it could not be a joint account like our normal checking account.

Okay, fine. I left work early one day to take care of it. I thought it would be a breeze – just stop by the bank branch inside a local retail store we visited frequently, sign the papers, and be done with it.

What I was not prepared for – emotionally, anyway – was the way in which the steps taken would affect me.  I stood at the counter, filling out the forms. I gave them a copy of my guardianship papers – the ones that say I am guardian of an incapacitated person – and it all sort of came in a wave over me. This 50-year-old man was not even able to sign checks or process a debit card transaction. Giving him the chore, he wouldn’t have had a clue what to do.  As I signed the signature card, I felt the wave moving up through me, starting in the pit of my stomach and rising up, like I was being filled with some thing that would drown me if it made it to the surface. My eyes started tearing and I keep breathing in but wasn’t breathing out. I could hardly see what I was writing, which was ironic, because he couldn’t have seen to sign the documents, either.

The bank clerk was very considerate. I apologized for crying at a time like this and she said she understood. I wondered how many other customers cried when they opened a bank account. It really wasn’t a sad occasion – I was doing it because it meant he would have some income coming in the future – much needed income. But I was sad because of what it represented for him. It’s a dual-edged sword of sorts that cuts through time now, severing everything that used to be and forcing us to acknowledge this new “now” that is pouring into days and months and years where everything seems the same in some ways but everything has changed.

So, on July 7 this year, I thought about that day last year, when a judge signed a document confirming the incapacity of a man who used to do “high brow” math in his head, who had driven through five states in one day seven years before when we moved out to Washington State. This same man used to tutor students in elementary school, had received a Service Award, signed by the Governor from the State of Missouri and presented by the then Lt. Governor, for his efforts put forth in Americorps (he received this award on the same day President Bush declared war on Iraq, March 19, 2003; aside from this, there might have been some mention of it made in the local media – I don’t think there was anything made of it locally). There were so many things he did accomplish – and so many more he could have – when measured in the traditional way, or the way that society measures accomplishments.

Mike receives Service Award

Mike receives Service Award and Plaque

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On a lighter and more positive note, Mike pronounced one of his current accomplishments. We were sitting in his doctor’s office recently. She was reviewing his progress. He announced to her, “I can bend over – (pause) – and keep breathing.” She laughed and said that was very good. She was very proud of him and the progress he has made on his diet. He has lost nearly 50 pounds since last fall, and his cholesterol is in perfect condition, as is his blood pressure and BMI. He is doing very well, physically. Probably in better physical health right now than anytime since I’ve known him.

So, a year later (and then some), we are continuing to meet the challenges of each day as they arise. And like the sun, challenges arise every day – some easier to deal with than others. But the sun rises day after day; moon follows her orbit; the stars keep shining every night, clouds or not. Birds fly. Dogs bark. Traffic snarls. Kids laugh. Mike laughs, joy not held back, happiness not critiqued or limited. And sometimes I laugh when I want to cry. But he just flows with the days and nights and the sun and the moon and stars.

He just flows…

The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil

^{Genesis Chapter 2: Verses 15-17}

“And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.’”

In the Bible, in Genesis, God has told Adam he can eat of every tree in the garden except the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” When I was younger and very impressed by the Catholic Church, I believed it was inevitable that we would all be condemned because Adam had eaten the fruit of that tree. In the black and white rules of right and wrong, there was no way I could ever overcome that sin committed by Adam. Everything in life stemmed from what Adam and Eve did in the Garden. Once they had that forbidden “knowledge,” they were cast out and humanity was doomed. (this is not taking into account the redemption coming later from Jesus)

For so many years, I lived in fear of God’s retribution over my sins (whatever they could have been as a child and teenager). When I got a little older, I started becoming more aware of the world around me and the black and white often blurred into an area indistinguishable. How could something be right one day and wrong the next? I had a lot of confusion. It seemed cruel to think God would create a beautiful garden and give access to everything except one tree and then punish you for taking from that tree, regardless of the influence of other people (Eve), or serpents. Free Will was a manipulative and cruel joke where no one laughed and every decision would be the wrong one. What was the point?

But, still, I never wavered in my devotion to the God of my understanding and wanting to be the best person I could be. The fine line between black and white is difficult to walk without overstepping one way or the other at some point. Thankfully, as I got older, I learned how to think metaphysically; that is, beyond the literal meaning of things. What I believe the passage means now is that once you have an experience, you can never go back to the way you were before and thus you are changed from the way you were (the death referred to). There is no “good” or “evil,” per se, but perceptions based on one’s experience.

The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is a level of awareness, I believe, and has nothing to do – ultimately – with things being good or bad, necessarily. The level of awareness we have is a measurement of our development. A child is not expected to have the same level of intelligence or maturity as an adult; adults in certain areas of the world or careers will have different levels of intelligence or experience than others. Once a person reaches adulthood, there are experiences gained that can never be un-experienced. Naïve, trusting innocence gives way to – good or bad – certain experiences that remove that precious innocence forever. Childlike faith becomes challenged by grown-up skepticism and a cynical viewpoint that makes that Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil as gray as twilight. At least in the world called sane.

In that gray space of life shared by the gray matter of awareness mysteries exist which will never be solved. I don’t think I will see in my lifetime the level of education achieved by anyone that can explain how the brain truly works. How a mere shift in gray matter alters our perceived “reality” as surely as a fault line alters the face of the planet and life as we know it. There are at best educated guesses, like predicting the weather or Super Bowl scores. Shadows shift, never appearing exactly like they did before.

Mike and I have been together over 15 years; there is no way I would have believed in those first months together that our relationship would evolve to a place of such unknown quantity/quality of life. It has been an increasingly challenging journey, none of it predictable, none of it foreseen, none of it expected or planned. Despite his many strengths before, he was a co-dependent person, insecure as I came to understand, needing affirmation for who he was. But neither one of us ever saw this coming – this place of living twilight where the shadows and sun dance in a spiral as intricate as old Spanish lace. At least I didn’t.

If there is anything evil in the world, it is that which steals away the purity of the soul through the appearance of ego satisfaction. The real evil are those qualities of anger unresolved, existing for its own sake, jealousy, hatred, fear suspicious of truth of love, and all those dark shadows clouding the Spirit’s light within Its Creation. The bushel covering the Light is woven of those dark emotions that keep us forever rooted in the past, forever obsessed with the future, and forever barred from the pure joy of living in the now.

I wonder, where does this place exist, the place of innocence before we become aware of good and evil? Is it a State on the Continent of Denial? Is it a craftily produced channel on the Screen of our Identity? Can we deny Truth and maintain innocence and therefore be aware only of Good? Is it really true that in order to comprehend “good” we must experience bad or evil?

I think it may be that the place of innocence – the place in our awareness not yet fed by the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil – exists in a level of Being not concerned with knowledge or awareness for the sake of being aware (education), but simply by existence. It’s that childlike state – whether we’re 2 or 52 – before the knowledge of good and evil is gained, when the soul is truly free just to exist for the purpose of expression in whatever form the moment demands. Mike still seems, for the most part, happy with his existence. He has no cares for tomorrow. He is content with knowing how his day goes; he sleeps a dreamless, peaceful sleep; he goes to his mother’s when I’m at work; he calls me after lunch and before his nap, and he always wants reassurance of when I’m coming to pick him up. He loves it when we play with him in the evening, whether with his remote control trucks or a game on Wii or reading a story. He wants to know that he’ll have his bedtime snack of fruit and tea before going to sleep, and says he can’t sleep well if I don’t tuck him in and give him a goodnight hug.

 

(mike gets a bowl of fruit like this almost every night)

 

 

His days are content, unconcerned for yesterday, unworried about tomorrow. He is in a state of bliss most of the time. Those times of toddler-like frustration at not getting what he wants are expressed simply with the thrust of his bottom lip, crossed arms, and an honest exclamation of,  “I’m upset!” He doesn’t hide what he’s feeling. He accepts reassurance without strings or compromise when I point out why something happened the way it did or how he can do something different to get what he wants, or simply with giving him the respect due his level of understanding. He doesn’t remember being angry yesterday; but neither does he remember excitement of splashing in the water at a pool, playing ball in the park, feeding the fish in a pond, or driving to a new store. He can’t see the moon or stars shining in the sky at night, but he can feel the warmth of the sun. He takes pride in folding towels fresh from the dryer and eagerly greets the dog when returning from a day away from home.

The roots of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil may reach deep into the earth, its branches reach high into the sky, reaching up to grab the Big Dipper, but nestled beneath its breezy branches in the cooling shade during the heat of the day, we sit, we look forward, we bide our time, contemplating neither good nor evil to an extreme, but simply taking each day as it comes.

Or trying to.

Forgetfulness…

The following story is copied from The Taoist Classics, Volume 3, The Collected Translations of Thomas Cleary. After you read it, you will see that it speaks for itself, as regards Mike’s situation. It speaks volumes to me – I bawled like a baby when I first read this; tears still spring to my eyes every time I try to tell someone about it.

FORGETFULNESS

A man named Hua-tzu suffered from forgetfulness when he reached middle age. He would forget by nighttime what he had gotten during the day, and he would forget by morning what he had given at night. On the road he would forget to walk, at home he would forget to sit down. At any given time he was unconscious of what had gone before, and later he would not know what was going on at the present.

His whole family was distressed by his condition. They called on a fortune-teller to figure it out, but there was no prognosis. They called on a shaman to pray for him, but that did not stop it. They called on a doctor to treat him, but that did not cure it.

Now there was a Confucian who reckoned he could heal the man, and his wife and children offered him half of their estate for the remedy. The Confucian said, “this cannot be figured out by omens, cannot be alleviated by prayer, cannot be treated by medicine. I will try to transform his mind and change his thought, in hopes that he will get better.”

Now when the Confucian tested him by exposing him to the element, the man asked for clothing. When he starved him, the man asked for food. When he shut him up in the dark, the man asked for light. The Confucian joyfully announced to the children, “This sickness can be cured. My remedy, however, is secret and not to be revealed to others. Please clear everyone out and leave me alone with him for seven days.” The family did as he said, so no one knew what measures the Confucian took, but one day the ailment from which the man had suffered for years was all gone.

When the man woke up, he flew into a rage. He threw his wife out of the house, punished his children, and went after the Confucian with a hatchet. The local people grabbed him and asked him what it was all about. He said, “In my past forgetfulness I was clear and free, unaware even of the existence or nonexistence of heaven and earth. Now that I am suddenly conscious, all these decades of gains and losses, sorrows and joys, likes and dislikes, suddenly occur to me in a welter of confusion. I am afraid that future gains and losses, sorrows and joys, likes and dislikes, will disturb my mind like this. Will I ever have a moment’s forgetfulness again?”

Because I can see how Mike is happy now in a pure and innocent way, I have to wonder:  If he regained his “normal mind” or “sane sense,” and if he could remember not-remembering, would he be happy still? Knowing how he used to be – quite judgmental and critical at times – would he want to go back to being that way again?

The Taoist story explains this type of mental condition very clearly to me; I have believed that mental conditions that take us out of what mainstream society terms “normal” or “sane” are the individual’s way of escaping that pigeon-holed existence. Any person’s experience is not for another to judge, but when we are dealing with family members who are not who they used to be, is it better to be the sane ones left to worry and fret about all that has been “lost”?