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Category Archives: death

Come Rain or Come Shine or Come Insecurity

18 Monday Sep 2017

Posted by in death, dementia, humor, music, sip and paint studio, Uncategorized

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I’m sad, guys. I don’t know why I’m sad now. I just know that I’m grieving my dad HARD right now. I know grief comes in waves. I think partly that this is because I’m in a period of real transition now that I’ve closed the paint and sip studio and things have stalled with the next adventure. Insecurity in my life isn’t helping. I think it’s also because it’s the time of year that I tend to get a depression flare. It happens just about every year around this time: my depression kicks it up a notch and my brain starts telling me I’m a giant loser and a miserable person who makes terrible, cowardly choices, and the future is very, very bleak. Again, insecurity in my life isn’t helping.

I’ve been having nightmares about my dad again. I say “nightmares,” but they’re not really scary – just really, really sad. I’ve woken up crying several times. And my dreams always share one feature: he always has dementia. He’ll be in different stages, but he’s never just him. In a dream a couple days ago, I was dancing to “Come Rain or Come Shine” with him, and for a split second, he was dancing and interacting with me like he was normal and healthy, and I thought, “This is a dream, but it’s a fantastic dream. I’ve got to keep this going.” I very rarely am aware that I’m  dreaming, but I knew it this time and I was desperate for it to continue. And then, in an instant, he changed and I kept grabbing his arms and trying to force him and my dream to come back. I woke up so bloody angry that I couldn’t even remember him as my fully functioning father in a dream. Why can’t I think of him that way? Why is it always him in some stage of dementia?

Two nights ago, I had a flashback. I was feeling really tired and a little nauseated and lay down, and suddenly I was convinced that I was crumpled up, crying, in the hallway outside of the room where my dad was dying. I could hear the oxygen machine going and smell the nursing home stink. I could feel the carpet underneath me and the wallpaper at my back. PTSD, anyone? Ugh. I just want to forget those final three, pain-filled days.

So yeah, it’s been a hard couple weeks. And Wednesday is my 40th birthday. How can I celebrate it without including my dad? How can he not be here for it? He’s supposed to be here for it. I miss him so damn much all the damn time.

But there’s nothing I can do about it. And since I’m in a depressive cycle, I need to focus on the good things. I’ll share one with you.  This is the pit I discovered when I cut open an avocado for lunch today:

avocado pit

How cool is that? It looks like a tree. Or Audrey II (there was that total eclipse of the sun a little while back…). Or brains. There is an excellent possibility that I chased the cats around the house with it chanting, “braaaaaaaains.” I may have also tried to chase S around the house with it and he may have taken it from me and thrown it out when I wouldn’t stop. It may also have attracted fruit flies and I may also being currently trying to get them drunk/kill them on cheap white wine and dish soap. Hey, it’s not the worst way to go.

Life goes on, come rain or come shine.

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I’m Still Here, Sort Of

11 Monday Sep 2017

Posted by in death, dementia, mental health, sip and paint studio, Uncategorized

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It’s been a long time since I last posted. This is partly due to laziness, partly due to being totally overwhelmed by life, partly because it’s the time of year when my depression usually kicks things up a notch, and partly due to the hurricane coverage that has sucked me in. A LOT has happened over the last almost-month that I’ve been an absentee blogger. And as I got farther and farther behind on posting, the harder it’s been to make myself sit down and actually write. So, because I’m out of practice, this post may be total shit. Apologies in advance for shitblogging.

As you may or may not recall, our landlord for our sip and paint studio decided to be a total douchefuck and double our rent. If you missed that post, go back and read it to catch up before you come back and finish this post. I’ll wait (I won’t really wait. I’m not typing this live, as you read it. I shouldn’t have to explain this to you people.).

So, now that you’re caught up, you’ve probably figured out that we did, in fact, close the brick and mortar location. I taught my last in-studio class on the 19th, and then we had 2 weeks to clean the space out, during which I also had to travel to Colorado to train artists for a new sip and paint studio for which we were doing some consulting. ‘Cause there was so much time for THAT. Aaaaaaaagggghhhh! Cleaning the studio out to close down the business completely wouldn’t have been that big a deal, because we could toss, donate, or sell most of the stuff filling the 1400 square foot space. But because we’re still doing mobile events and offering consulting services, we had to keep a lot of it, which means that we had to find storage for it all. Double-aaaaaaaaaaaggggghhhh!

We had to go from this (which doesn’t even show the back rooms which were also choking on art supplies):

full AA class

To this:

empty AA studio.JPG

The room where-art-goes-to-die was already packed to the gills, and we need the space we have in the buildings at the haunt to make more fun things like the creepy trees. So we had to spend a few days emptying everything out of the already packed spaces so that we could put shelving from the studio into them and re-pack them even more. I had to throw out some old art, which isn’t a happy thing to do, but, realizing that they hadn’t sold since college and aren’t really representative of the work I now do, I said “fuck it” and tossed the paintings out. I also renamed the room from “the room where-art-goes-to-die” to “clusterfucklandia.” (I think maybe I’m German or Dutch. I keep combining words to make a newer, longer words. I must have germandutchitis.) A local friend also generously allowed us to store a solid crapton of stuff in the space above his garage, which saved us a whole heap o’ trouble. So we worked it out.

the room where art goes to die

Except for the desk. My dad’s desk. We’d brought it down to serve as our check-in desk at the studio after we put my dad into the dementia care facility. Try as we might, we couldn’t figure out a place to keep it now that the studio is closing, and it was insanely heavy and damn near impossible to get into the back of the pick-up truck for easy moving. It shouldn’t have been a big deal, but for some reason, I got really, really sad at the thought of giving it up. I’m not entirely sure why, but I think that maybe, on a subconscious level, it was a way of having my dad still be a part of a chapter of my life that he’d never see in person. He was contributing to the studio, in a way. And now here I am closing that chapter, and it feels weird that there’s an entire chunk of my life that he never knew, and as I move forward into the next chapter, I won’t even have his desk along for the ride to make him a part of it. It’s silly. I know. It’s just a desk, not my dad. But I just can’t help feeling really sad that I had to let it go.

And then, suddenly, everything was sold or donated or in storage, and I had nothing to do. Except think about that damn desk. And my dad. And now I’m grieving hard again. And, of course, things keep popping up to ensure that I continue to think about it: References on TV; lucky pennies; someone he knew, while growing up, contacting me out of the blue because they read my book; going to a friend’s wedding at which her father said to me, “You know, your dad’s band was supposed to be playing for this,” and at which she and her father danced the father-daughter dance to “What a Wonderful World,” which is what my dad and I danced to at my wedding; cleaning out old emails and discovering a bunch from my dad from his early days with dementia; and on and on. You get the idea. And now I’m reeling a bit and have kind of shut down and hidden from the world for the last little while.

But, as we all know and sometimes like to pretend we don’t, life goes on. And we have plans. All the plans. The best plans. But those plans are for another post. For now, we have bourbon. All the bourbon. The best bourbon. And right about now I’d really like to get all the drunk. But I won’t. I need to save some of the drunk for you, dear reader, because I’m generous like that.

They’ll Never Have To, But They’ll Never Get To

07 Wednesday Jun 2017

Posted by in death, dementia, karma, kindness, Uncategorized

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Last night, I found out that someone from my hometown who had dementia died. I had posted about him about a year and a half ago. I never did meet him myself, but I had some contact with his wife and daughter recently as they were making decisions about placing him in a dementia care community. Today, as they were moving him into the facility they’d chosen, he had a heart attack and died. And I don’t know what to feel for them.

I’m devasted for his family. It’s so sudden and so shocking. After agonizing over the decision about how to move forward with his care, it’s all just been undone.

I’m relieved for his family. They won’t have to watch him continue to decline, to lose himself. They won’t spend a fortune on a dementia care facility and worry that the money might run out.

I’m devasted for his family. They don’t get anymore sweet moments with him. No more hugs or holding hands. They don’t have the privilege of caring for him and protecting him. They don’t get to tell him they love him.

I’m relieved for his family. They’ll never have to tell him they love him and have him look back at them blankly, not knowing who they are. They won’t have to fight for him to get the care he deserves, or deal with dirty diapers or disappearing hearing aids or choking incidents.

I’m devasted for his family – especially his daughter, who wasn’t there when it happened and so didn’t get to say goodbye.

I’m relieved for his family. His death was quick – no nights spent in recliners by his deathbed, waiting for his pain to finally end.

There’s no good way for this whole journey to go. There’s no easy path. Dementia sucks, plain and simple. So maybe send a little love out to the universe for his family – and all the other families coping with dementia – today, in the hopes that it will ease some tiny piece of their pain.

Dad and Em at Bodos 10-27-14 2

Holla!

18 Thursday May 2017

Posted by in art, blog, book, death, dementia, Fractured Memories, humor, karma, kindness, painting, Uncategorized, writing

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Just got another great review of the book by a book blogger! Hollaaaaaa! Check it out on her blog, Brittany Reads, or read it below:

“Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love Too by Emily Page is a profoundly raw account of one family’s experience of caring for a father with frontotemporal dementia (FTD).  The story is told from the perspective of an adult daughter (the author) who is caring for her father along with her husband and her mother. The book has three parts.  This first part of the book is much like a traditional memoir, with the author’s experience recounted in a narrative.  The second part of the book reads a bit like a series of journal entries, raw and largely unedited recounts of caring for her father.  The author is an artist, and the third part of the book is a series of paintings she created that out of her caregiving experience.

The author’s love for her father is the greatest testament of this book.  Yes, the author becomes angry, emotionally frayed and anxiety-ridden in the seven years she cared for her father, and sometimes those emotions are even directed at her father.  But she never walks from the situation. Underneath all the difficult emotion was an abundantly present love of a daughter. The first chapter recounts her father’s life before his diagnosis. It’s a beautiful celebration of his life before dementia, including his sense of humor, his extraordinary passion for trains and music, and his time as a First Lieutenant in the Vietnam War.

Frontotemporal dementia is described as disease of a thousand goodbyes, like slowly losing the person you love in stages.  The author writes:

“When I got home, I, of course, got online and started researching the disease. What I saw was not good. Asshole internet, which so very often lies, refused to lie to me that night. The symptoms all matched: odd social behavior (disinhibition), inability to make changes or follow complicated instructions, heightened emotion, depression. Treatment was aimed at managing symptoms, not slowing or stopping the disease. There were no medications for that. Prognosis: death two to ten years after diagnosis, probably from pneumonia after aspirating food because of muscle failure. Two to ten years. Two to ten years. Two to ten years.”

This book leveled me.  I openly wept several times while reading it, especially in the second part of the book that read like a series of mostly unedited journal entries. I learned a great deal about the impact dementia has on a family. I also learned a great deal about how to advocate for someone living with this terrible disease.

The writing style is casual, and portions of the book read like an email from a friend.   It took a while for me to adjust to the casual style. I very much enoyed the artwork throughout the book.  The author uses images of elephants to portray herself, her father, and dementia itself because “an elephant never forgets” and “An elephant’s faithful 100 percent.”  The book ends with a list of songs, a playlist of the music that was mentioned throughout the book and has a special meaning or memory tied to the author and her father.  Fractures Memories is a must read for anyone who loves or cares for anyone living with dementia.”

And now, take a moment to read some of her other book reviews to find some other great new indie authors!!

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If you’d like to see my ridiculous thoughts translated into art, visit my website, or follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Know a caregiver, or someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone who knows someone else who’s a caregiver? Or heck, do you know a person? Well, you should tell them about my book, Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too. Part memoir and part coffee table art book, I recount my family’s heartbreaking and hilarious journey through my father’s dementia. Available to purchase here (this is my favorite way if you live in the U.S.), here or here if you’d rather get the eBook than a print copy, and here (especially if you want a hard cover copy).

Don’t Forget To Have Some Fun

01 Monday May 2017

Posted by in death, dementia, family, Fractured Memories, gratitude, mental health, Uncategorized

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Facebook reminded me recently about taking my dad out to fly a kite. So this is just a reminder for anyone else going through the caregiving experience. Dedicate some time for fun with the person you’re caring for. It can’t all be about the daily caregiving grind. You need to find a way to enjoy the person and remember why you love them enough to care for them in the first place.

For the year that we all lived together, we made Sundays a day to go out and do something fun as a family. So if it was a nice day, we flew a kite or went to a playground. If it wasn’t, we went bowling or out to dinner. Look for ways to rejuvenate yourselves and your love for each other. Get chair massages. Go out for ice cream. Have a picnic in your living room. Watch kids playing at a playground. Enjoy your favorite movie together.

And take pictures. I promise you that you’ll be so grateful later to see pictures of the person you love smiling.

dad with kite 3

dad with kite 2

The memories you build on those days will be a comfort once your caregiving experience is over.

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Thanks so much for reading my ridiculous thoughts! If you’d like to see my ridiculous thoughts translated into art, visit my website, or follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Know a caregiver, or someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone who knows someone else who’s a caregiver? Or heck, do you know a person? Well, you should tell them about my book, Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too. Part memoir and part coffee table art book, I recount my family’s heartbreaking and hilarious journey through my father’s dementia. Available to purchase here (this is my favorite way if you live in the U.S.), here or here if you’d rather get the eBook than a print copy, and here (especially if you want a hard cover copy).

Radios ‘n’ Reviews ‘n’ Such

10 Monday Apr 2017

Posted by in art, blog, book, death, dementia, Fractured Memories, gratitude, interview, Uncategorized

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Hey boys and girls,

Saturday’s radio show with Linda Burhans was a blast. It’ll be archived on her website soon, but if you missed it and just can’t wait, visit The Choice Radio Network’s Facebook page and scroll down to April 8th at 12:01pm. The show is broken up into 2 parts, and focuses more on my book in the 2nd part. Hopefully I’ll be able to give you a link to the complete show in one piece soon.

In the mean time, Joy Johnston, over at the Memories Project wrote a fantastic review of the Fractured Memories. So head over and give her site a little love!

Happy Monday! Now go out and kick a little ass!

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Thanks so much for reading my ridiculous thoughts! If you’d like to see my ridiculous thoughts translated into art, visit my website, or follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Know a caregiver, or someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone who knows someone else who’s a caregiver? Or heck, do you know a person? Well, you should tell them about my book, Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too. Part memoir and part coffee table art book, I recount my family’s heartbreaking and hilarious journey through my father’s dementia. Available to purchase here (this is my favorite way if you live in the U.S.), here or here if you’d rather get the eBook than a print copy, and here (especially if you want a hard cover copy).

Harass Your Local Librarian – But In a Really Nice Way

21 Tuesday Mar 2017

Posted by in art, book, death, dementia, family, Fractured Memories, gratitude, humor, karma, kindness, Uncategorized, writing

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It’s official! I shipped out over 200 copies of Fractured Memories today. It was a little bit of a fiasco at the post office, but after about an hour, everything was out of our hands and safely in the hands of the awesome postal workers. I had mixed emotions sending them off. It was kind of like kicking my babies out of the nest for them to fly on their own. Part of me wanted to keep them safe at home and part of me wanted to get all those boxes the hell out of my living room. By sending them out, I open myself up to critique, and I suck at handling criticism, even when it’s well-intended. I know bad reviews will come. Not everyone will like it, but all I can do now is cross my fingers and hope that a majority will. And maybe some of those people will like it enough that they’ll tell other people about it. Hint, hint. Like, maybe people will post it on their social media or have their book group read it or…

If you haven’t ordered it because you’re short on cash, consider requesting it from your local library. And ask your friends to request it, too. If librarians get enough requests, they’ll procure copies for their library. If you have ordered it because you’re not short on cash, first of all, congratulations on all the money! Second, consider requesting it from your local library anyway! Then, when you pick it up, thank them profusely and threaten to stuff them full of cookies until they’re sick if they don’t read it themselves. In other words, harass them, but be really nice about it. Librarians can really drive book sales. If they find a great book, they tell each other and recommend it to readers. Maybe tell them if they recommend it to people, a unicorn will visit them in the middle of the night and leave presents and money like Santa and the Tooth Fairy. Or maybe don’t say that because we don’t want them to know how cray-cray you really are. Rein that shit in, people.

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Thanks so much for reading my ridiculous thoughts! If you’d like to see my ridiculous thoughts translated into art, visit my website, or follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Know a caregiver, or someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone who knows someone else who’s a caregiver? Or heck, do you know a person? Well, you should tell them about my book, Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too. Part memoir and part coffee table art book, I recount my family’s heartbreaking and hilarious journey through my father’s dementia. Available to purchase here (this is my favorite way if you live in the U.S.), here or here if you’d rather get the eBook than a print copy, and here (especially if you want a hard cover copy).

book-cover-1

 

Blame It On My Youth

09 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by in death, dementia, family, Fractured Memories, gratitude, music, singing, Uncategorized

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I was going through old files on my computer, and stumbled across this. I had forgotten all about it. It’s one of only a couple recordings my dad and I made together (Dad on sax, me on vocals). I don’t know why we waited until after he had been diagnosed with dementia to sit down and record some music together. We had performed together with his band, The Red Hot Smoothies, a couple times, but we never took it seriously. I guess we always figured there’d be time for that in the future. Plus, as much as I do love it, I’m kind of shy when it comes to singing in front of people. And I looked up to my dad and I think I was always just a little bit afraid that my talent wouldn’t be quite good enough to merit performing with him. That was all me, not him. I know he would have been thrilled if I’d asked earlier. Regrets, y’all. Anyway, blame it on my youth. (be patient, it takes a couple seconds to start)

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Thanks so much for reading my ridiculous thoughts! If you’d like to see my ridiculous thoughts translated into art, visit my website, or follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Know a caregiver, or someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone who knows someone else who’s a caregiver? Or heck, do you know a person? Well, you should tell them about my book, Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too. Part memoir and part coffee table art book, I recount my family’s heartbreaking and hilarious journey through my father’s dementia. Available to purchase here (this is my favorite way if you live in the U.S.), here or here if you’d rather get the eBook than a print copy, and here (especially if you want a hard cover copy).

book-cover-1

Your Face In My Hands

07 Tuesday Mar 2017

Posted by in art, death, dementia, family, gratitude, kindness, painting, Uncategorized

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Have you all been watching This Is Us? If not, stop everything and go binge watch it. Now. I’ll wait…See??!!! It’s the best show on TV right now. In the most recent episode, a couple of the characters hold each others’ faces to help soothe them in a moment of distress. I was thinking about what an intimate and loving thing it is to touch someone’s face. We do it to our parents, our children, our spouses. It’s like we’re embracing the thing that most tells the world who we are – the physical manifestation of our identity. Even if we don’t normally consider ourselves beautiful, when someone touches our face lovingly, we feel lovely in that moment. It makes us feel seen, accepted, valued. Allowing someone to hold our face takes trust and an acceptance of vulnerability. And holding someone’s face in our own hands makes us feel tender toward them. It makes us generous and protective. It’s a true act of love, probably even more than kissing.

Let’s call it a face hug.

Even more than a year after my dad died, I can still feel his face in my hands. That thought, while sad because I miss it, does bring a quiet joy. And it reminds me of how much love there was between us.

Face in My Hands

Hopefully, I’ll be able to get this up on Etsy soon and post a link for purchase. Until then, you can get prints and other merch here and here.

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Thanks so much for reading my ridiculous thoughts! If you’d like to see my ridiculous thoughts translated into art, visit my website, or follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Know a caregiver, or someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone who knows someone else who’s a caregiver? Or heck, do you know a person? Well, you should tell them about my book, Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too. Part memoir and part coffee table art book, I recount my family’s heartbreaking and hilarious journey through my father’s dementia. Available to purchase here (this is my favorite way if you live in the U.S.), here or here if you’d rather get the eBook than a print copy, and here (especially if you want a hard cover copy).

book-cover-1

 

It’s Been a Year

14 Tuesday Feb 2017

Posted by in culture, death, dementia, family, gratitude, kindness, Uncategorized

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Sorry to have been missing for awhile, peeps. February 5th was the anniversary of my dad’s death, and I’ve kind of been hiding a bit. It was both harder and easier to deal with than I thought it’d be. It doesn’t feel like a year. A year. It still feels pretty damn fresh. To mark the anniversary, I went up to VA and met my mom out at the property we used to own. We’d okayed it with the current owner, who’s a really nice guy. We took some of my dad’s ashes down to the railroad tracks and scattered some there.

ashes-on-tracks

Then we headed into the flatwoods that have a lot of meaning to me, and were pleased to discover that the current owner also thinks it’s a special place. He left the jars there, undisturbed, set up some chairs facing the creek and added a little fire pit. Mom and I scattered more ashes into the creek and hid a couple pennies.

The next day, my mom and S and I went out to the cemetery to inter the rest of the cremains. They installed a nice bench under a huge old tree, and we put the box of ashes in and placed a penny with the word “thanks” written on it. When they put the top of the bench back on, we said a few words of thanks and placed a couple more pennies, then, since it was an absolutely gorgeous day, we wandered the cemetery and visited the graves of some friends and family that also reside there.

penny-for-nick-thankscemetery-bench

Was it hard? Yes. I miss my dad’s hugs so much – even the ones he gave towards the end of his life when he was a little stinky. There’s a finality to interring those ashes – the nail in the coffin, as it were. But there was also something healing in finally closing that chapter. There is nothing left to do now. There’s nothing hanging over our heads that needs to be done to take care of him. That’s a weird feeling, after so many years of making him our lives. There’s also some comfort in having somewhere to go if I desperately need to visit, though I doubt I’ll do that much. It’s time to move on.

So now it’s time to focus on the book. More on that soon. For now, though, thank you to everyone who helped us get through the last year since his death. It’s appreciated more than you know.