Stories from the Steps

GRIEF, DENTYNE & DEMENTIA: “It was Dentyne”. That line from “Hoosiers” is my favorite movie quote ever. Hickory Husker basketball coach Norman Dale instructs his guard, Buddy Walker, that the man he’s guarding is chewing gum & he wants Buddy to stick so close that by the end of the game, he wants to know what flavor the gum is.
     As the game progresses, Buddy fouls out. Taking his seat on the opposite end of the bench from Coach Dale, Buddy looks to see his coach’s palms extended upward, his shoulders raised & a look that asks, “well?”. Buddy responds, “It was Dentyne”, & coach gives the knowing & satisfied grin of his player answering his question by giving all he’s got.
       Maya Angelou wrote, “I answer the heroic question ‘Death where is thy sting?’, with it is here in my heart & mind & memories.” I seem to have an inordinate number of friends asking the question Miss Angelou asked. One friend had to ask the question twice in a 5 day period as two important people passed away. Grief was too close & it was chewing Dentyne.
      Two other friends are playing the same defense as me. Every day we lose a parent one piece at a time as dementia unwraps its daily stick of Dentyne. We know too well the words of John Mellencamp’s brilliant “Minutes to Memories”, “…there’s no free ride, no one said it’d be easy… so suck it up, tough it out, be the best that you can…”.
       For one friend, a father that was a “car guy” was found reading Good Housekeeping in his care facility. A day ends back at home with, “It was Dentyne”.  Another is fighting a parent with the disease that is still hanging on to what reality is available while the other parent copes by taking the easy way out. “It was Dentyne” ends a day at that home too.
      Me, in the last months, I’ve sat in ER room 14 twice. Once with a fall causing my mom a broken arm before Christmas. It was Dentyne that day. Back again when a fall demanded four stitches after Christmas. Another day. Another stick of Dentyne.
      The point, to my friends defending against dementia, to readers who are playing defense against another sinister disease or a present that looks bleak or a past that keeps up its pursuit, is grief is okay. Between the black & the white, the light & shadow of victory & defeat, grief lives in the gray.
     Somedays it’s the soft grey of a spring rain cloud. Somedays, it’s the dark gray of angry, tornadic skies. It can be screaming at God through the roof of a parked vehicle in the driveway. It can be today being no worse than yesterday. Regardless, every day, it’s a stick, some days a pack of Dentyne.
     Missing the one that should be in the empty chair is okay. It’s Dentyne. Missing the one that still fills a chair with increasing emptiness is okay. Another stick of Dentyne.
      The emptiness is a reminder, music to hearts, minds & our memories of either tears or smiles. A reminder that in light & dark & shades of gray that we showed up & played defense. A reminder that when we take our seat on the bench as we foul out for the last time, we can answer our Maker’s “well?”, with, “It was Dentyne“.