The Latest Chapter

 The familiar adage always has been, "You can't go home."  I never understood what this meant.  Most importantly if you go back to your childhood family, then this family only knows you as a child.  Consequently if you return as an adult, I am not sure your parents ever are able to accept you as an adult.  The rearing process, those formative years that require soul, are too strong.  They are a part of you.  "You can't teach an old dog new tricks."  I am not sure if this is true either.  It would seem most people adhere to this advice.  I didn't make a conscious decision to return home, but my mother needed help with my father.  After his stroke never was he the same.  We weren't wise enough then to understand this process, but at times it was a living hell for my mother.  Incontinence.  Losing is memory.  Finally she found a place for him, and it was nominal.  She had to go everyday to ensure he got the proper care.  After he died in 2017 my mother and I were in the house together for the first time.  I am proud to say she was able to stay at home until the ripe age of ninety.  Mostly it was inconsequential, but she began to have small accidents that presented challenges.  She broke her wrist falling over a gutter pipe.  She fractured her shoulder falling on the hard brick patio.  Ultimately the vertebra in her back began to give way.  I had to find things to do at home that were meaningful other than cooking for her.  I became a handy man.  Most importantly it was necessary to find shared experiences.  I took her life long interests in gardening, sewing, and cooking and developed my own skills.  I transformed our yard into a blissful garden.  I potted plants, planted a vegetable garden, and maintained the property.  The focus of my life changed, but because it was my childhood home it was not unfamiliar.  It seemed appropriate.  We forged a life together, and for me music was a small part of it.  Now that she necessarily has moved into assisted living, I am faced with forging yet a new life at the age of sixty-one.  For the first year I just continued with our pattern.  I planted another garden and I cleaned the yard.  The second year I became ill, and suddenly working in the yard began to make me sick.  I had allergic reactions to either pollen, bacteria, or fungi in the environment.  I never had this problem before.  Always I used to play in the woods as a child, and even up to this time I maintained the woods behind our house as motorcycle trails.  The emergence of poison in the woods seemed to coincide with overall strife.  Never had there been poison anywhere in these woods, but Climate Change, high humidity, and hurricanes brought about a change in the foliage.  All three kinds of poison emerged and became a menace.  I got it a few times.  Eventually I stopped working in the woods and focused on our own yard, which incidentally is one of the largest in the neighborhood.  This past winter when the oak leaves began to fall, I began my ritual blowing process.  I have a heavy duty expensive Stihl backpack blower, and it is the only possible way to gather the amount of leaves that fall over three months.  A blower.  Then you have to scoop the leaves in cans so the city will empty them.  Often it is ten or more large cans of dead oak leaves.  I have learned to enjoy this task and use it as exercise.  This year it made me ill.  Never have I felt such pain in my arm and shoulder with an angry accompanying rash.  My back hurts.  I have a bladder infection.  I get arthritis.  It is and was a world of hurt.  I had to figure out why the outdoor environment was contributing to his scenario.  Multiple doctors later, who never really tried to figure it out, I was able to piece together the diagnosis.  Bits and pieces of information from the CT scans, consultations, and lab work.  Eventually after seeing an oral surgeon and hearing his comments on my remaining wisdom tooth, it came together.  The disease is Actinomycosis, an anaerobic bacteria that behaves like a fungus.  It must be triggered by another bacteria.  All of pieces fell together, and each definition of the characteristics of the pathogen perfectly described my series of events.  It is serious, complicated, and can be deadly.  Instinctively I knew if I didn't figure it out, I would end up in the hospital without insurance.  What would follow was not acceptable.  I found insurance and partly it helped me figure it out.  Previously I talked about loss.  Suddenly I am faced with the prospect of never being able to work in the woods or yard again.  I think Covid has something to do with it.  (as the Boeing C-17A Globemaster lll glides over our house)  My mother is being evaluated for Hospice care.  Suddenly I cannot maintain our yard.  Music is difficult because of the constant low frequency rumble from low flying aircraft.  The need to relocated is emerging.  All of the things you were doing previously no longer seems possible.  Your life must change, again.  Luckily we have prepared, but living in limbo is not fun.  If a man is what he fights for (or what he does), what if he no longer can do the things he did?