A Good Home

Known for my Cooking

Cynthia Reyes

First written about five years ago

I’m known for my cooking. How I wish that were not so.

I burn things, miss some of the ingredients, or forget what I added then put them in all over again.

It’s right there in my books, on my blog, and in the memories of everyone who knows me. And now nobody trusts my cooking.

Take my friend Marilyn.

“Do come for lunch”, I say.

“Oh, great,” she says.  “You choose the restaurant.”

“Choose the wha….?”

What’s the point in visiting a person at home if you’re going to go out for lunch, I think? But I was so glad to see Marilyn, I didn’t say it.

Then there’s Elaine.

“You make the tea,” she said. “But I’ve read your book. So I’ll bring something for us to eat.”

Then one day Jane took sick. Sick people are usually glad to eat what someone else cooks, so I decided to make her one of the few dishes I do well.  

Hmm. Cauliflower stew?

Maybe chicken?

“I could make you a roast chicken”, I phoned Jane and said, not revealing the thing was already seasoned and in the oven.  I was so sure she’d say “Yes”.

But Jane politely declined. “I have pneumonia,” she said. “Don’t want you to get it.”

“I didn’t know you could catch pneumonia from someone else,” I argued.

“Well, with your luck, you just might,” she replied. “But thank you, dear.”

And with that, she hung up. There’s no balm in Gilead, I thought.

So there I was, stuck with a whole roast chicken sitting in my oven. Or lying on its back, as roast chickens are wont to do. Surrounded by lovely roast potatoes.

But the real reason I didn’t push the chicken is because, since I had to deliver it whole, I wasn’t sure how it tasted.

“How ‘bout we eat half and bring her the other half?” I asked my husband.  “That way, we will already know how it tastes. And I’m sure she’ll accept it if I tell her you said it’s good.”

“You can’t bring someone half a chicken!” he replied. “It’s like giving someone your leftovers.”

“But they won’t be leftovers!”

He wasn’t buying it.

What to do?

I’ll cook something for Muriel, I think.

My friend Muriel was in her 80’s, her husband Michael in his 90’s. Michael took seriously ill and had been in the hospital for weeks. Muriel, meanwhile, needed all the help she could get. She spent almost every day at the hospital, returning home exhausted.

I briefly considered giving her a roast chicken too, but then I started to worry – what if it had too much seasoning for her taste? Worse, if she got sick anytime in the next 10 years, I’d know it was my chicken that did it.

Then Muriel called to say Michael was improving. I was so happy, I unthinkingly offered her both roast chicken and butternut squash soup.

She immediately – perhaps wisely – accepted the latter, and I only briefly wondered if Jane had tipped her off.

My soup, meanwhile – made with butternut squash, apples and onions – always turns out well.

So I decided to bring soup for Muriel. And soup for Jane.

Both appreciated it. Success, at last!

But within days, my poor husband claimed he was sprouting feathers.

“Chicken again?” he asked.

Yes, my dear. Until that roast chicken is all gone.

A Good Home

I Got Tripped Up

Cynthia Reyes

I have written 3 memoirs and done author readings to countless audiences. You’d think I’d be a pro at speaking about my own life. But recently, I surprised myself.

Each month, 2 members of the public art gallery board to which I belong are asked to give personal presentations so we may all have a better understanding of each other: who we are, the lives we’ve lived and what talents we bring to the board. Everyone takes it seriously and much work goes into each presentation.

For me, the challenge wasn’t what to put in but what to leave out. My projects in the television industry, writing, and the community have won so many national & international honours that the choice, in the end, was easy. Leave out most of it; focus on just a few items; read a couple brief excerpts from one of my books.

So what tripped me up?

I spoke very briefly about my early years in Jamaica and our family’s homes and gardens there, sometimes reading from A Good Home, my first memoir.

I mentioned, almost in passing, a painful sacrifice my parents made for the betterment of their children.

Reference to my own years in high school (a tiny girl in a land of giants) was equally brief. Then I mentioned my first children’s book, Myrtle the Purple Turtle, and how it came about because my younger daughter was bullied (age 5 almost).

For all my alleged smarts, all the outstanding achievements, I didn’t realize that the combination of those 3 events in one presentation would hit me in the gut, right in front of an audience.

In the early years after A Good Home was published, I protected myself: I stayed far away from discussing anything to do with the car accident, the PTSD, and the pain that bedeviled my life. My audiences knew that and cooperated.

This time, though, I was tripped up by older memories – recollections that I didn’t expect to trigger such strong emotion. I didn’t cry but that’s only because I was ‘doing the duck’ thing – calm on the surface, paddling like hell underwater.

Am I sorry I included those mentions? No. So, what did it teach me? I’m not sure. Because if I needed to, I’d probably do the same thing again. Except that I’d probably space them out, realizing that these were still painful memories. And I’d have a glass of water nearby.

I hope you’re having a great week,

Cynthia.

A Good Home

Rain and Other Blessings

Cynthia Reyes

There’s so much rain here this morning, the tree branches are drooping low above the deck – so low that I would have to dodge them if I went outside.

But you’ll get no complaints from me – as my mother would remind us children when we wouldn’t eat our vegetables: “Be thankful! Children in some parts of the world are starving.”

Indeed, I am thankful that we have enough food and that it is raining. I’m also aware that people in some parts of the world are in the grip of a punishing heat wave or drought, and that, even in the “developed” countries, some children don’t have enough to eat. How we take care of each other and how we take care of the earth (so she will take care of us in return) are twin issues we still haven’t sorted out as a species.

In the last few weeks, I’ve also had reason to look closer to home. At my husband, who continues to support me, his children, grandchild and his mother and still does volunteer work to help make others’ lives better.

Recently, a not-for-profit organization he’s chaired through the last 3 challenging years honoured him for his leadership at a dinner in downtown Toronto.

Director after director stood up to praise Hamlin for his outstanding leadership during this challenging time – the kind of leadership which some said they’d never experienced before.

But it was the incoming chair’s reference to Hamlin as a real-life Armand Gamache (main character in Louise Penny’s Three Pines series) that moved me almost to tears. I understood the reference right away because I’ve read all Louise Penny’s novels and admire the fictional Canadian police inspector Gamache, but it never occurred to me that the qualities I admired about Gamache were qualities my own partner also possessed.

I should have known. Armand Gamache is a thoughtful, courageous, and wise leader who asks the right questions in tough situations. He takes care of his team, and in his private life, is a dedicated father and grandfather, a good friend, and a lover of literature and the arts. He carries some old wounds. He occasionally makes personal and professional mistakes, but acknowledges and works to correct them. But his values are solid.

Later, the speaker, Yvon, privately explained to me further why he thinks Hamlin and Gamache are so alike. I kept my composure – barely. Yes, I agreed: Gamache and my husband are alike in the ways that matter. It just took someone else to point out the similarities.

Later, I thought of all the other sacrifices my husband has made that his colleagues don’t even know about.

I look at this brave man who held the fort through the post-accident years, as my harrowing recovery dragged on and on and drove me to despair. He took over everything – the company we ran together, care of home, care of me. How did he ever sleep or rest?

Some days, I see the price he paid for being the strong one when I was at my weakest. He should be retired now, but all those treatment expenses, all those years of lost income, took their toll on us both. He should complain, but he rarely does. Some days I wish he would… Instead, he has made a practice of focusing on our blessings.

So this post started with gratitude for rain, the earth, and our blessings, and has become a thank-you for my husband.

Sometimes, your life’s greatest blessings are right there beside you.

I wish you a good week,

Cynthia.

A Good Home

An Interview with Paula de Ronde

Cynthia Reyes

Paula de Ronde dreamed of writing a book – but never this book.

Q: You were a senior librarian with the Toronto Public Library. What is your relationship with books?

I love books.  I am in love with words. Reading has been my number one pleasure all my life. Still today I wake up with a book and go to sleep with a book.  It’s more than a habit, it’s me.

Books are gateways to the world. They provide the greatest pleasure anyone can enjoy on their own, or with family, friends and a community. Books are for information, recreation, education. They transform, inspire and transcend the mundane.

I wanted to be a librarian to put people and books together for them to discover the world and the knowledge in it. An informed society results in a more compassionate society. Knowing this led me to my added advocacy work on behalf of libraries and their value to their communities.

Q: What made you write this book? 

No one is prepared for this diagnosis or to be a caregiver for this particular disease. So, given my background, when those fatal words were uttered I donned the librarian’s hat and instinctively knew who to ask and where to look. As I found information, sorted out help and support, read others’ accounts of the dementia journey and experienced the convoluted Alzheimer’s world, I realized that I needed to share the information. A dementia diagnosis will always be an ambush but may be less traumatic if you are aware of where to find help. This is a situation that begs for help, professional help and appropriate community resources.

I also wanted to support, enlighten, educate, guide and most of all give as positive a take on the disease as I could based on our own experience.  The more I learned about the various levels of help, the less traumatized I felt. Peer support was invaluable.

Caregivers face a life sentence of 6 to 20-plus years.  Those years spell sacrifice and a dramatic change for at least two people. Your loved one has the disease but it affects you just as much. So the caregiver must carve out a life that lasts for that sentence. Being informed of what is ahead will help you plan to live with as much joy as can be had.

Q: Your book reveals the daily challenges and joys of a caregiving relationship between a wife and her beloved husband. What’s been the toughest experience/challenge and what’s brought you most joy?

The disease is a tragic comedy and sometimes the comedy is more evident than the tragedy. It has taught me to live in and out of small. Once you accept the fact of the inevitability of this disease’s trajectory, with death always hovering, you begin to notice the small things. 

The irony? The toughest challenge and joy may come from your own memory.

I did not recognize how much I was grieving until the day my Bert entered the living room half dressed in pull-ups ready to watch a video with me.  This was my rock, my knight, the proper gentleman whose purpose was to make me happy. My Bert is my greatest fan, my encourager, for whom I could do no wrong. Here was my partner in joy and sorrow. I looked at him and knew that Alzheimer’s was taking him from me and I grieved.

Another enormous challenge was accepting the fact that my Bert would end up in a Long Term Care facility.  It is perhaps the most gut-wrenching decision a caregiver ever has to make.

What has brought me most joy?

I am not sure I have experienced the greatest joy as yet. Here again memory is most evident.  Our travels are amazing. Our life experiences both good and horrible are over the top both before and now during this journey. As the disease progresses we have learned to look at ‘small’ and take the moments of joy that come in the most unexpected ways. It is the days my Bert looks at me and in the midst of chewing says: “I love you very much.”

I smile as I remember the counselor from the Society who just held me tight when in tears I asked: “Have you ever had a client rail at the fact that she could not stand one more ‘I Love you’ from her spouse?”

It’s the little wave I get as I enter the home and the loud ‘that’s my wife.’ It’s how he remembers our son and daughter-in-law and the familiar gestures he makes that confirms the memory. It’s laughter. Oh, how we laughed with our friends and family and still laugh.  His spontaneous gift of laughter is always evident. His innate chivalry is intact. 

It’s the fact that the disease may be taking away my Bert’s personhood but not his character. My Bert equals joy.

Q: What do you think Bert would say/feel about your book, if he could?

I have read a few paragraphs to him and he will say something like: “That’s me? My head is not right.” I read the happy parts and those that refer to his past in The Netherlands, the war, his siblings. He has for ages told me I should write a book and he likes to hold it. I am grateful that once again my Bert has been the enabler for another of my dreams. I am so deeply sorry that he does not know that he is the star of what he holds in his hands. If he understood he would be out declaring to the world that I am the greatest writer that ever lived!

Q: Memoir writers often contend with the issue of privacy – what to put in, what to leave out. How did you resolve it?

It took some doing but once I decided to put our story into print, the motivating factor was that it had to be real — truthful, unencumbered by too much modesty and recorded in a way that illustrated the good and the bad. There were parts I did not have to include as just saying the words dementia or Alzheimer’s brings up certain pathologies of which even the uninitiated are aware.

However, there is no getting away from some private moments being put ‘out there’ especially when the dynamic duo are spouses. What was important was that in sharing our story I hoped to provide credible and helpful information to readers and to do that I had to share the whole story.

Q: You have a way with words. Is this your first book? If so, what took so long?

Like many, I have been a closet writer for a very long time.  I have a collection of bad stories, poetry, extended stream of consciousness articles plus travel journals that I visit and cull maybe once every five years.  I write every day in a journal.  The truth is that I suffer from imposter syndrome especially after I have read a good book.  Yet even as I denigrated my own writing I was aware that good writing is simply a good story. 

Writing throughout this journey is my therapy but more than that, I wanted to spare others, to ease the journey just a little by allowing them into my own story, to introduce the tools that worked for me and perhaps can work for them with a little tweaking to fit their particular situation.

Now that the genie is out of the bottle I can’t wait to do another book.  Did I say that?

Paula’s memoir, My Bert Has Alzheimer’s, is widely available through online booksellers and at A Different Booklist in Toronto.