10 May

Every Day: Small Act Of Great Kindness. Help Wanted.

by Jon Katz
The Creole Chronicles

Every day, the fascinating dynamic unfolds, people are urging me to get bigger, do more, expand in some way, while I, a lifelong wastrel, go smaller. I had this quite remarkable exchange from a reader who wanted to send me a check for $10,000 to completely re-furbish Saad’s spartan apartment, and help him buy a car.

I didn’t blink, I said thanks, but it was too much money, for her, for him, and for me. And for our work together.

All day people offered me cellphones, computers, money for cards. It was generous and warming, for sure.

But I kept remembering what I had learned over the past year: stay small, think small, support these need people, don’t take over their lives.  A friend suggested I get a lawyer to look at ways to grow. I said a lawyer was the last thing i wanted in my life and work. And I have no desire to get bigger.

Saad couldn’t handle a oomputer now, and all he needs is some posters and paintings on the walls.

And we have them. One friend is sending some framed prints, an artist in Vermont is donating two watercolors. I accepted $500 to help Saad pay his cell  phone monthly fees, and another five hundred for some orthopedic chairs. Next  week, I’ll  bring him a $200 TV set.

Ali has discovered a local cell phone provider who is offering a special promotion, and will give Saad an I phone 6 for $200 and the dying old phone he carries around with him, but has not been able to afford to use for a year.

I knew it was dangerous to overwhelm Saad, to give  him things he can’t know how to use, and can’t afford to pay monthly fees for. It’s just a pathway to trouble down the road.

Ali and I had a long talk about how to help him, and we are going ahead with plans to get him a new cell phone, one everyone around him knows how to use, enough month to pay the monthly fees, hopefully for a year,  a new 32 inch screen TV, money for a deposit on  cable  installation for Internet and TV.

Also an old lamp or two from thrift stories, a new radio being sent from the Midwest, and another round of groceries. We will stay in touch with him, but that help is appropriate and proportionate. He needed a lot.

Next week, we must turn out attention to others, first a mother from Syria with two small children, nor car or money and a paraplegic husband severely injured in a recent accident. She was recently evicted from an apartment because she was $75 short for two months. She has a job, but can only work so many hours because of the children. She makes minimum wage cleaning floors.

She is now living with her  children in a city shelter. She needs help more urgently than Saad, now that he is in his apartment,  although we will continue to help him insofar as we can. The challenge is to use our resources wisely and thoughtfully, and to know when to let go and move on.

But the truth is, she doesn’t want or need thousands of dollars. She wants $75 a month for a few months to get an apartment, perhaps even her old one back, and continue to look for better paying work, or work longer hours. This, and perhaps some groceries, is something we can do, it is a small act of great kindness. Every week, I have to fight myself and resist the impulse to do more – the need is so great. If I do that,  I soon won’t be able to help anybody.

This morning, another great example of small acts – I gave Guerta at the Mansion two books written in Creole, the only language she speaks. The look on her face was priceless, she loves to read but has had nothing to read for a long time. This cost $14 and will alter her life at the Mansion. For more than a year, I’ve watched her sitting quietly on sofas looking out the window. Turns out she is an avid  reader.

So please don’t send me $10,000 of your money, i know few people will do that, perhaps no one ever will again, and i’ve pangs of regret. But. smaller amounts are welcome and very much-needed, and more in line with my philosophy of how to keep this working. I don’t mean to suggest I don’t want help. I cannot do this alone.

If you wish to donate to this work of good, you can send a contribution to the Gus Fund, c/o Jon Katz, Post Office Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or via Paypal, [email protected]. We are locating families who need help that we can provide, help that makes a difference and lasts. Help in small, not enormous amounts.

Just look at how long it took me to get sensible.

Thanks for your help.

10 May

Awesome. The Albany Warriors In Their New T-Shirts And Sweatbands. Sharp!

by Jon Katz
Awesome. Looking Sharp. Ali and his soccer team. Sweatbands and T-shirts

Casey Stengel and  George Patton both said if you want to be sharp, look sharp. I have never learned to look sharp, but perhaps I can help other people to look sharp. I’ve never paid much attention to what I wear, but I also know it can be important.

Refugee children all tell stories of harassment, they are, after all, very different than most of the kids they go to school with. They speak differently, they don’t have the money for the the best devices, they often have different clothes they wear every day. They are ridiculed, teased, taunted.

So appearances can be important, especially on the American soccer field, where it is the custom to see rows and rows of wealthy parents cheering and waving their sons and daughters on. I’ve only seen one parent once at one refugee soccer  game, most of them live with single mothers, nobody has cars to drive off from the long hours that they work.

In a sense, Ali functions in loco parentis, and in a different way, so do I. It is our jobs to bring these children up, to foster their pride and hope, provide everything we reasonably can to make them proud.

We surprised the refugee soccer team today with sweatbands and new T-shirts to wear for practice. Thankfully, the team has changed its name from the “Bedlam Farm Warriors” to the Albany Warriors, that much better reflects who they are and where they are. (I was never easy with that “honor,” this is not all about me.)

I never wanted to have the team named after the farm, it was their idea and  I’m relieved that circumstances have changed.

Of course these means we have to get new uniforms sometime in the next year. But today it was a lift for the kids to continue their march towards equality and dignity in the raucous and competitive soccer world of urban and suburban America.

I got them bright red shirts and colorful sweatbands. Everybody will notice them, see them coming, and Ali said they simply loved the T-shirts and sweatbands, they all felt like “soccer warriors,” he said.

They are steadily making the transition from their home countries, where they played soccer barefoot and in back yards, to their new home, where  soccer is a lavishly-funded upper middle class obsession. For these children, soccer if different, it means building their confidence, forming community, learning trust and acclimation. Ali has seen their growth since the team was formed. I’ve seen it in the much shorter time I’ve been around.

A band f brothers, good for them. They truly watch out for each other. Ali has taught them that, among other things.

It seems a long time ago that these kids were showing up at soccer games in flip-flops and shorts. I think they look fierce and confident and Ali, the biggest child of them all,  is delighted, he got a T-shirt also, it says “coach” on the back. I have rarely heard him so happy, he sent me this photo at their practice today and called me up to make sure I got it on my phone. I swelled up with pride a little bit also.

If Ali is my brother, these soccer players are now family. We watch over them.

10 May

A Visit With Ed Gulley And Shiver. Acceptance, For Sure.

by Jon Katz
Visiting Ed

Ed and I were supposed to have lunch today, but he had to cancel, one of his grandchildren was rushed to a hospital in Albany after suffering a high fever for days. I really felt for Carol, the worry in her face  was profound.

Their grandson is undergoing tests today and tomorrow. I  thought it would be helpful to bring some soda and pizza and dessert over for dinner and leave it there, we didn’t expect them to be home.

They had gotten  home early from their meeting with a lawyer to sign papers that will turn the farm over to his children, and give Carol lifetime rights to the farmhouse..

Ed has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and next week, he and Carol are hoping to set out on a trip to Indiana and visit some old friends. If Ed is up to it, they might take a break for Montana, if not, they’ll come home for good.

There are numerous  tumors in Ed’s brain, and he has declined any kind of extreme treatment. Many of his friends and relatives have urged him to undergo surgery or chemotherapy, but he won’t, and is at peace with his decision. It is not a decision I would every argue with, one way or another. It is intensely personal. But many people believe they know better.

We sat in the new room Ed built himself – his rescue cat Shiver hangs out with him there – and we talked for an hour or so. I invite Ed out to lunch every day, sometimes he can make it, sometimes he can’t.

Ed and Carol  want to spent some time alone together traveling, this is very important to him. I hope it is an easy and meaningful experience for them. I urged them to buy a new Apple laptop, as I suspected, they went for a cheaper Hewlitt-Packard laptop from Staples, as I knew they would.

I hope the customer service is as good. This is a more comfortable choice for them.

I wrote yesterday about being the friend who cares, and I hope to be that  friend for Ed. The friend who shares his pain but does not try to take it from him or steal it. The friend who can  touch his wounds and his pain with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent in despair and stay with him.

I sometimes have trouble with the gentle part, I asked Ed how he was today, and he said “great,” without skipping a beat, as men do, and I looked him in the eye and poked him in the chest and said “don’t lie to me, do you hear me? Don’t lie to me. You can tell me to mind my own business, but you can’t lie to me! We’re not going to do that.”

He stopped and looked startled and told me how he really felt.

He is okay, he is accepting his illness, he has no plans to “battle” his cancer, as people often say they are doing.  Ed says he feels pressure in his eyes if he reads too long, and tires easily. He spends the day on his new throne, the couch in the living room extension he built last year with his own hands and with some cats and dogs.

He is not withdrawing in any way, quite the opposite, he is eager to meet and talk with friends, neighbors, farmers, e-mailers.

Carol is always with him, except when she runs out to shop.

The obits always say someone lived or died after a long “battle” with  cancer, but it is not a war in my mind, it is a powerful chapter in life, and that kind of illness cannot often be cured by will alone. Ed isn’t in a fighting mood, he knows better than to militarize fate.

I will be  honest, he is different already, he is beginning to leave me and others, he has changed.

And of course he has.

He is almost desperate to talk about what is happening to him, he talks to waiters and salespeople in box stores about it, he talks to neighbors and old friends and relatives and blog readers and e-mailers about it. He is a man on a journey, opened up and changed forever.

Neither he nor I can tell any longer what the line is between the cancer and Ed’s mind.

I just don’t know. I am quite sure he doesn’t either.

Ed’s sense of humor is there, he is seeing visions and ghosts and Pilgrims and Indians, he is in a deeply spiritual mood, it is a time of  reflection for  him, not lament. He is gentler, softer, more open. He is very centered on  himself.

He is thinking and writing and reflecting all the time, he does not stop.

I don’t have any answers for him, and he has few questions for me. I think of the friend who can tolerate not-knowing, not curing, not soothing, not healing, and who can accept the reality of our ignorance, our mortality, our powerlessness.

I hope to be that kind of friend for Ed, he has always been that kind of friend for me.

I told him I would invite him to lunch every single day. He should come when he wants to, if he wants to. He might be leaving as soon as Monday on his trip. Godspeed.

10 May

Tea And Scones With Joan. Tales of Sacandaga Lake. “My Daughter Is Dead”

by Jon Katz
Joan’s Memory

Joan and I have become friends, in the very curious way of relationships that evolve in my therapy work. It is common for me to love the people I meet in this work, it is very rare to see one as my friend.

I come and go, and usually Red is what people want to see, I don’t usually get the chance to get much closer than that. When I go to the Mansion, I have a lot of people to see and talk to, a lot of ground to cover, almost everyone there loves to touch a dog. But i can’t say we all are friends.

How does one become friends with someone who has severe memory trouble? I can’t really say, I’ve never had a friendship like this before. Joan and I just connect, we talk often and for long periods of time.

I doubt Joan knows my name or Red’s name or can remember either, but she knows both of us, and recognizes both of us, and we are both happy to see one another. You either connect with someone like Joan or you don’t. It isn’t about words, but feelings.

I do.

Tonight, I visited Joan at the Mansion, she and some of the other residents were having tea and scones. I had a cup of tea and sat down next to Joan, we talked in our easy but circular round-a-about way for more than a half hour. I love to talk to Joan, we go up and  down, hither and  yon, round the bend and over the hill.

She laughs, cries, shakes her head in wonder and exclaims. I could sit there forever. Two oddballs, I suppose, trying to be understood.

I often start the conversation by asking Joan about the Great Sacandaga Lake, settled by the Mohawk Indians and located at the base of the Adirondack foothills, about an hour and a half from the Mansion. Joan grew up there, in a big and beautiful house by the water, she says.

She told me how much she loved fishing, and what bait she used and what fish she caught. She talks about the handsome visitors to their big  house, men who stayed around all summer. She talked about the children  who defied her stern father’s orders and swam in the deep art of the lake. They often were found out and spanked. Her father, she said, was a tough and stern man.

She talked about the guests who wouldn’t leave and I asked her if she ever wanted to throw them out, and she looked horrified and shook her head and said, “oh, no, no, no, I could never do a thing like that.”

At some point, it seems, she was the town clerk of Sacandaga Lake, she mentions it but does not talk much about it.

It’s an interesting thing about memory, I have learned at the Mansion. It never really goes away, it just gets buried in places where people can’t get to it. If you find the right buzzwords and memories, it comes right up. It never actually dies, it just hides and the brain can’t find it.

I have known for some time that Joan’s  young daughter was murdered by her boyfriend around the Sacandaga Lake,  and seen old clippings about it.

Joan has many memories of the lake, but she never has mentioned her daughter. We had our longest talk about the lake, and her very beautiful and happy memories of growing up and living there. She misses it every day, she says. She often asks me to take her for a ride  up there, perhaps one day I will get to do it.

Tonight, we had the nicest longest talk, like two old college chums getting together for a drink, always happy to see one another. As I got ready to leave and gather my things, Joan took my hand as she usually does and thanks me for talking to her. “I enjoy it,” she said, “I really do.”

And then she looked me in the eye and said, “you know, my husband is dead. My daughter is dead.” She started to say something and she clasped my hand with a surprisingly firm grip. And then the thought flew away, and wiped her eyes and ate some of  her scone.

I have a date to take Joan out to lunch next week and also do some reading with her tomorrow. I doubt she will remember our  date, but I will.

10 May

Mansion Wish List: Four Items Left – Help Build A Beautiful Garden

by Jon Katz
Build A Beautiful Garden

There are only four items left on the new Amazon Mansion Wish List.

The residents are trying to build a beautiful garden, even more lush and productive than last year’s. The Mansion gardens are shocking beautiful, well l aid out, and important to the residents.

They eat the vegetables, put the flowers in their room, tend and water the plants, weed when they can. The Army Of Good bought a picnic table and some chairs last year and so they are planning to sit outside and care for the garden or watch if they can’t move much themselves.

The Mansion garden is a labor of love.

The wish list has made the garden radically better, bigger, more varied and colorful. They are shooting this year to win a Garden Club ribbon. I think they have a fine shot.

the residents are hoping for some flowers they have never planted before. The Rhineland Astilbe on the list is currently unavailable, says Amazon, so is the Crocus Grand Collection.

Perhaps I can find these flowers elsewhere and sent them to the Mansion (11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816). I’m not a gardener, but the Army Of Good has a lot of them.

I think the Tulip Bulbs are the last flowers on the list that are available.

I will be closely following the Mansion gardens, and posting photos.

I love the idea of building this garden, it an  affirmation of life and color and light, so essential to the Mansion residents.

I imagine the Tulip Bulbs won’t last long, and thanks so much for supporting the Mansion Wish List Project. You have no idea how much a difference you are making.

You are keeping good alive.

Much love and gratitude. You can see what’s left of the Wish List Here. Oh yes, there is also a four-volume set of Elvis Cd’s but I spent enough money already. It costs $49. I think Julie is swinging for the bleachers.

Check out the wish list here.

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