In case you were Wondering, Rhiannon does ring like a bell in the night

Update to The Wonder of Rhiannon:

I didn’t want to say a word until the surgery was over, but now it’s done. I’ve met with the surgeon who is pleased and hopeful a full recovery is eminent.

“There’s no reason she won’t live a normal life now,” she told me, then smiled and walked out of the consult room like she hadn't just delivered a miracle.

I sobbed. A dam crumbled and sadness pent up for nearly three years of watching my daughter suffer poured out. It was graceful at first and then with abandon.

But not for long before I pulled myself together and went down to postop and found my girl Rhiannon in high spirits true to the last verse of Natalie Merchant's Wonder. Fate finally smiled on her:

And destiny laughed as she came to my cradle

Know this child will be able

Laughed as she came to my mother

Know this child will notsuffer

Laughed as my body she lifted

Know this child will be gifted

With love, with patience and with faith

She'll make her way, she'll make her way

And then, for the first time in years she began making concrete plans for the future. They look like this: "Shop for a hot looking dress. Get massage - a Swedish massage. Go see my friends." 

No excuses friends, come get your girl. Take her shopping, go to a movie, get a mani pedi. It's time she started making her way. Time she started living. 

An open letter to Ben Affleck

Dear Ben Affleck:

No need to apologize for the bad behavior of past generations. Please, we know who you are. If you were a bigot TMZ would have told us that a long time ago.  

As a member of an American Indian tribe that lost ancestors to slavery during pre-colonial and colonial years, followed by generations of cultural genocide and our lands taken from under us, hardly a day passes that I don't regret the sins committed against my people, but I don't hold their descendants responsible for acts they had no part in. 

In fact, in 2009 I was invited to be the keynote speaker at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Mayflower Descendants society. The speech was long and quite honestly I feared I wouldn't get through it without having food thrown at me as I recounted the devastation suffered by the Wampanoag at the hands of the colonists.

I was talking to a room full of people potentially burdened with nearly 400 years of white guilt. 

Their ancestors brought disease, broken promises, and piety that pitied my ancestors as savages then tried to convert them. As a final insult all those Wampanoag who refused to assimilate or were otherwise deemed a threat to the colonies were packed aboard ships and sold into slavery.

But my salient point before finishing my speech that was followed by a standing ovation went something like this:

I do not hold any of you accountable for the sins of your ancestors. I hold you accountable for the future. 

Which is exactly what I would say to you.

Just the fact that you were embarrassed enough at the discovery of your forebear's connection to slavery to want it squashed shows that your family has evolved to a much higher moral ground. And now that it's out there, just as you said, it contributes to the ongoing discussion about the roots of racism and a period in history that we should never forget lest we be doomed to repeat. 

Carry on Ben Affleck. It's not your fault. Just raise your kids to be the next generation of change.

As the kaleidoscope turns . . .

There is an upside to Alzheimer’s you wouldn't realize unless you live with someone who has the disease. My mother jumps in an out of the last century like some people click through cable channels. Some days she is still in high school and expecting a visit from her boyfriend Rico, other days she is singing a song she learned in her grade school choir.

She doesn’t recognize a portrait of my father in the foyer that was taken when he was in his 60s but if I show her a picture of him in his army uniform she knows exactly who he is. You just need to meet her where she is, or as I recently learned, where she might have been.

The other day a social worker came to visit. It was the annual Elder Services check in. I updated her on how mom's cognitive decline continues to be slow but steady and changes to the care plan including how we ditched the dentures because they gagged her and the hearing aids too because they buzzed loudly and are an utter waste of time.

"What did you say?" mom interrupted then wandered away seeming to pay no mind to either of us. 

Other than the hearing loss, the worker was impressed with how well mom was doing at the age of 93 in her stage of dementia.

Then suddenly mom wandered back to the table. She stopped and looked at the woman, “You look just like my sister Denise.”

The worker was a slender pretty woman with olive skin probably in her late 30s. Her shoulder length soft brown curly hair had just a few wisps of gray that she didn’t try to hide. Even while I had only ever seen my aunt in aged black and white photos I could see what mom was talking about. My aunt was fairer than mom and had long ringlets of brown hair.

The woman smiled not knowing what to say until I explained that Denise was my mother’s twin who died of scarlet fever when they were 15-years-old.

What the worker didn’t realize was that Mom’s cognitive kaleidoscope had clicked another notch and produced a genealogical treasure for me, one more unique and special than revealing the name of her high school beau or songs she learned in grammar school.

The woman and I finished our paperwork. I stared at her across the table. A woman I hardly knew, a woman who visits once a year, a woman wearing the face of my middle aged aunt had she survived. 

What a gift.