Posts Tagged ‘old age’

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On the Other Side of Life: The Story of the Keys


2010
08.07

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Posted in Essays about Life, General | 4 Comments »

Six Keys by Don Whittemore

August. On the other side of the year, counting down. Life is Creative Every Day’s theme for August, and today I had a stark reminder of being on the other side of life.

My dad is 92.  His memory is going.  There are visible changes daily, and he’s in that delicate stage when he recognizes it.  On the other hand, my mom’s been beyond that stage for so long that she has no idea she doesn’t remember. She thinks she still does things like cook dinner.

Walking in yesterday morning at 9:30, I found Dad at the breakfast table with a handful of keys.  He was agitated because he had lost his keys the day before and was trying to scare up extras.  As he fiddled with the keys on the table, he got more and more disturbed.  I know some of it was caused by him knowing he’d lost something he couldn’t find, knowing his usually well-orgainzed keys were missing tags, knowing he was losing his grip on things.

Mom walked in and said, “Do you remember this?”  She was holding the key rack I made in Camp Fire Girls so very long ago.  It’s green with two big flowers and three hooks, and I thought those were the very most beautiful flowers ever painted.  (I probably can’t do much better right now.)  We talked about it and she wandered off with the key rack.

Dad caused a lot of this agitation himself because he is who he is.  Some of us have insight into ourselves and can make changes.  Some of us, like my dad, both do and don’t have insight.  I’m not sure I understand it: he can bemoan some of the habits his father had, yet have the same habits himself without recognizing them.  He knows he can be difficult (difficult is an understatement) but he’s never been able to modify his behavior.

So my sister had told him she wasn’t going to be there the day he lost the keys, but for him not to worry, there were duplicates and she’d get them made.  She thought she had finally gotten through and he’d just relax and wait.  But that’s not my dad.  Even though he is 92 and knows his stamina is limited, he spent the rest of that day looking all over the yard, even raking it, sure he had dropped the keys when he was fiddling with the fountain (a whole other story).  I’m sure he lost sleep over it, and he hadn’t even eaten breakfast when I walked in.

He just couldn’t stop being him.  He never would have lost keys in the first place; if he did he’d find them right away, and everything would be in order and in its place.  Basically, he would have been in control.  He never recognized that he always had to be in control, yet he understood that about others.  How can a person have awareness, even self-awareness, yet be blind at the same time?

One thing led to another: my sister had taken the extra mail box key so he didn’t know how he would get his mail! (No, she had one made for herself and checked the mail frequently for them.)  If only mother would have agreed to put a mailbox key on her key ring, he’d have that. But Mom can’t even find her purse usually.  Dad knows that.  He was worked into a fine froth.  I made a mistake, trying to divert attention.  I said, “Dad, speaking of purses, do you ever wonder what Queen Elizabeth carries in her purse? You know, she always has a handbag with her wherever she goes.  I think it’s empty.”  The mistake was, he didn’t laugh.  He said he knew why she carried a handbag! To carry her intimate items.  I’m thinking sanitary pads (except that she’s a bit old for those), but Dad was thinking lipstick.  Oh well.

So I said, “Dad, I’ll look and I’ll find the keys.”  And I set out, outside, since he was convinced that’s where he lost them.  But my sister called and asked me to check between the dryer and the wall.  I did.  I saw something that looked like it could be a key tag, but the space was tight and I couldn’t budge the dryer.  So I got a meat fork and tongs from the kitchen, used the fork to snag and pull out what did turn out to be keys, and the tongs to secure them and lift them out.  I noticed the key rack was right above the crack (somehow Mother put it back where it belonged), and Dad had probably returned the keys to the right place but missed the hook. He was so positive they were outside.

I stood up, Dad walked in, and I said, “Are these the keys?” He leaned on the dryer and began to cry.  He was exhausted from this incident. He was hungry, tired, and emotional.  I think mostly he was crying because he knew just how close he was to the other end of life; he knew how much he couldn’t do, and it was just too much.

Portrait of an Old Man by Egon Schiele

I moved the key rack to the other wall so if things dropped, they wouldn’t disappear into the gap.  Mind the gap.

When I left I called my sister and asked her not to tell Dad that it was her idea to look between the dryer and the wall.  Because I was a hero, and I just let myself be a hero.  I knew it was useless to try to explain that it was Cris, not me, who thought to look there.  In his emotional state he couldn’t have processed, so I let him laud me as the hero, the person who could solve anything.

Besides, I think it brought back some luster to my branch of the family after my husband tarnished it in the plumbing incident.

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Connect the Dots – an End to Strange Days


2010
05.10

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Posted in Essays about Life, General | 1 Comment »


Can you do great art, or even good art, or any art, while waiting in an airport? You can do the “any art” category with sticky things from an American Girl  polka dot book and watercolor pencils.   You can connect the dots.

I had a lot of time in the Denver airport, so I fooled around with a journal page I started at my daughter’s house.  It was idle time, which lets my brain sort, file, and process.  After all the mess of moving, during which I went to the soccer tournament in Las Vegas, the art opening in Oceanside, and Colorado for 10 days, I felt rather scattered.  Travel time helped me connect the dots.

I came home feeling settled, unhurried, and interested in connecting with family and friends.  I felt like, although we still have boxes and boxes to go and lots of little details, that I can be part of real life again.  It’s been like having a cold or the flu – you know you must have felt well at one time in your life, but you can’t remember what it felt like and can’t imagine feeling like that again.  And then, one day, you are better.  You remember.

During this time I had written an email to William.  Life was feeling surreal to me, and by writing I can process.  I called it Strange Days, and I’m going to copy it in here to try to explain how disturbing this move has been.  (I changed all the “yous” to “William” so it would make more sense.)

April 15, 2010

I’m having the oddest feelings lately and it’s all connected to moving.  Having made the conscious decision to move, making sure that we chose the kind of house we think we should grow old in, every single thing I put away, every picture I hang, takes on a new meaning.

My bedroom is now in its satisfactory state of clutter.  The only thing in the room indicating it’s a bedroom at all is the bed.  That’s a pretty strange and unconventional approach to a bedroom, but for me it’s functional.  Mostly it’s an office – I have two printers and a scanner, a computer, all my photo supplies.  Large bookcase.  I have a new curio cabinet full of all my little collectibles – the enameled boxes in the shapes of animals, the little glass animals, old metal monopoly markers, my Planter’s Peanuts salt and pepper shakers, an old skate key, a metal ice cream spoon that used to come with those sundaes in the freezer case, etc.  So many of the objects are rooted in the past.

As I put the objects in the cabinet, I think, what will these objects mean to me when I’m 73, or 83, or 93?  Will they be a comfort to me and I’ll still enjoy them? I have this odd desire to render everything sterile right now. But at the same time I plan to buy cabinets so I can finally display my Star Trek action figures and my Harry Potter action figures.  Then my mind fights a battle with itself – you’re 63 and you collect action figures?  You want to display them?  Well, why not?  Why can’t I do what I want?  But is it going to matter in 10 years?  Then I wonder why I’m thinking about it at all.

I feel kind of removed from things.

I look at the wall across from where I’m sitting – I put up pictures today.  There are five objects on the wall opposite.  My Bright Eyes Buddha poster, the birch tree photo I took in Alaska, the green leaf photo William took, the map William drew in 7th grade, and the beautiful leaf and fruit he drew for me the first year I came to Lugano.  Then on other walls there are two posters Michael gave me from shows he was in, two mirrors he made for me, lizards William gave me for my birthday the third year in Lugano, a special horseshoe Michael brought me from a trip, and on and on.  Nothing is fantastic art but it’s all precious.  It’s personal.

Over my desk I have the autographed photo of Jonathan Frakes (William Riker on Star Trek), the autographed photo of BB King, the poster of the Titans signed by so many of them (from a history day project), a photo signed by all the old 5th period lunch bunch from Fruitvale, and something Jeff Johnson made for me after I organized my first film festival at the Fox.  And my two Arthur Rackham book plates from the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.

I’ve pared down the photos.  I have quite a few of me with people who’ve died.  AIDS.  Michael Barrie, Ron Aiello, Charlie O’Malley, and then Dell Allen.  Cancer.  Then photos of family, William and Michael.  William and Michael qualify as family.

I could go on describing it all but I guess the point is I’m looking at it all from the perspective of being 80 or 90.  And I can’t even imagine what that will be.  I suppose that Mom and Dad’s current state is mixed into this strange feeling.  I really hope I’m not watching my future.  And I’m not even expressing the feelings I’m having with accuracy.

I like my clutter.  I’m happy with my things.  But I wonder about the feeling of removal.  I think it might have to do with the newness of the house.  Getting familiar with the area and getting it all arranged.  It may be less than a mile from our old house, but it feels isolated.  I didn’t think it would feel like that.  Being in a small, gated community on a very quiet street without much happening feels isolating.  Yet I know it’s just because it’s all new, and it’ll be a neighborhood like any other once we’re established.  I mean, the people from next door brought over homemade cookies to welcome us.  They have seven kids!  Wow.

I think what I have to do is start going to things again – openings (missed one tonight), gatherings (missed the writer’s workshop last night), get back in public and mingle.  But maybe what I really need is for my studio to get organized and for all the paintings to be hung, etc. so we feel like we are living, not moving.

I suppose this ill-defined feeling will pass of its own accord.  Hope it doesn’t take too long.

Of course, the feeling passed.  I’m home, things look and feel like home, and we love this house.  We’re thrilled with it.  The whole process of calling this move “Operation Old Age” in light of what we’ve learned from and about my aging parents, put a new slant on the idea of moving.  Psychologically, it was working a number on me that I didn’t even recognize.

Thankfully, I’ve connected the dots and it all feels right.  I feel like me.


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Operation Old Age Begins with a New Home


2010
02.23

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Posted in General, Photography | 3 Comments »

Today’s post is pretty darn close to the Creative Every Day theme of Home.  Coming at the end of February, this is the kicker.

We made an impulse purchase yesterday – we opened escrow on a house!  We seem to buy our houses with less than thought we give to spending $9.99 on a new can opener.  It’s not quite as alarming as it sounds, actually.  For anyone who’s been following my blog, you know that I’ve been dealing with aging parents.  Mom is 86 with Alzheimers and is starting to forget who people are; Dad is 91 and is just now repeating himself, forgetting things, sleeping most of the day, and Sunday told me he thinks his mind is declining.

That’s all pretty normal.  The problem is created by Mom and Dad giving no thought to their declining years other than a refusal to leave their home or let anyone in their home to assist.  Which puts the burden on us kids.  And “us kids” – well, we may be in our 50s and 60s, but we are still helping out our own kids with grandchildren.  The world is getting smaller and we are gravitating back to the days when extended families lived together or in a compound and assisted each other.  Only problem is, we don’t live near each other and we’re getting squeezed.  Even living in the same city is not near enough. I wrote an essay about that, Stuck in the Middle, mainly to get my thoughts square I guess.

So my husband and I concluded that we need to take whatever steps we can to ease the burden on our children NOW, when we are 63 and healthy and vital.  Because if we wait until we need to take steps, we won’t be able to.  We decided to sell our house – our beautiful house on the lake.  That was not an easy decision.  We love this house, we’ve put so much into it, and it’s been perfect for the grandkids and for entertaining.  But we thought we should have a one-story house with less maintenance, less yard, but most importantly, with a room and bath separate from the main house so that when we get like my parents are, someone can be hired to live in with us and take the burden off the kids.  And moving, while daunting and scary, can only get harder as the years pass.

We were going to wait a year and then start looking.  Just the other day I asked Mark if he’d given any thought to neighborhoods and suggested that we might want to think about areas we’d like.  Of course, it would be within a small radius of where we are now since two daughters live close by.  I said I’d always been curious about the San Trope development.

Which brings me to last Saturday.  I went out to take photos of orchards in bloom, took my usual route home which passed San Trope, saw an open house sign and on the spur of the moment turned in.  The street was Via Lugano.  Not only was Italy our favorite country, I visited William, a former student, three years running while he was in boarding school in Lugano, Switzerland.  It must be an omen.

I got to the house.

See the brown door?  That’s the front door.  This is the door to the left of the brown door:

It leads into a room and bathroom separate from the house!  I couldn’t believe it.  Some good karma was going on here.

Walking in the front door, there was a large area for a living room.

And a dining area with a built-in breakfront.  But take a look at that door you can barely see on the right.  It leads into a room with fantastic north light.  Studio, anyone?  I was getting goosebumps.

Nice big open kitchen with a giant island – something I’ve always wanted.  And the drawers have pull-outs so you don’t have to squat and search through the shelves for a bowl.  Knees work a little less well each year, so this is a wonderful feature.

A nice family room with fireplace (because we really need that in Bakersfield) and built-in entertainment center, which we’ll probably use to display sculpture.

Fantastic master bath – look at that tub!  Bathtubs are very important to me, and we can put in bars and a little staircase when I need it.  Like small dogs have to climb up on beds.

Now I was really flipping.  This closet is as big as a room, and the house is 2,800 square feet.

Next is the best part.  I was afraid we’d have to move into a smaller house in a crowded area.  But this house is on a golf course.

We may get hit by an errant golf ball, but we’ll never feel hemmed in.

The yard isn’t too bad.  Not much maintenance, and we’ll gradually replace the shrubs with cacti.  And we’ll plant a row of queen palms in front of the fence – it might block a golf ball here and there.

The front has a nice parking area, and when the trees have leaves it’ll be like a park.  And our end of the street ends with a canal, so no development there.

I drove home and said, “Mark, I’ve found our house.”  He came back with me, we went back on Sunday and made an offer, and by the close of Monday we were in escrow.  It’s a short sale but everything has been approved.  It all just seemed like fate.

Operation Old Age has begun.  Packing and moving will probably hasten the old age – Mark can hardly face it, but it would only have gotten worse.  And of course there is the matter of selling our current house.  Naturally, the next couple of months are the busiest of the year for me without selling, packing and moving.  We truly can’t afford to own three houses!  (The cabin in Alta Sierra is house-size.)

It makes us sound rich, which we are not.  In fact, I hope we have enough to get us through old age.  But compared to most of the world, we are wealthy.  We’re aware of that and quite grateful.  We’re wealthy in family, in possessions and health, in love and friendship, in self-fulfillment.  And we have the self-awareness to begin planning for the future as much as possible.  Operation  Plan Ahead, or Operation Old Age, is underway.

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You Got Something Against Pudgy? You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby…


2010
01.12

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Posted in Art, General | 2 Comments »

That little body is ME!  Sometime in 1946, the year I was born.  I was in the vanguard – the first baby boomer year.  And I was pudgy.  I think of Bobby Darin singing, “You must have been a beautiful baby, you must have been a wonderful child…’cause baby, look at you now!”

Why am I writing about pudginess – besides the fact that it’s Creative Every Day’s Body-themed month?  This’ll take a little backtracking, but I think I can do that.  After all, I’m reading Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust, which is widely held to be one of the classic books by one of the most brilliant authors, and if nothing else, Proust is a master at backtracking.  It seems no amount of explanation and diversion is too much as long as you return to the original point.

I awoke and checked messages this morning.  Leah had a tweet about her conversation with Goddess Leonie and she recommended her workbook and planner.  Since I do everything Leah says, I bought it and it’s going to be fun to fill out.  In fact, it’s going to be just what I need to focus my thinking for the year.

Next, I found I had three comments on yesterday’s blog – all from Julies!  Julie Jordan Scott said (and since the blog and comments are public I don’t think I’m breaking any confidentiality stuff by quoting Julie) (and anyway, I know Julie – we haven’t had long sit-downs or that much face-time, but I feel like I KNOW her, at least the surface.  There’s a lot of depth there.) so she said “It is like the shadow of my relatedness with my body is still there, but I know I am the one in control… not it. I am the one that makes the shadow move, it isn’t the shadow that makes ME move, unless I want to pretty it up or not have it appear quite so pudgy in my photos. LOL.”  You can look at the post for the whole thing, but the word PUDGY lept from the page and grabbed me around the neck.

But before I could think about pudgy or if three comments from three Julies signified something I ought to be paying attention to, I wanted to print out my Goddess Workbook and Planner.  My computer graciously allowed me to print 40 pages in color but refused to let me do any other work during that time except in slo-mo, so I decided to ride my bike around the lake and enjoy the beautiful 70 degree day.  Winter still lurks, but what a lovely respite from fog and gloom.

How am I doing with backtracking?  I’ve almost reached the point.  Pudgy, pudgy.  Chubby. Over-weight. Big. Fat. Obese. As I pedaled, noticed the cormorants, the coots, and a juvenile Canada goose amongst the coots, those words kept inserting themselves and I realized this is as good a time as any to discuss those words.  Those of us in the Creative Every Day challenge are obviously thinking about BODY this month.

I am all of those words – pudgy, chubby, over-weight, big, fat and obese.  I wasn’t always comfortable with this, but hey, it’s who I am.  There’s not much use in being who I am not.  But what made me this way?  From my baby picture you can see that I entered the world chubby.  And I stayed that way for a while.  But chubby was good then – I was healthy.  I “must have been a beautiful baby.”

My mom was NEVER pudgy or anywhere close to it, which is a good thing because my dad does not like fat.  To this day, the first thing he comments on is a person’s appearance, although he seems to have accepted the fact that I am fat.  Just the other day my sister said to him, “I know I’m gaining some weight, but you know what? I don’t care!” Or something to that effect.  Dad is 91 and he has held this power of  appearance over us for our entire lives.  I love that my sister was declaring her independence from weight-obsession even if she is 59.  It can take a long time to understand and come to terms with what our parents gave us – the good and the bad, and realize that they just did the best they could.

A lot of this came washing over me as I drove to Los Angeles a few weeks ago with my brother to attend my uncle’s funeral.  My brother probably had it worse than us girls – Dad’s obsession for him was height.  There’s nothing wrong with his height, but Dad talks about it still.  Height and weight examples: I was telling Dad what a wonderful help Uncle Jean’s daughter-in-law was at the service and reception, and the first thing dad said was, “Has she kept the weight off?”  Last week I was over with three of my grandkids, and Cooper, who is two, was eating several small cookies.  Dad actually said to her, “You don’t want to eat too many cookies or you’ll gain weight.”  And Dad was talking about one of the grandsons, saying, “Don’t worry, he’ll grow.”

Guess what?  I wasn’t worried about any of those things!  And I can only feel sadness for the overwhelming insecurities Dad must have carried his entire life if physical appearance was so critical.

But back to me.  That pudgy little baby started thinning out as a toddler.

In this photo, I think I have what is termed baby fat.  But “I must have been a wonderful child.”

I became a quite normal size 10 or 12 as a teenager.  Looking back, I realized I was extremely attractive, but I didn’t know it then.  I was always hearing about weight.  When I look back at photos (and I couldn’t find any to show here!) I realize I was just fine, Dad notwithstanding.

Then I went to college.  I was also going into a depression but didn’t recognize it at the time.  So I doctored it at the vending machine with Paydays and Hostess Fruit Pies.  My parents were worried.  Mom took me to a weight doctor who put me on speed.  We didn’t know then that the various colored pills he gave me to take at different times of the day were actually speed, but now we know he was a drug-dealing doctor.  I wish they could have taken me to a counselor instead of a quack, but Dad had the typical “man” attitude about counseling.  It was bad.  It meant something might not be so simple to fix.  Ignore it and deny it.  And the fix was simple – lose the weight and I’d feel better.  Except it was how I felt that resulted in putting the weight on!  And dang it all, I really looked ok.  Why couldn’t I have realized and believed that?

Not long after,  I fulfilled my dream of being married and having children.  Mark and I were married in September 1968, I became pregnant in October 1968, and we had our first child in July 1969.  After I stopped nursing (and you can eat a whole heck of a lot while nursing and not gain weight), I forgot to stop eating. Oops!

And I began the see-saw years.  Gain weight, diet, gain weight, diet.

Jumping ahead, this is what I looked like when my first granddaughter was born.  I was fat.  Somehow, my children and husband still loved me.  My husband never ever made one single comment about my weight and he continued to love me.  I think my father found that hard to believe, but it is true.  I wasn’t happy with it – but it was what it was.  Going back to what Julie said, the shadow was in charge of how I related to my body, not me.  I wanted to relate to a different body.

By my 60th birthday, I looked a little better.  I had come to some major realizations about body, which is what this reflection is all about.  I was ok with my body.  I had stopped dieting.  Unknowingly, I began the most effective diet I ever had by telling myself I could eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, and the heck with it.  As soon as I gave myself that permission, I didn’t want so much.

Do I want my body to be pudgy?  Not really, but it is (ok, it’s officially obese and the wii fit does not like my body mass index one little bit), and I have to truthfully say I don’t think about it.  I do fervently wish I didn’t have the spare tire around my middle, but gravity prevails and it’s just there and it isn’t going anywhere and neither am I.  In other words, if it’s a major threat to my health I’ll have some sort of surgery to remove it, but it isn’t so it’s staying right where it is – although I hate it.  But I dress accordingly and it’s me.  My skin looks pretty darn good and I’m convinced that the fat has kept it plumped up and prevented severe wrinkling.  That or the fact that I didn’t smoke or sun.  But I’m going with the fat theory.

Wow – I’ll bet Julie didn’t know her comment would lead to all this reflection on body!

So I must have been a beautiful baby, must have been a wonderful child…’cause baby, look at me now.

My husband and I don’t look so bad for 63-year-olds who have been married forty-one years.  As Popeye said, “I yam what I yam.”  My focus is on overall health and fitness (a life-long struggle) so my inner being can flourish.  The body will come along for the ride.

So did we deal with body?  Now, about that aging part...

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Best of 2009 – What article did I read that blew me away?


2009
12.03

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Posted in Essays about Life | 2 Comments »

Death.  Dying.  If we’re lucky, it happens later rather than sooner.  As a 63-year-old, I watch my parents age and put myself in their shoes.  My children will become me, watching me age and putting themselves in my shoes.  It’s been of sufficient interest? consternation? to me that I wrote an essay about it, Stuck in the Middle.  Today’s question asks, “What article did I read that blew me away?”

Last year, one article captured me.  In fact it just about screamed my name.  Waiting for death, alone and unafraid, by Thomas Curwen, L.A. Times, 2/28/09.  We are all “waiting” for death, but some of us are closer than others.  Perhaps because I’m watching my parents, at 86 and 91, either suffering from Alzheimers or waiting for death, this article resonated.

SchneidmanEdwin

Edwin Schneidman

It’s about Edwin Shneidman who, at age 90, is at home attended by caretakers around the clock.  Shneidman has spent his entire career with death as co-founder and co-director of the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center, chief of the National Institutes of Mental Health’s center for Studies of Suicide Prevention, and professor of thanatology at UCLA. He himself almost died two years ago from high blood pressure. Curwen: He expected everything to go dark, and when they pulled into the bay of the UCLA Medical Center, he started to cry, knowing that the doctors would save him. I understand.

Here are the passages I underlined, so they resonated at the time and still do.  These are the author’s words: Today will be the same as yesterday, the same as tomorrow, every day a waiting and a hoping for a good death, a death without suffering.  This is my father’s life at 91.  He’s tired.  He might have gone by now but for worry about my mother.  This is what life is like.  We want him to go now, both of them, before they succomb to full-time care and the indignities that come with helplessness.

Shneidman says people ask him often what the end is like and he answers: You’re driving down a road in the desert, and the engine suddenly stops, no Pep Boys, no Auto Club to help.  Whether the road continues is of no consequence.  It has ended for you.

He also says, and this statement grabbed me by the throat and wouldn’t let go: No one has to die, he is fond of saying; it will be done for you.  It’s living, however, that takes effort – to weather the sleeplessness and worry, the relinquishing of pride, the dependency upon strangers, the plea for respect and the struggle to remember.

My sisters and I watch my parents, my dad especially because my mom pretty much isn’t processing, struggling with this, and we struggle right along with them. We care about their dignity, respect, and dependency; the struggle to remember feels like a physical struggle and we’re in the ring.  We wrestle with it. We care about our own dignity when we are their ages, and we feel trepidation whenever Mom doesn’t remember.  Which is always.

But Shneidman redeems that struggle when he explains his philosophy of life. Because he believes life isn’t contingent upon a god or upon prayers. There is no heaven, there is no hell. Happiness lies in the here and now and the satisfaction of living a good life without religion or myths to guide you.  He takes nothing away from others’ beliefs.  He just prefers Moby Dick to the Bible.

He just explained my philosophy, especially in the sentence starting with “happiness.” If we’ve fulfilled that, we can only trust those we love to respect us in all the indignities that occur with old age.

And then this poignant, powerful passage.  Poignant especially because when my mother-in-law died several years ago and we were cleaning out her things, I looked at her pile of chipped, broken collectibles – that had so much meaning in her life – and thought, wow, does that sum up a life? It was a sobering thought.  So to the passage: In death, things become mere things – the statue of Venus in the backyard, the gyotaku print in the kitchen, the Melville-inspired shadow boxes – no longer animated by memory, the story of their provenance.  It is as if their atoms loosen and dissipate.

You can find the whole article here.

You can find Shneidman’s obituary here.