Where Bluebirds Gather

By Sandra White

“It gave years of vacuous nothingness, and those who loved them and cared for them, years of stress, fear, and feelings of helplessness.” These are the words a physician uses to describe Alzheimer’s Disease in my novel, Where Bluebirds Gather. This story portrays the life of Gladys Ames, as she navigates her 87-year-long journey through life-years of joy and grief, victories and defeats, admirable gains and heartbreaking losses. The story follows her life as an inspirational journalist and a memorable writer. Throughout the book, the specter of Alzheimer’s appears-first afflicting Gladdie’s grandmother, then her dearest friend, and finally, Gladdie herself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TheFictionWorks
• Release date: Oct 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781581243116

Book preview

Author

Prologue

Such an eventful life I have lived—not just my days, months and years on this planet, but the incredible world-wide events that unfolded during my lifetime, the last nine-plus decades.

My chronicle began as the country was in the grip of what became widely known as The Great Depression, followed closely by World War II. Sometimes it seems as if war has been the backdrop for my entire life. It saddens me. So many wars, so much conflict, so much violence, so much pain.

My personal life has been much more peaceful, rife with love. But there’s been loss, sadness and grief, too, recorded in my memories—endless memories.

At times my memories overpower me. To contemplate a life’s worth of them is oftentimes too much to absorb. Perhaps it’s merciful that many of my memories have escaped me over these last few months. An empty canvas can be preferable to one filled with heartaches.

The losses are excruciatingly painful to remember, even now, as I feel my days slipping away.

How I long to feel my small-child hand in the large comforting one of my father. I would have loved for him to know me as an adult, to know my amazing husband, my fantastic children. I can’t help but think he would have been very proud of me—of all of us. But he’s been gone for a very long time. A casualty of war.

Over the years, I have whispered my good-byes to so many I loved. My son, a child gone too soon, long before he had a chance to make his mark on this world. My husband, the love of my life, dying long before we were ready to part. Although I’m doubtful we would ever have been ready to part.

We were like a pair of bookends for so many years. With him gone, the books of my life nearly toppled over. Sometimes it was only because I still felt him beside me, his love within me, that I was able to keep going, to forge ahead with my life.

That I have done. I’ve gone on living a full life, treasured my memories, and enjoyed the many paths I have walked. The joys have far outweighed the sorrows, the losses mitigated by the loves.

I wonder, like so many do as they re-examine their years on earth, did my life make a difference? Will I have left any footsteps when I’m gone? Will I be remembered?

My family will remember me, of course. We have been an incredibly closely-knit group. But the group now is small—my one daughter and my one grandson, the only ones left of my bloodline to follow after me.

My daughter is, herself, journeying through her later middle-age years. Her son, though, my only grandchild, is at the apex of his life. But he and his wife have no children, so he is the last of the line. Not to have a child was a decision they made together, realizing they were a complete family by themselves, just the two of them. They’re happy and remarkably successful in their careers. A grandmother couldn’t ask for more.

My one sibling, my sister, is still alive, but she, too, is now elderly, retired from her acting days. She, too, never had children—never married. My sister was wed to the theater, a stage actress her entire adult life.

She’s almost guaranteed to be remembered after her death, not because of the many famous roles she so brilliantly portrayed on the stage, but because of a television role she accepted very late in life, years after her initial retirement.

I expected her to refuse the role of Nana, a grandmother in a family situation comedy, a sitcom. But she accepted it with excitement and did a phenomenal job in the role. The show went off the air just last year, and the reruns are still popular—most likely will be for several more years. It was an extremely successful production.

But I digress, something I do often these days. Frequently I digress, if I remember at all.

How will I be remembered?

What I leave from my career, a career in writing, will most likely not outlive me for long. Oh, my books were successful—a couple were best sellers. But I doubt if they’ll be read again and again by successive generations. In time, the paper will yellow with age and they’ll be cast aside for newer writings more pertinent to the then current times.

But in their time, did my writings matter, did they make a difference? I would like to believe they did.

Even though the footsteps I leave may not be deep and lasting, I do believe my life made a difference. I have loved deeply and generously, and I know of no greater legacy than that.

Yes, my life has been an incredible, memorable journey. And now a myriad of thoughts are traveling through my head. Tidbits of my life, systematically wending their way like tiny ants carrying their picnic morsels to the home they created beneath the surface of the ground.

Chapter 1

Awareness is not something

I take for granted anymore.

The day was glorious. Cloudless blue skies shimmered overhead, and a warm autumn breeze blew gently in puffs soft as babies’ breath. Outside the window, a flag rippled ever so slightly, fluttering back and forth like butterfly wings.

A small bird chirped outside the window, informing everyone in its tuneful way to keep their distance as she guarded a nest of newly-hatched young, posed with tiny beaks opened hungrily, awaiting the menu choice of the day. When the chirping seemed like not enough for a loyal sentry, the parent bird flapped its wings in warning.

Jim and Andrea wheeled me to the window, me wincing at the sound of the squeaky wheel resonant in the emptiness of the hospital room.

Look, Mom, said Andrea, a false note of cheer in her voice. Isn’t this a gorgeous day?

I didn’t answer. I know I appeared oblivious to my surroundings, sitting as still as a doll—an aging life-sized doll.

* * *

Gladdie’s skin, always fair, was now almost translucent. But her hair was still thick, and although mostly white, it showed signs of the golden red it had been for most of her eighty-seven years. Her shoulders slumped as if weary of holding up the world, and her hands with fingernails highlighted with remnants of pale peach nail polish clutched the afghan loosely draped across her lap. The gray-blue dress she was wearing enhanced her light coloring. Andrea had selected the dress intentionally for bringing her mother home from the hospital, knowing it was Gladdie’s favorite.

Andrea wanted to reflect an uplifting image this day, a positive statement for what lay ahead for her mother, for her entire family, so this morning she donned a bright red and blue-checkered shirt with a long denim skirt. Her blonde hair, sparsely flecked with silver, was pulled back into a loose ponytail and tied with a red ribbon. Her youthful appearance belied her fifty-nine years.

Andrea’s husband, Jim Janek, an attorney due to meet with a client in two hours, was dressed more formally. A crisp white shirt provided an attractive contrast to his charcoal-gray suit, and a red tie with blue and gray stripes completed his business-like ensemble.

* * *

I didn’t respond to my daughter’s enthusiastic comment on the beauty of the day, although I agreed. It was indeed a gorgeous day. I really didn’t feel like commenting on the obvious. Instead, I chose to look straight ahead, staring out the window, looking beyond the small songbird dutifully guarding her new small family.

The warm late-morning sun reflected off the pale green mini-blinds, giving the ivory-colored walls a faint green tint, the color of small leaves on a willow tree as they reluctantly open in the early spring. The acrid odor of antiseptic was slightly over-ridden with the pleasant aroma of chicken soup, as lunch carts began their journey down the hospital corridor to the rooms of waiting patients, the carts’ wheels softly thump-thumping like a bevy of baby carriages.

Voices could be heard speaking in semi-whispers, as if honoring the dead rather than celebrating the life-saving efforts going on behind these walls, behind these hospital walls where twenty-four years before, almost to the day, my husband Don had died.

She isn’t even aware we’re here, said Andrea, her eyes filling with tears. Oh, Mom.

Andrea is wrong. I am very much aware of my daughter’s presence. I know where I am and why—at least for the moment. Awareness is not something I take for granted anymore. I know it’s fleeting, and soon my mind will be lost again in the confusing muddle of fading memories that is the hallmark of this affliction called Alzheimer’s.

But for now, I am remembering, recalling a special noteworthy event. One still very much alive in my cache of stored memories.

I can’t seem to take my eyes off the children frolicking on the lawn, relishing the warm autumn sun. Running and rolling on the grass, performing feats that only little children so easily master. Handsprings and cartwheels—and there’s a little girl standing on her hands, her long dark hair trailing down, touching the ground.

I can’t help but smile watching the little girl with her small feet clad in colorful red tennis shoes stretched towards the bright autumn sky. I recall another girl standing on her hands. A girl older than this child. A memory from a long time ago.

I was that girl.

The memory pleased Gladdie and brought a slight smile to her lips.

* * *

I lived in Hubbard City, a place like many other Midwest cities scattered throughout rural America in the 1930’s and 40’s. Although no more than a town by standards in upcoming decades, it was very much a city to rural southern Minnesota—the hub where everyone came to do their shopping and their Saturday-night socializing. Stores stayed open on Saturday nights in those days so that farmers and their families could do their buying after the week’s chores were behind them, and their day of rest lay ahead. Sometimes they took in a movie. Just like their city friends.

But only during the good times.

During the bad times, the Depression years, the town was quiet on Saturday nights. Several stores boarded up their windows, the owners broke, financially and in spirit. The lights went out at the movie houses as well as in the hearts of many of Hubbard City’s people during the Depression.

But after the Depression days, the town came alive again, and Saturday night was the most alive time of all. The streets were lined with cars—before the days of parking meters and meter maids. Whoever got there first could stay as long as they chose to stay.

Some streets were brick—the same crimson-red brick used in many of the buildings that flanked the downtown streets. It looked as if someone had constructed the buildings from the top down, continuing on to the thoroughfares.

Other streets were paved, announcing the progress of this southern Minnesota city-to-be. Intermittent stone-anchored rings reminded visitors and residents alike of the not-too-distant-past when Saturday-night shoppers came to town by horse and wagon and tied up their transportation while they went about their business, entertainment or commerce.

On the day I was standing on my hands, the end of World War II had just been announced, and our town went wild. The air was electric with excitement when the news of the war’s end hit Hubbard City.

It wasn’t like the drama of ticker tape and confetti raining down on parades in New York City or the spectacular grandeur of fireworks exploding over the Pacific up and down the west coast. Folks in Hubbard City demonstrated their feverish excitement by driving down Main Street, honking their horns, laying on their horns until the blasts and beeps filled the air with a cacophony unequaled in the history of this small orderly community.

It seemed as if every person who had ever been to Hubbard City was cruising the streets. Some were laughing, some were crying, and all were shouting.

Me? I was standing on my hands—at least I was attempting to, with my little sister Martha dictating the instructions.

Come on, Gladdie, begged Martha. You can do it. You hafta run fast first, really fast. Then you hafta throw yours hands down and your legs up. Like me.

With a running start, Martha did just as she was instructing Gladdie to do, and soon her still baby-chubby legs and small bare feet were up in the air displaying the most excellent V, her pink and white-striped sundress falling over her small face like a tent.

I tip over, complained Gladdie. And anyhow, I’m older than you and look silly walking around the yard upside down. Why don’t I just watch you?

Because you’re my sister, and I want you to stand on your hands like me. It’s fun. You never do anything fun. Aren’t you happy the war is over?

"Of course I’m happy, silly. It’s just that I can’t stand on my hands very well, and I can’t see that it’ll make me any happier to keep trying. All it’ll do is make me look stupid.

Anyhow, I feel sad at the same time. Did you see Mama when she heard the news? She’s not happy.

Martha looked like she would cry, her small round face screwed up as if in pain, and Gladdie was immediately sorry she had said anything to ruin her little sister’s excitement.

Martha was so little when Daddy went off to fight in the war. She really doesn’t miss him like I do. She probably doesn’t even remember him.

She didn’t get excited like I did when the mailman delivered a letter from Daddy. We didn’t get many, and sometimes, the letter had pieces cut out. Mama told me Daddy had probably said something about where they were or other information that was secret, so the censors cut it out.

Censors. A new word for me. I added censors and censorship to my list of new vocabulary words. I had never heard them before, but now I hear them often.

Daddy’s letters were addressed to Mama, but she would read them to me and Martha. Then she’d show the letters to us, because Daddy always drew lots of X’S and 0’s at the bottom—hugs and kisses for his dear daughters.

Daddy wrote a letter to me, too. One just for me. I’ve read it so many times, again and again. Each time makes me feel happy and sad at the same time. Happy because it’s from Daddy. Sad because I’ll never have another one from him. He won’t be coming home with the other soldiers now that the war has ended.

I keep my letter in my jewelry box, one of my favorite possessions. It plays a tune when I open it—if I remember to wind it. I know I’ll keep my letter forever.

Daddy sent Martha a letter of her own, too, but she doesn’t have it any more. Mama realized too late that she shouldn’t have given the letter to her, because it was soon crumpled and torn. She was just too little for anything made of paper.

My little sister doesn’t even understand why we have a gold-star banner in our living room window. She just thinks it’s a pretty decoration—like the wreath we hang in the window at Christmastime.

But I know why it’s there. It’s there because Daddy was killed in the war. There are lots of gold-star banners in windows across Hubbard City.

Martha doesn’t remember when the sadness came into Mama’s eyes, never to go away. She just knows that Mama’s cross much of the time. I don’t think Martha has any idea that Mama cries herself to sleep many nights.

She’s just too young to really understand—not nearly as grown up as I am. And she wants me to stand on my hands.

So I tried again, getting a running start just like Martha said. When I reached full speed, I threw my hands on the ground and my feet in the air, pointing to the cloudless sky.

You did it, Gladdie, screamed Martha. You did it!

And so I did.

Chapter 2

I knew something terrible had happened.

My full name is Gladys Agnes Johnson. Isn’t that awful, I’d say when I tell someone my name for the first time. But my first name, Gladys, was my mom’s mother’s name. Gladys Miller, my grandmother. She died long before I was born, when Mom was only fifteen years old. I think my middle name, Agnes, is horrid. But Agnes is my Grandma Johnson’s name, and she thinks it’s wonderful that I have her name. It has sort of created a bond between us. I do feel going through life with such a dreadful name is a real sacrifice, but it makes my Grandma Johnson happy, and I dearly love my grandma.

I was born in the early 1930’s. A new decade without much hope. The entire country was in pain. Even in Hubbard City, men shuffled around looking for odd jobs. They looked so weary. Most of the time there were no jobs to be had, and there seemed to be no hope.

They were being defeated by something they didn’t make happen and couldn’t fix—this thing called The Great Depression.

Daddy said he was lucky. His dad, Grandpa Joe, had a farm. We lived off the land when the Depression was at its worst, and then Grandpa traded the farm for two in-town houses when there was work again. Grandpa and Grandma lived in one, and my family lived in the other.

Daddy said one of the best things about being poor was that there was no money to lose when the Depression hit. He laughed about it, but I knew he wasn’t laughing inside. I could see the fear in his eyes when he talked about the Depression.

He, too, was afraid of losing hope.

When Pearl Harbor was bombed, folks in Hubbard City just couldn’t believe it. But once the shock wore off, everyone changed. No longer did they appear to be weary and defeated. Instead, they seemed energized. It was as if all the people in and around town were from one huge family.

They gathered on street corners, coffee shops, and hotel lobbies to talk—and what they talked about was the war. Lots of times they talked in whispers, as if they were afraid. Afraid of what might happen, afraid of what it meant to be at war.

But they were excited too—excited about having a purpose for getting out of bed in the morning, a common purpose they could think about and hope about.

Hope had returned to Hubbard City.

Soon there were hardly any young men in town. They went off to prepare for battle, first to cities they had only heard about, then to far off places they hadn’t dreamed existed. Some were so young, it seemed like they should have been in high school, getting ready for a Friday night date. Others were young fathers like mine.

Looking out the hospital window at the carefree children, my reveries went back those many years.

I remember coming home after school. Daddy was there. That confused me. Not even four o’clock in the afternoon, and Daddy was home from work.

Mama had been crying, wiping her eyes with her apron when I came into the kitchen, looking for my usual after-school snack of graham crackers and milk. When I saw Mama crying and Daddy looking so serious, I knew something terrible had happened. Actually, nothing terrible had happened yet, but it did later.

Daddy went to war, and we never saw him again. And Mama was never the same again. She just seemed to be broken after Daddy was killed.

Chapter 3

The Miller family never again gathered for a reunion.

"Mother, now you just sit here in the shade while I help set up the tables. You’ll keep nice and cool.

And Myra, you keep an eye on your mother. If she needs anything, you are to get it for her. Understand?"

Yes, Daddy, Myra answered with a sigh, discouraged again for being asked—or ordered—to be her mother’s nurse. Again.

Myra