I was born in Clay County, Arkansas, at home at about 11:30 on a Saturday morning. My dad used to say that I came in time for lunch, and I've been eating ever since. One memory I have, and the family never let me forget it, was the time I started crying. I cried and I cried. I was just a few months old, and my grandmother, who lived just a mile or so up the road, came down, and she couldn't stop me. It seems they all walked the floor with me, and I still bellowed on. So they called the doctor. This was in 1911, and you didn't just go to the doctor at the drop of a hat. Well, Dr. Latimer was not in, so they called another doctor, Dr. Black, and he asked my dad if he had money to pay him. Dad assured him in no uncertain terms that he did have, and as soon as he hung up the phone, he started looking for his billfold, but he couldn't find it. All the time the doctor was on his way out, my dad was looking for his billfold. When the doctor got there, he was terribly embarrassed. My dad was embarrassed because he didn't have his money, and the doctor was even more embarrassed because he knew my grandmother. In fact, his mother and my grandmother were good friends, but he just didn't recognize the name. About the time the doctor stopped in front of the house, I stopped crying and went to sleep. Apologies were issued all the way around.
My earliest memory is of my sister being born in 1916. She was four years younger than I. Four years and six days. And I recall looking at that horrible little critter and thinking that couldn't be a child, there was just no way she could be, because she looked like a little mouse. I had seen a freshly born mouse, and she looked slightly larger. She resembled that more than anything else as I recall. I really don't remember anything else about the kid until she started school. We lived about a mile from school. The first day she started walking to school, I was sick, so she had to walk by herself. I remember how cute she looked. She was a darling child. Her name is Geneva, and she has a charming personality till this day.
It seemed that I learned to read by osmosis. I don't remember not being able to read. They say that my daddy must have indoctrinated me. You will find that my daddy is very dear to me. They say he would come in from the field, and after he had eaten at night, why he would take me on his lap, and he wou1d read to me. I soon memorized all of the books we had. He had to turn the pages correctly, for I knew the writing on each page. Of course, they tell the story, I don't remember this, that when my daddy would come in from the field to feed the livestock, he would come to the house and pick me up and put me in the feed basket and carry me with him. That story always touched me. As tired as he was, to come in and get me. I was too small to walk. And I would be in there with the corn. I've heard that story a number of times.
Frankly, I hated being a child. I wanted to be an adult. All through childhood I wanted to be an adult. I just loved adults. I was bossy, and I wanted to be in charge. I remember one time we were visiting some cousins up in Missouri. There were two girl cousins on my dad's side of the family, Loretta and Juanita Venable, so there were four of us, of course. I wrote a play. We produced the play. We couldn't find an audience, but we had a wonderful time doing it. The villain was so villainous that nobody would play the part, so I had to be the villain, as well as be the author and the director. At that age, I was seven or eight, I could cope with anything. I always wanted to be an adult—all of my life.
I worked at a drying-cleaning plant for six or eight months. It was my first really up-front seat for an illicit love affair. The manager and the presser worked up a hot romance. Every afternoon he would bring in jelly-filled doughnuts, and we would brew coffee. And he would sit and chew on a doughnut and look at the presser. He smoked a pipe, and he would drool off the end of the pipe while his Adam's apple would go up and down from his throat up to his chin. The men's presser and I would just have hysterics, but we had to keep our faces straight.
However, the most educational experience I've ever had was working at the North Little Rock VA Hospital. I served there eight years as a volunteer. I think I had about 3,000 hours of public service. We worked in patient education, and it taught me more about understanding people. The patients were mental cases, all of them. They had war-connected disabilities to various degrees. Most of the men we worked with were World War I veterans. We simply talked to the ambulatory patients. We would take them out on the grounds, and we would have little parties for them. One old gentleman—as I looked up at him he must have been seven feet tall. He was a tall fellow and skinny as a rail. And he hadn't spoken ever. They encouraged us to see if we could get him to say something. Well, we got him to talk, and then we were sorry we did. He talked constantly. We did it by talking to him—and listening—really listening more. The veterans would say some of the most interesting things. We wore a uniform—a Red Cross Gray Lady uniform. We had a perky cap and white nurse's shoes. My shoes were getting pretty worn. We were sitting in a circle, and I stuck my feet out and said, "Fellas, I'm going to have to buy me a new pair of shoes." And across the circle from me, one of the veterans got up, walked across to me, picked up my feet, and said, "You take these shoes to the shoe shop and get them fixed. And when you buy a pair of shoes, you buy a pair of high heel dancing shoes." Wasn't that sweet! One time we were having a Christmas party, and we said, "Fellas, should we wear our uniforms?" and they said we should wear party dresses. One of them said, "Please wear a frilly petticoat." I had a frilly petticoat, and I wore a party dress with a frilly petticoat. They loved us, and we loved them.
I think the secret to a happy life is to be resilient. I also think having a good relationship with one's creator is very important. We have to have something outside ourselves, and for me it is God. Right now I'm leading a Bible course. I enjoy discussing my beliefs. Not many people do, so I have trouble finding people to talk with. I have an extra good friend here, Jim, and he and I discuss our beliefs. We had a third partner, but he died.
Jim is probably the second person that I have ever been that close to in that way. My best friend died very young. She was in Forrest City. She was the best friend I ever had. I don't form intimate friendships very easily. Her name was Edith Kerr, and we shared a duplex. When we first moved in, I very politely and sweetly told her that I was a busy woman and I did not spend my days drinking coffee and talking. She assured me just as charmingly that she didn't either because she was a busy woman, too. It turned out that we spent the summer sitting on the back porch talking about religion. She and her husband moved to one part of town, and we moved to another. Ours was the sort of friendship where we might not see each other for a month, but it didn't make any difference because when we got together again, it was as if we could almost pick up at the point where we had left off before. It was a special relationship, and one has it with very few people.
People in general I love, but I don't form close relationships. I'm such an odd wad in my theological thinking, for one thing. I'm Methodist, and I go along with John Wesley. He said, "If your heart is as my heart, then we are friends." I feel that my heart is in the right place, but in my thinking I'm as wild as the March Hare. One thing that drew Edith and me together was our opinion about the Virgin Birth. I am sure that is a folk story. All of the ancient religions had founders or leaders who had unusual births. Now who exactly was it that sprang from the head of Zeus? Budda was conceived after his mother dreamed of having intercourse with an elephant. All of the religions had something similar. Edith said, "It is so wonderful to find someone who does not believe in the Virgin Birth. I never could believe it, and I thought I was the only one in the whole wide world." I think there are a lot of people who feel that way, but it is not the accepted belief. If anyone has based his faith on that, why should I destroy it? I don't want that responsibility.
As far as the world today, we're always inclined to say that it is going to hell in a handbasket. But then I remember the inscription that I read had been found on one of the pyramids, I think, and it said that young people didn't respect their parents and everything was going to pot. Now if they thought that back then, what can I say? Really, though, I think the world today is exciting. I'm scared to death of computers, and I certainly don't intend to find out anything about them. I can use the word processor, and that's it. But I think that the possibilities today are beyond what I could dream. That's the reason that I get such a tremendous lift from knowing that by contributing to Hendrix College, what we have is going into possible explorations that are beyond our imaginations.
There have been so many changes in the world during my lifetime—I've almost lived through the entire century. Communication has changed. Travel has changed. When I went out to the state of Washington, the only way I could go was by rail. Now you can fly around the world. We have gone to I don't know how many countries, and we always went by air. We know more about things now. Television has brought the world into our living rooms. The sins of today are so emblazoned on the television and in the media. People sinned in the past the same as they do now. There were homosexuals in olden days, and there was child abuse. Oh, God, was there child abuse. The difference was we didn't know anything about it. More importantly, we didn't see anything about it in the media.
As far as President Clinton, I want to shake him until his teeth rattle. I still think he is one of our better presidents and has done an excellent job. I think he has represented us beautifully, particularly in foreign countries. I've been proud of him. If he just hadn't been such a damn idiot. He would have had a remarkable place in history had he not pulled that stunt with Monica. Eventually all of this will fade into the background. Remember King David? President Kennedy? It seems that sex and politics get interwoven.
Now this sounds smug, but as I look back I cannot think of any particular regret. I have said many, many times that when I look around me, I cannot see any person that I would trade places with. I have had a good life. I have gone places and seen little bits of most of the world. Charles has been a wonderful companion. We have had our fights, of course, but we have also had a great deal of joy. I tell young people now, if you want to travel, go, even if you have to borrow the money. Go, while you are young enough to do the walking and see all the places there are to see. We traveled at the best time. Planes were nicer then, from what I hear. I haven't been on one in four or five years. They used to serve pretty good food. People used to put on special clothes. Now they look like they are going to clean the john. The last trip we took we went to Italy. I believe it was four years ago last February. It was not a fun time. Italy was a disappointment. It was dirty, very. We had been to Turkey, and the Roman ruins there are so much prettier and more interesting. I did love Sicily. The lemon trees were bearing, and the ripened fruit was beautiful. However, the people in Italy were not warm and friendly, not even to each other. They would knock each other off the sidewalk into the street same as they would me.
My advice to young people would be not to close your mind to anything. Grab every opportunity that comes along. Some of those opportunities might fizzle out, but don't be scared. Don't be cautious. Of course, you have got to use common sense. But then people who would listen to advice would have common sense or else they would not be asking. Yes, my advice would be to grab every opportunity that comes along.
My life today is filled with heartache so poignant I am not sure how to live with it. My husband of sixty-seven years has dementia, which takes away all memory. It leaves the physical body intact, but the brain is blacked out. There is no recall, no reasoning, no concept of time or place, and no sense of humor. The victim lives each moment as a separate entity with no past to remember and no future to expect. Present relationships are forgotten. I am his sister, sister-in-law, his mother, sometimes his wife, and once I was just "that old woman."
In 1985, we moved to Parkway Village, a retirement place with all the comforts of independent living and little of the responsibility. We expected to grow old together and, I suppose, die at the same instant. We did not expect the misery of dementia. And I certainly did not picture being left with the responsibility of the shell of a man on whom I have depended for companionship, love, understanding, and support for most of my life. That life has been one of rare togetherness. We didn't have children and we have never lived near relatives, so we have been each other's best friends.
Humor has been our salvation through good times and bad. After twenty-five years of marriage, one morning, in days before air conditioning, my neighbor, Artie, commented:
"You didn't have company last night, did you?"
"No, why?" I said.
"Well, Bertha was at my house and heard you laughing. She was sure you had company. I told her you two went on like that all the time," Artie said.
There is not much shared laughter in the Shivley ménage now. There are no "remember-whens," either. But there is a lot of anger. We both have tempers and we've fought many a battle, but love would lead us to reason, and then humor and peace would descend. Now only forgetfulness brings peace. It was this lack of temper control that was the first indication that something was really wrong. In 1991 we were on a tour of the Galapagos Islands and Ecuador. He was so unreasonably unpleasant that we became the hated couple. Since we'd always been well liked, I was crushed and worried.
Five years, a couple of less strenuous tours, and several consultations with his doctor went by. The situation reached a climax at the VA hospital where we had volunteered for ten years. Charles was doing the paper work for the Patient Education Division. His many years of service made him a valuable helper at the VA. It was the second Monday in December 1996 that he was reported for pushing and shoving in the lunchroom. Even more surprising and shocking was the revelation that he had shouted racial epithets at another volunteer. This is a man who, for over thirty years, worked successfully with every race, creed, and sex. This episode resulted in our being banned from volunteer work at McClellan VA. The fact that I resigned before we could be asked to quit didn't ease the pain and embarrassment. For months he refused to accept our banishment. Monday mornings became a war zone. He would declare that the whole sordid story was totally my imagination. Accepting the role of villain, even though only in his imagination, still wears on my nervous system.
He was still driving. For two years he'd been able to find his way only to our regular destinations on Markham and to his barber shop. Any deviation was disaster. Slowly, I become the pilot who never gave a direction at the right time. The day came when he was gone two hours to get a haircut and then came home without it. I wondered, but there was no point in asking, so I waited. The next day he brightly announced he was going to get a haircut. I tactlessly reminded him he'd gone for one the day before, but to him yesterday was ancient history. He declared he hadn't thought of a haircut until that moment. I invited myself to go along and at my every direction, anger on his part and resentment on mine thickened the air. In spite of my attempts to be an adult about the verbal abuse, I all too often feel anger nibbling.
For some time he could find his way to the grocery store but couldn't remember what he went to get. He'd take a note but then forget he had it. Then came the day he had to ask me which direction to turn at the one stop light between our place and the grocery store. I silently and reverently prayed that if the good Lord would get us home safely I'd never get in the car with him again. The good Lord did his part and I kept my promise.
We had driven through every state in the Union and all the southern provinces of Canada. When in the mountains he clung to the back of the seat and the dashboard shouting directions. He has acrophobia. We were once the first car behind the snowplow to cross the Continental Divide. Another time, we got lost leaving Niagara Falls and wandered across New York, stuffing ourselves on cherries and stopping every other mile at yard sales. I also rode from Pennsylvania with my feet in an iron pot and my lap full of fragile goodies. When we took food and restroom stops, Charles would ease from under the wheel, carefully unload my lap, and help me emerge from my cast iron foot holder. We were so overloaded that when we turned into our driveway the tail pipe dragged. We rested a couple of weeks, then had a whale of a garage sale. On one occasion, we got caught in a dense fog on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. We followed a truck down the mountains to safety and found a fantastic eating place where we had one of the best meals we ever ate. We drove forty miles over a one-lane road to Shivley, California. They knew nothing about where the town got its name, but because they were happy to welcome a Shivley, they gave us a couple of redwood slabs as mementos. And now this wild, delightful, and carefree traveling companion can't find his way to the grocery store a mile down the street.
At this stage I realized the car had to go. My driving skills had diminished after a three-year tour of duty in the Philippines where I had a driver. My having cataract surgery when I returned didn't help. After Charles retired, we were going everywhere together, so I had no reason to start driving again. Under the present circumstances, I knew to start driving again, battling traffic, would be a mistake. I had to sell the car. Dan, coping with Charles' protests, did the dastardly deed. A short time later I overheard him tell someone, "I got to where I couldn't drive, so I sold the car." However, to this day he has not accepted the fact that we do not have a car. He often threatens to leave me, load up all his furniture and go to his daddy's home in Pocahontas.
We bought a golf cart for transportation on the grounds. That has been trouble off and on. Twice, he has become so determined to drive it that he was physical in his attempt to take the keys. Of course, I've never given in, and that breaks my heart. Sometimes he wants to drive it to Pocahontas, and several times he's demanded the keys to return it to the government. He is periodically obsessed with the idea it is assigned to him, and when I argue it is ours, he threatens me with instant jail. Once, our assistant manager tried to assure him he saw us give the dealer a check. That was a study in futility. I'm not sure if he screens out what he doesn't want to hear, or simply ignores all opposition. Strangely, when we leave the house in it, he docily climbs into the passenger's seat. And it hurts.
I'm not sure when the night problems began. Like other aspects of dementia, I think that the changes gradually crept upon us. The social workers call him a "sundowner." Around four in the afternoon, he gets more restless. We make it through dinner, and then he goes to bed anywhere from 6:30 on. Sometimes he's up in thirty minutes, dressed, and ready for the next day. He fusses at me for having sat up all night and always argues with the clock and the newspaper. Sometimes he goes back to bed for an hour. As I look back on my calendar, I see the notation of "up 2, 3, 4 times." There are times when he gets up after I'm asleep _ that's when security takes over. Most of the time he is up he will go to the Commons.
When he was a boy in Pocahontas, he delivered newspapers, and Charles has reverted to the need to "see about the papers" in the middle of the night. Security talks to him, gives him a cup of coffee, and often takes him on their runs through the Village. Once he scared a new man. He got up around midnight, dressed for church, and went to the guardhouse to wait for his ride. The watchman talked to him and asked where he lived. He replied, "I don't know the address, but I'll recognize the place." The new man drove him around and he pointed out our house. The fellow told me he waited and when his key worked, he assumed he was in the right house.
He has taken over a small card room in the Commons as his office. It is occasionally used by the staff for interviews. Often Charles marches in and orders them out. They humbly explain that they have to borrow it for just a short time. He graciously grants them permission and another crisis passes. And the social amenities still kick in. He can't remember many names, but when he chooses, he can be so charming that people delightedly tell me: "We had the nicest chat _ I know he knew me." A friend stopped me one day to happily pass along a cute remark he'd made. She'd greeted him with "hello." He pertly replied, "and heaven's high!" That must have been a hip slapper when he was in grade school. This charm can be turned off and on like a faucet.
Charles is home on a week's pass from the hospital and it's bath time. He seems to be so weak that I am afraid to try to get him in his tub. Since his shower has a tub, I am taking him to my floor access shower. However, since the day we were able to build a house with two baths, bodily cleanliness has been a his and hers proposition. It has always been our money, our home, our car, and even our job because I was the busy little helpmate in charge of public relations. But possessiveness about bathrooms is our quirk. I think Charles is almost as willing to share his toothbrush as his john. When I lend my bath to rare guests and need to share Charles', I use the public restroom at the Commons as often as possible because being the potty guest of a reluctant host can lead to irregularity. So as to my suggestion that he use my shower, let's just say he looked irritated. In the face of his total lack of cooperation, I undressed him and led him, unwilling and naked, down the hall to my bath. Knowing how bedraggled I soon would be, I fleetingly thought of sharing ablutions. But even in our salad days we didn't consider sharing showers a come-on. So here in our sagging days, I hastily dismissed the idea. Adjusting water temperature for a reluctant patient is an impossibility. He did get wet, soaped and rinsed while loudly proclaiming he was either freezing or scalding. Drying and dressing were eventually accomplished. The rest of the week he miraculously developed the strength to take tub baths where he could demand a closed door and splash in privacy.
He left the cottage one morning while I was asleep. I didn't discover he was gone until I went to get him for breakfast. Security and I went berserk, but he was calmly sitting in the lobby of the Commons. During the day I saw abrasions, so I know he fell on the way there and somehow managed to get up by himself. The next day he fell in his bedroom, and I had to call Security to help him up. Eating has also caused a series of problems. He was never hungry. Most nights he undressed and went to bed while I was fixing dinner. I always insisted he get up and dress; then he would eat what I put on his plate, all the time assuring me I had given him too much. The last day I took him to the Village dining room and he ate everything in sight. Then I worried that I hadn't fed him properly.
He's back at the hospital while we decide about the future. What is best for him and for me? We have to consider both his well-being and my endurance. The ultimate course of action has to be one I can feel fairly comfortable with. It will not matter much to him, but I will have to live with me the rest of my life.