Happy New Year - 2016

What a year this has been. Helping Gregory live as vital a life as possible at the Lieberman Center, even with my emergency appendectomy, even with Gregory's passage ... I am grateful. I am thankful. I am full. 

Life has given me many gifts, Gregory being the biggest, and has taken back, Gregory being the hardest to return. I look forward to a new year in which to learn how to keep Gregory in my heart and in my mind without the pain it now creates.

I look forward to seeing who I become on my own with the years I have left: the good I can do for others, the adventures I can find for myself, sharing my love and my life with friends and family. I look forward to my continuing to grow, experience, process, write, and understand is possible

Wishing you a very Happy 2016. May your life be one of love, health, financial comfort, and when possible happiness.

Hatikvah

As we welcome in the Jewish New Year, 5776, these ideas come to me.

There is something about this piece, Hatikvah, the national anthem for Israel, that always moves me to tears. For me, it holds the hopes and prayers of not only the Jewish People but also any person, any group of people, any country who has yearned and worked for the right to be who they were meant to be, to be free from oppression because of their beliefs.

Most recently at the Lieberman Center, at a Sunday Concert, the performer played it with gusto on our grand piano. Slowly you could hear the under current of voices joining in, sometimes knowing the words other times just humming. Voices weak, weary, confused, lost or otherwise. Voices strong, resilient, sentient, determined or otherwise.

Never overwhelming the music, but raising from the heart, from the soul, from the place where ancestors live; much like a prayer, to blend in with life, love, freedom, and joy.

CLICK HERE AND LISTEN AND WATCH

On Writing, On Life

Interesting that it more difficult to write about interesting, fun, timely things here than it is to write about emotional, difficult, worrisome things on my Alzheimer's BLOG. Guilt plays a role in making me come here when the last post date gets too far for comfort.

"Write everyday if you want to consider yourself a writer." Sit down and write about whatever comes into your head. Use writing motivations to help you get started. Write non-stop for ten minutes about whatever you are thinking about. But that doesn't always work.

For me, writing is a way of processing my life. Understanding it. Sitting with the difficult emotions that arise and seeing what they are telling me. Laughing over the amusing funny things that happen. Wondering about what I see and perceive around me. Thinking about and planing creative ventures and projects.

I was worried about getting through the holiday season this year since it was going to be the first Christmas and New Year's that Gregory and I did not celebrate together in forty years. But then I got to thinking about what a good (relatively) place we are in today compared to the hell our life was last year BL (Before-Lieberman.)

Also, I was able to celebrate with Gregory, just in a different way. I had my meals with him in the Lieberman dining room, we opened gifts, we had a Christmas tree in his room, we watched our usual holiday videos.

So now we are in a new year, a time of resolutions, a time of plans, a time to move forward. But can I do that when in many ways I feel like I am still "on hold" with Gregory as he continues to change and decline.

I visit almost every day for an hour or two and that cheers me up. I am in the process of signing up for Hospice for him which feels empowering to be able to control that part of the future which I am able.

But when I am home I am lonely, miss him so much, and feel lethargic finding  it is easier to not face my creativity, my projects, my day to day life maintenance. Gregory is still a very large part of my life and my focus. I am happy that he is still with me and that he is content, happy, safe, well taken care of.

So you can imagine that most of my writing is directed towards my Alzheimer's BLOG.
http://mhorvichcares.blogspot.com .

But what about me? Maybe another year will help me feel more my new self and help me get on with life. Maybe another year will help me realize those many projects I have created for myself. Maybe I'll get back into being a Supernumerary for the opera, Ringmaster for Michael's Flea Circus, Curator of a second museum The Small, Writer, Poet, Public Speaker? Maybe I will slowly get used to my life without the old Gregory, the old relationship, the old times together.

Or maybe I'll just continue to post more often on the Alzheimer's BLOG for now and see how life unfolds for me without too much pressure, too much fear, too much regret, too much frustration, too much anger. Maybe LIFE will sneak up and before I notice, I will be the new me?