A Caregiver, a Yankee and a Rastafarian walk into a country western bar…

by Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud, and today I feel like I am the luckiest man in the world.

Not to be confused with the immortal Lou Gehrig, the Iron Horse who 75 years ago, despite suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (now called ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease), proclaimed to a sold out Yankee Stadium crowd that he considered himself “the luckiest man on the face of this earth,” when he was forced to retire from baseball due to health reasons after playing 2,130 consecutive games.

No, I am the luckiest man in the world because Terry and I just had a great week.

The responses I received from the first blog that I posted last week could not have been more positive and touching.

I was against going public with my thoughts about this, content to just sending group e-mails to Terry’s large family spread out all over the country, trying to keep them abreast of what was going on in her life, hopefully with a little levity. It was their insistence that made be start the blog, “A Demented Look at Dementia,” and they once again proved how much smarter they are than I am.

Someone asked me about the title. Dating back to my college days I was often told that I was a bit demented, and that was just by my professors, guidance counselors and coaches.

Back in April Terry and I were driving home from Baltimore after our final visit to the Loyola Clinical Center. That was the day we were given the results of all of their testing and it was that day that our darkest fears were realized. That was the day that they told us Terry does, in fact, have Alzheimer’s disease, and that her condition was only going to get worse, and soon. 

The doctors, who could not have been any nicer or more professional, actually used the term ‘bucket list time.’ Unfortunately, they weren’t telling us it was time to go see a Jack Nicholson/Morgan Freeman movie.

On the long drive home that day we were listening to the radio and the Zac Brown band was playing. They are one of our favorite bands and Terry looked at me and said ‘We should go see them in concert someday.”

This was coming from someone who had seen just two concerts in her entire life. Back in the early 1970s Terry’s high school won a contest and received a free concert from a local New England band named Aerosmith. (Yes, that Aerosmith. Steven Tyler and the other Bad Boys from Boston).

Terry was not impressed.  About seven years ago my son took his mother to a George Strait concert and Terry was very much impressed and has been a country music fan ever since.

Well, last Thursday night Terry and I, along with our two dearest and oldest friends, Jack & Cathy, checked off the first of many to-do items on that bucket list.

We saw the Zac Brown Band in concert and had a tremendous time, despite probably being the oldest people in the very large crowd.

For one night, in that crowd, Jack and I were finally ‘One Percenters.’ As far as age group, anyway.

There was no opening band, but Terry and I were treated to something even better. For the last 45 minutes just prior to the band taking the stage, the speakers blasted out nothing but Bob Marley songs.

We were Jammin! 

I saw Marley in one of his last concerts in the fall of 1980 at Brown University and became a major fan.

Over the years Terry and I have owned three different versions of Babylon by Bus, a live double album Marley the Wailers put out in 1978. We wore out the vinyl albums and an eight-track tape before finally joining the 20^th century and purchasing a CD, and those Marley songs have been played more often in our house than any other music.  Coincidently, I was wearing a Bob Marley tee shirt at the concert Thursday.

On Friday morning Terry’s face actually hurt from all the smiling she had done at the concert. (At least that’s the story I am telling everyone and that it was not from my attempt at reggae dancing when I accidently clocked her in the kisser).

Zac Brown has so many great songs that we love: Chicken Fried, Toes, Knee Deep, just to name a few, but one song he sang Thursday night really hit home.  And I swear he was looking right at me and Terry when he sang these words from his great song Quiet Your Mind. 

“They say that it’s gone before you know it. So soak it all in, it’s a game you can’t win, Enjoy the ride.”

That was the first thing Terry and I had to try to learn after that long ride home from Baltimore back in the spring. We’ve got to find a way to enjoy the ride, because this is, indeed, a game we can’t win, and it very well could be gone before we know it.

But like I said, today I feel like I’m the luckiest guy in the world.  

To paraphrase the Iron Horse’s speech to the Yankee Stadium crowd that day, “Sure, I’m lucky. Who wouldn’t consider it an honor to have known someone like (Terry)?..When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed-that’s the finest I know. So I close in saying that we may have had a tough break, but we have an awful lot to live for.”

Bob Marley and the Zac Brown Band, along with Jack & Cathy, gave Terry quite a night last Thursday, one I will never forget. I just wish I could say the same for Terry never forgetting that wonderful night.

So be sure to soak it all in. It indeed is gone before you know it and if you are as lucky as I am, you’ll have someone as great as I have to share and Enjoy the ride.

Until next time,

Bud