Merry Christmas

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and I wanted to say Merry Christmas.

Not Happy Holidays. Certainly not Merry Xmas.  But Merry Christmas.

You don’t really hear that much anymore, in this politically correct world we live in.  Everyone says “Have a Happy Holiday.”

Like someone would really be offended if you said “Merry Christmas” and they don’t celebrate Christmas.  I wouldn’t be offended if someone said “Happy Hanukkah” to me.  I might give a puzzled look if someone said to me “Happy Kwanza,” but it certainly would not offend me.  “Happy Bodhi Day” would be appropriate if I was practicing Buddhism, which I could be mistaken for if my name was spelled Budd.  “Happy Festivus” is common among fans of the old television show Seinfeld.

In the Great White North (Canada) the McKenzie Brothers, Bob and Doug, might wish you a “Happy Boxing Day.”

I prefer “Merry Christmas.” Always have.

The Christmas season has many traditions. One is all of the television specials and movies.

I haven’t seen the Charlie Brown Christmas show in a few years, but that was always the go-to special when the kids were growing up.  My kids didn’t know who Burl Ives was but they did know his character, Sam the Snowman, the narrator in the Rudolph movie.

I have three movies I have to watch every Christmas. White Christmas with Bing Crosby, Scrooged with Bill Murray and Love Actually with a large ensemble, including Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson and Keira Knightley.

To many people, Christmas is all about the presents. Buying them, receiving them, wrapping them. Finding just the right one for someone special. Finding anything affordable for someone you work with.

When I was little my sister would always find an excuse to go downstairs before the sun came up Christmas morning to see what Santa had left under the tree. And of course, being a good little brother, I had to go with her.

I remember my father telling the story of one Christmas when he had to assemble a gift that took forever, and they had just gotten to bed about five minutes before we came running down the steps.

When our kids were little Terry and I would take them to a tree farm to cut down the Christmas tree every year. The kids would pick out the tree and take turns with the hatchet and saw until it was time for me to step in and finish the job.

The kids were always surprised how small the tree looked in the open field and how big it became once we brought it inside the house.

The big red stockings with the kids’ names on them hung from the mantel above the fire place and were usually filled with pens and pencils for school, tic tacs, gum, life savers, little packets of tissues. You know, things they sell at the checkout line at the grocery store. Even the dog and cat had stockings, filled with bones, squeaky toys and cat nip.

Christmas Eve would be one of the few times we actually had a fire going in that fire place. 

Where I lived growing up we could get both the New York City and Philadelphia television stations on our antenna (for you youngins an antenna is what you needed before there was cable TV), and WPIX, channel 11 in New York, would air the Yule Log Show, which was just a fire burning in a fireplace while playing Christmas music. Our house did not have a fireplace but my father would put on that show every Christmas Eve. He used the same old jokes every year, too, going up to the TV and rubbing his hands together like he was warming them from the fire, or yell at me “Don’t sit too close to the set, you’ll get burned.”

My kids would usually receive one big gift each and a few smaller ones. I remember one year they all received Starter jackets. Cabbage Patch dolls were hard to find when they first came out in the mid-80s but we managed to get one. Over the years sleds, Big Wheels and motorized (battery) cars evolved into bicycles. And there were always dolls, ice skates, roller blades, basketballs, soccer balls and baseball bats and gloves. And we would always get some type of board game or trivia game so we could all enjoy each other’s company playing the game.

Eventually the kids were old enough to hang out at the mall with their friends, so their big gift became a gift certificate, so they could do their own shopping.

The best part of Christmas, for me anyway, was the fact that we were all together. When I was a kid we would have something at our house then travel to my grandparent’s house. (We didn’t have to go over a mountain but we did go through the woods to get to grandmother’s house.)

That is a tradition I continued with my family. We would have something at our house then travel a short distance to my parent’s house, where my sister and her daughter would be, for more presents and Christmas dinner.

Now that the kids are grown and have their own lives, I am looking forward to Christmas for that reason. The opportunity for all of us to be together.

The day after Christmas I will take Terry up to New England so she can visit her mother and a few of her siblings. Last year, once we knew something was wrong with Terry but before we found out it was Alzheimer’s, I made a last minute decision to take Terry to New England for a surprise visit. It was a great decision.

These occasions are something I no longer take for granted. I am afraid there will not be as many of them in our future as we would like.

I no longer worry about buying the right present for everybody. I worry about seeing the people I want to see, spending time with people I want to spend time with.

That is what Christmas is all about to me these days.

That, and of course, what Linus first said to Charlie Brown almost 50 years ago, and every year since. I believe it is called the ‘annunciation to the shepherds.’ It is from the Gospel of Luke in the King James Version of the Bible.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
And the angel said unto them, Fear not; for, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and goodwill towards men.

That is what Christmas, not the Holiday, is all about, Charlie Brown.

Until next time, have a happy holiday and, more importantly, a Merry Christmas,

Bud

Still Terry

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and my wife is Still Terry.

Six months ago a dear (nicer way of saying old) friend of mine from college days sent me a best-selling book by Lisa Genova called Still Alice. It is a story about Dr. Alice Howland, a Harvard professor who, like my Terry, is diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease. The story is told from Alice’s point of view. What she goes through.

At that time I was just learning about this horrible disease and was looking forward to reading as much as I could about it. To date I have read almost a dozen publications on the subject, mostly text books, research papers and coconut oil recipes.

I was a little disappointed at first to discover that Still Alice is a fictional story, but then I found out that the author is not only a writer but a neuroscientist, so she knows of what she speaks (or writes).

I began reading the book back in the summer and it was pretty good. Alice and Terry were the same age and had many other things in common, as far as the early stages of the disease are concerned, so it was very interesting to me. But I had to stop reading it halfway through the book.  I couldn’t bring myself to read about the latter stages of this disease.  I wrote about this experience in one of my earlier blogs back in July, Head in the Sand.

Now I see that they have made a movie out of the book, with the same title, and it is due to be released next month. And I’m excited about it. I can’t wait for it to come out.

Don’t get me wrong, there is no way I am going to go see this movie. I can’t even watch the movie The Notebook. I saw some of The Notebook several years ago when either Terry or one of my daughters was watching it on TV.  I remember thinking it was a ‘chick flick’ and really didn’t pay too much attention to it. All I remembered about it was that it was a real tear-jerker.

Since Terry was diagnosed with EOAD, however, watching The Notebook or now Still Alice would for me be like peeling a few bags of onions. Only worse. More painful.

But I am very happy that the movie Still Alice is coming out and that the actress who plays Alice, Julianne Moore, is already being talked about as an Academy Award nominee.  To prepare for her role Moore met with the head of the national Alzheimer’s Association, underwent a battery of tests and hung out with many patients suffering from EOAD.

Movies get so much more attention than books do, even though in my opinion movies based on books hardly ever measure up.  But, in today’s world when most people don’t have the time it takes to read a book, they can still find two hours to watch a movie.

No, I’m not going to see Still Alice, but I am excited about it coming out because so many other people will hopefully see it. I am happy about the fact that a movie about EOAD may be seen by millions.  This will certainly help raise public awareness.

Most people associate Alzheimer’s with senior citizens. And with good reason. Of the 5 million people in the United States who currently have Alzheimer’s, all but 200,000 of them are 65 years old or older.

My Terry is only 55 years old.

I promised myself back in the summer that as Terry’s illness progressed, I would go back and finish reading Still Alice, to maybe help me realize exactly what she is going through, what she is feeling.  She is so quiet these days. But it is not like she is in a fog or in a daze. She knows what’s going on.

For now, anyway. For now, she is Still Terry.  Sure, she cannot do many things she used to be able to do, but her personality is still there. Her love of sports and exercise is still there. Her love of being with me and with our kids is still there. Her love of visiting her family is still there. Her sense of humor is still there. And she still has her extraordinary faith.   One thing that Julianne Moore found out while researching her role was that “People think personalities get obliterated with Alzheimer’s, and I found out people’s personalities come through loud and clear,” she recently said in an interview about preparing for and making the movie.

My wife is Still Terry, thanks in part to the medicine she has been taking since May.  The doctors warned us that these meds will not improve Terry’s condition, won’t even stop it from getting worse. But they will slow it down. Unfortunately, after a while these meds stop working. The doctors said the meds should give Terry another year or two, before things get bad.

I won’t read the end of Still Alice to see how bad, but I have a rough idea. I have done some research. I have read quite a few non-fiction books on Alzheimer’s. People associate Alzheimer’s with memory loss, but that isn’t the half of it.  That’s just the beginning. Alzheimer’s is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. More people die of Alzheimer’s each year than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined.   About 500,000 last year. People don’t die from losing their memory.

But I won’t get into the gruesome details right now. Just as I won’t read the second half of the book, or go see the movie. Maybe my head is still in the sand. But back in the spring Terry and I decided to begin to live for the moment, live for today. I no longer look too far down the road. It is ugly down there.

These days I am just grateful that my wife is Still Terry. And I am grateful that they made a movie about what she is going through, what we are going through. Hopefully it will generate more public awareness, more contributions to end Alzheimer’s and possibly more years of my wife being Still Terry.

Until next time,

Still Bud

Days of Infamy

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and for members of the ‘Greatest Generation’ yesterday, December 7, was a date that will live in infamy.

For people of my generation, however, today, December 8, was also an infamous date in history.

The ‘Greatest Generation’ is a term coined by journalist Tom Brokaw and refers to the generation that grew up during the depression and went on to fight in World War II.  Yesterday marked the anniversary of the United States entering that war, after the Imperial Japanese Navy, without warning or declaration of war, attacked the U.S. Naval base in Hawaii. Pearl Harbor.

Today, everyone who is 75 years old or older remembers where they were that day, and how the public opinion of staying out of the war changed overnight.

December 7, 1941 was the original 9/11.

Thirty-nine years and one day later I was living in Rhode Island, watching Monday Night Football. The New England Patriots, my then-girlfriend Terry’s favorite football team, were playing the Miami Dolphins, my favorite team (the ‘Fish’ as we called them practiced on my college campus so we saw and interacted with them on a daily basis).

With less than a minute left in the game, Howard Cosell interrupted the broadcast to announce that John Lennon had been shot and killed outside of his New York City hotel, the Dakota, where he lived.

December 8, 1980. John Lennon was just 40 years old.

Lennon was a hero of mine and I had just bought his latest album, Double Fantasy. 

The murder was senseless and shocking. How could someone kill such a peaceful and talented artist? 

I was just a child when JFK, RFK and MLK were assassinated, and didn’t really understand or feel the pain that the adults did. This was the first assassination of someone who I had strong feelings for. It hurt.

I remember driving to work the next morning with my headlights on, as the local radio station had suggested, to show support and pay homage to Lennon. Even though it was a bright, crisp New England morning, there were more cars with their headlights on than not (and this was before cars had headlights that automatically turned on).

Lennon’s death triggered an outpouring of grief around the world. The following Sunday I was one of millions of people around the world who paused for ten minutes of silence to remember Lennon. Over 225,000 people gathered in New York’s Central Park alone. Every radio station in New York and many others across the county went off the air for ten minutes that day, in Lennon’s honor.

Although these two days of infamy, December 7 and December 8, were both marked by unspeakable violence, the victims could not have been more different.

At Pearl Harbor the majority of the 2,400 Americans killed that day were military.

John Lennon was about as anti-military as a person could be. He often wore a green army jacket as part of his biting sarcasm.  His songs said what he was about: Give Peace a Chance, War is Over (Happy Christmas), I Don’t Want to be a Soldier, Imagine, Mind Games (Make Love, Not War), Power to the People, and when he was with the Beatles All You Need is Love, Come Together and Revolution.

These were all songs about changing the world in a peaceful manner.

My wife Terry and I had our own Day of Infamy back in the spring of this year. A day that changed our world.

April 11, 2014. It was the fifth anniversary of my father’s death. I remember saying a few prayers to him that morning, to see if he could pull a few strings for us, put in a good word for us.

It was a Friday, the week before Good Friday. I guess you could say it was Bad Friday for me and Terry.

That was the day, after two weeks of testing, that the doctors at the clinic confirmed that Terry did in fact have Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease.

Like those stationed at Pearl Harbor and like John Lennon, this was an attack we were not prepared for. It came out of nowhere. And it was fatal.  Or at least will be in the not too distant future.

The events that took place on December 7, 1941 and December 8, 1980 affected millions of people.

The news that Terry and I received on April 11 of this year affected only a few dozen people.

But Alzheimer’s affects millions. There are more than 5 million people living in the United States right now with Alzheimer’s. Only 200,000 of them, however, are under the age of 65.

My wife Terry is only 55.

I always knew she was one in a million.  But I also always knew that we so looked forward to growing old together.

When I get older losing my hair

Many years from now.

Will you still be sending me a valentine?

Birthday greetings bottle of wine.

If I’d been out ‘till quarter to three

Would you lock the door?

Will you still need me, will you still feed me,

When I’m 64?

Paul McCartney sang those words, but it was Lennon who wrote them.

I only pray that Terry and I will still be together when Terry turns 64.

Until next time, hope none of your days are infamous.

Bud