Anya

Imagine a beautiful woman from Hungary – as in “My Fair Lady”, when folks at the “ball” heard Eliza Doolittle’s impeccable pronunciation engineered by linguist Professor Henry Higgins. Following the fancy affair, the professor and his buddy Colonel Pickering were found laughing uproariously as they recanted for the audience what a certain linguist present at the affair had said: He declared Eliza to be Hungarian and of noble blood, since her English was “too good”.

I think of all that when I think of my friend Anya, since Anya–as well as her English pronunciation–are indeed beautiful. Anya is well-spoken, soft-spoken, and well-bred. And she happens to be of Hungarian descent! So, thus all that “My Fair Lady” business. I wish I could post a picture of beautiful Anya, but she is shy about that, so I respect her wishes. She did however give me permission to use her first name and do a post on her for this blog.

So Why the Black Hat for the Picture to go with the Article?

Well, Anya wore such a hat the winter I met her. The hat looks beautiful on her. In fact, I took her to Wal-Mart for groceries once, when I believe she was wearing a hat similar to the article pictured. A man took one look at Anya and asked her to marry him! Haha! She graciously told him he had made her day, thanking him for his sweet remark. I’m hoping my description of her will help you create a face to go beneath that hat. Maybe the face will look like someone YOU know with Anya’s beautiful personality traits!

First Meeting: Dementia Support Group

I first met Anya when our family received the diagnosis from Denny’s doctor that he had dementia. The doctor told me about a dementia support group that met at Perkins Restaurant in our hometown (Laramie, Wyoming) on Thursday afternoons. I came to treasure that whole group. They were so helpful through their sharing about their varied experiences. Everyone had a slightly different story to tell, as they relayed their particular brush with dementia.

Anya’s dementia tale was from quite long ago in her past when she was a young mother. She took care of her new baby, her two toddlers, cats and dogs, and added in her mother-in-law–who had dementia. So she was one busy young woman, caring for the children as well as her mother-in-law, and brushing the cats and dogs hair out on the back yard daily! But what she found is that the mother-in-law loved to watch the children play, so Anya had built-in entertainment. But she still had a lot to do in caring for her mother-in-law’s dementia on top of raising her little children and taking care of her pets! Her children of course are now all grown-up professionals around the United States. Her husband has passed, so Anya is alone. And she and I found comfort in each other’s friendship.

Becoming Friends

So we became friends after I realized Anya might appreciate a ride to the grocery store. She would come to our dementia-support group meetings with a rolling cart that she pushed. I thought maybe she needed it as a support, as with a cane [but found out later that wasn’t so]. She also carried her purse and shopping bags in the cart. But then one day I saw her pushing that cart to the store following our meeting and asked her if she’d like a ride. So we started going to the store weekly after the dementia support meetings. She was blessed with the ride (especially in the snowy, icy winter!), and I was blessed with her company.

Transitioning to Phone Friends

Gosh, we were just starting to get to know each other… I even had Anya over for supper and took her to a Christmas eve service at my church. We both liked shoveling snow, so I was busy on my street and she on hers as we shoveled our own walks and driveways and would also shovel a little for our neighbors as our energy allowed. But then Denny had his fall, his broken leg, his ride to the hospital, and his sudden transition to the nursing facility in Colorado Springs. And I found myself uprooted from my home, from Laramie, and from friendships as a result of our hasty move out of Wyoming to Colorado. It all happened so fast. A true whirlwind.

But my friendship with Anya didn’t stop when I was suddenly long distance. Anya continued calling me on the phone as if I were down the street. Gosh, Anya was helpful. I have to apologize to her and to so many people for talking their heads off. Something about that time with Denny in dementia and all that ensued… I needed to process everything. And Anya helped me do that, never complaining at me for the talking, never rushing me through, but always there with a sympathetic ear and much wisdom in advice.

The Subject of Talking: The Bad News

This is a bit of a digression, but I’ll bring it around to make sense for this dementia post. Just hang on for a bit and you’ll see what I mean.

Since I started this post off referring to “My Fair Lady”, I think of something else in that musical that applies. Remember the song Eliza sang that started off something like this: “Words, words, words, I’m so sick of words!…” I hope Anya and my friends and relatives didn’t feel like singing that song after talking to me! For I was certainly full of words, as I noted with “talking people’s heads off” for that season.

But in the time Anya and I would talk, talk, talk, Anya also showed interest that I was doing a Bible study with Byron on the book of James, so she was always wanting to know what we were learning. I loved that she was interested in talking Bible! It is noteworthy that we were studying the book of James, in which it warns the reader to keep a tight rein on their tongue, not “talking your head off” as was I. That scripture discouraged me, and even further so when I read in chapter 3 of the same book of James, “No man can tame the tongue.” I was perplexed. It said to tame your tongue, but then said you can’t do it. Huh. or Duh.

The Fiery Part of the Picture…

… makes me think of James 3:5-6: “The tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest [or Fleet!] is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.”

Aack! That sounds awful, doesn’t it?

The Ship Part of the Picture…

…makes me think of James 3: 3-4, presenting an interesting visual for me. That passage reads, “When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts…”

The Subject of Talking: The Good News…

I started to see that last passage in James 3 as a prayer, which I formulated and try to remember to use day by day:

“Lord, please pilot my ship,
turning the rudder of my tongue where YOU want it to go.
Help my tongue be a blessing, not a cursing that sets a world on fire.
Only with Your Lordship can that happen!
HELP!!!!”

So I am trying to remember to pray that consistently, especially as I enter a phone call with ANYONE. I need to glue that on the INSIDE of my glasses so that I SEE it continually and remember to employ it when I answer my phone!!! Maybe my phone ringtone should spout that prayer at me. Wow, that’s an Idea!!!

BUT— “Talking and Letting People Talk” can be a MINISTRY

Just as this blog has helped me sort through the dementia saga…
Just as this blog has helped me process ALL the events and feelings that the last handful of years has brought up as if in a Wyoming windstorm…

..So have people like Anya helped me sort out and process all that has come about–by listening so patiently, by encouraging me, by validating me and my stories, by helping me to forgive myself and Denny, to go forward with a fresh look at life and a backward look with love.

Listening to me process the last few years has been SUCH an important ministry to me from those of you like Anya; like my cousin Anne; like Denny’s cousin Ann; like my sisters Connie and Lorie; like my childhood friend Donna; like my UW Nursing friends Annie, Ann Marie, Charlotte, Debbie, Denise, Holly, Kim, Mark and Mary Beth, like my kids and their families, like my husband’s sister Barbie. THANK YOU.

Missing Such Friendships

So, I didn’t know I was going to take such a sideroad in this blog about my friend Anya! But it was important. Thanks for letting me share all that. I miss Anya and the friends I listed above so much. I know I am making and will continue to make new friends. But I refuse to let go of my “old” friends. And I refuse to quit wishing you would all move to Colorado Springs!

Wishing doesn’t make it so…

Ah, I need to stop wishing to change the reality of the present, but to instead give thanks for the past. I need also to give thanks for what IS good about the present. So I am grateful for a working phone and friends and relatives who help me process through life, and I am hopeful that I have released my heavy burden and can now start helping OTHERS process through THEIR lives.

I think that is one of the most beautiful gifts a person can give:
lending their ears, heart, and prayers to someone who is struggling to forge a path ahead.
I think that is so important that I decided to center it and embolden it!
That is the gist of what people like Anya are doing.
THANK YOU

So it seems fitting that we don’t have a face under Anya’s hat.

All of us can place faces under that hat, faces of people who we treasure, who have been a light for us in a dark time. Who love us through the rough paths, who celebrate with us in the good times, who walk through life with us–even if it isn’t in person on my walking path…. But I can still wish, can’t I? And who wouldn’t want to walk down this awesome walking path with me?!!! I just ran out and took a picture of it right now, 3:18 p.m. on Monday, October 21, 2024. We could fit a horde of friends on that path.