Tell Me Something Good: I Can't Remember a Thing by Nancy Wolter

I am the legal guardian for my friend, Jackie Geiler, who turned 93 years old this May. I am often asked, “is Jackie is a blood relative, were we family friends, or what?” It’s simple, I answer, Jackie was once my boss for a whole year. That’s it.

In 1979, the director at Decatur Area Arts Council , was terminated. I was the lone other staff member, a program director and while the board and I liked each other fine, we both knew I wasn’t quite ready to move into the executive director’s chair. It just so happened that a Jackie Geiler had just moved into town, contacted our board chair to see how she could get involved, and in an instant, all saw that she had just the leadership qualities needed. I learned much from Jackie that year, but more than that, we became lifelong friends. So when she moved to Tempe in 1981, to serve as director of Tempe Arts Center, and I moved to Mesa in 1985, it was only natural that we continued to deepen our friendship.

That friendship , and more about Jackie, is a whole other story. What’s most important now is how I can best keep Jackie’s memory alive. And there’s only one way to do that: through stories.

Jackie began showing signs of dementia shortly after her (3^rd) husband Frank died. Disorientation, anxiety, delusions. But luckily, Jackie knew she was losing touch with reality. Jackie has one cousin, Ann Marie, who is in her seventies, lives in Iowa, and is suffering from Alzheimer’s. She was an only child. She has no children. So she asked me to become her legal guardian and with the help of social workers and others, I take care of her. I see her two or three times a week at the Memory Care facility in Sun City. And stories are what makes Jackie come alive.

“Remember when you brought Maya Angelou to Decatur for an artist residency?” I ask. And we laugh at the same story each time: How tall and regal and imperious Maya was, dressed in a floor length fur coat, and Jackie picking her up at the airport. She directed Jackie to her baggage, which Jackie dutifully picked up and carried to the car. They were large, they were heavy. And Jackie, who is about 5’2” and less than 100 pounds, spent several days carrying those huge bags around for Ms. Angelou.

We tell the story of how I stayed with her when I first moved to Mesa, while my husband packed up the house in Decatur and took care of our infant child, and how I stuffed the corn husks down the garbage disposal, causing a big mess in the kitchen. That’s not when she got mad at me, says Jackie, she only got mad at me once during the month I stayed with her. That was when she had prepared dinner for me, and I just didn’t come home; I think I had decided to go shopping or something.

We embellish these stories, we add to them our feelings and memories of other players in our dramas. We talk about the 3^rd and last husband, and his drinking bouts, and what she did. We talk about the cabin they shared in Payson, the garden they built, how they tried to keep out the deer. We talk about the creek she hiked to every day, and where she watched the sunset.

Jackie can’t remember what day it is. Sometimes, she does not know where she is. She definitely cannot remember what she had for breakfast or lunch or dinner. But together, we remember stories. And that’s all that matters to me.

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Nancy,
You found the delightful side of life in a situation where most would see doom and gloom. I to share stories with my mother who is 92 and is showing some signs of dementia. I'm like Jackie that I'm also an only child with no children and I hope I find a trustful guardian like yourself.

Posted by: Myranette Robinson | 05/15/2016 at 12:20 PM