The times, they are a changin'

Every leaf that flutters by the front door causes an eruption of barking. We keep a squirt bottle labeled "No Bark Spray" by the front door. It is filled with highly noxious bark deterrent spray, chemically known as H2O. However, it only momentarily deters the barking.

"Have you tried adding vinegar to it?" asked Asherel.
"No, that just seems cruel."
"That's what the dog experts recommend."
"Then our dogs and house will smell like vinegar. That's worse than the barking."

The breeze blew and a twig skittered across the lawn. The dogs sensing the imminent Armageddon sure to follow again pierced our tiny ear drums with their vociferous warning.

We squirted them with the Bark Deterrent Spray, and collapsed heavily into the living room chairs.
"This is getting old," I pronounced, "How long have we been trying to change this behavior? Three years? When do you think they will change?"

Change is hard.

I taught my art class this week and one of my very talented artists sketched in a face she was drawing using a magazine picture as her guide. She is beyond the level of just drawing the roughly correct shapes. She needs guidance in more careful drawing of exactly what she sees. I told her she had drawn it beautifully, but she had drawn a face-on model, and the picture was of a model with her head turned. I held a ruler down the center of her picture and down the center of the model's face.
"See how much larger this side of the model's face is than this side? That's because her face is turned. Now do that with your picture."
She put the ruler on her picture and saw she equally divided the face.

"Can we just pretend the model is looking right at us?" she begged.
"You could," I said, "But then all your picture will be out of your head. Every single feature is drawn differently when the angle of the face changes. You will have to guess how to draw it. It won't be drawing what you see. My advice is to change it now before you get too far or every aspect of it will be a struggle."
She looked close to tears. I felt bad. Perhaps I should've just let it go. It is always touchy knowing how far to push my better students. But inevitably when they finish the picture if I don't help them correct those initial errors, they are dissatisfied, and by then, it is too late to do much more than say the change needed to be made long ago.

When I brought Comer to Evelyn in the Alzheimer unit yesterday, she looked up listlessly as we approached. There was no sparkling glow of recognition, no spreading smile of delight. I actually feared she was dead at first, her eyes looked so lifeless.
"Hey Mama," said Comer gently, pulling her up, "Stand up. Vicky is here to take us for a ride."
"Would you like to go for a ride?" I asked, "The wisteria are blooming."
"Go for a ride...." she said weakly, "Blooming...."
She walked between us and when we reached the elevator, she glanced at Comer.
"Oh," she said, "I love you so much!"
" I love you too, " smiled her dear old husband.
We got McDonald's icecream, which Evelyn ate with gusto and we drove to the millionaire development with streets and streets of mansions. We all pointed at the houses we loved, and oohed and aahed over the magnificence, the opulence.
Evelyn sat in the front seat with her icecream, and a smile on her face. She laughed at Comer's jokes, and then out of the blue asked me how much I felt my house was worth.

When we dropped her back at the Alzheimers building, and headed on to the Assisted Living apartment Comer lived in, he said sadly he didn't feel she was long for this world. She had stopped eating, the nurses said.
"She ate the icecream happily enough!" I said, surprised.
"I don't know why," said Comer, "But I have an overwhelming sense of guilt."
I'd like to say I knew exactly what words to offer that would explain, comfort.... but I didn't.
"You are doing all you can for her," I told him gently, "You are doing your best. That is all you can do."
He nodded and I saw him soundlessly crying as he shuffled off to the front door of his building.
I hopped out of the car and hurried past men carrying a mattress out of the building. It crossed my mind that someone must have died, and their furniture was being taken away. I caught up with Comer and hugged him again.
"You are doing the best you can," I told him again.

Change is hard. It is hard for dogs; it is hard for children struggling to learn new things; and it is hard for old folk struggling to adapt to a world that makes no sense and brings so much pain. Most of us kick and scream and rail against change. There is one final change we will all undergo, and that is the one we should keep our sights on. Our mortal body will be exchanged one final time for an immortal one.  I am hoping for a leggy, shapely blond one who always says the right things and knows how to comfort with a single word.

1 Corinthians 15: 50-58
 ⁵⁰ I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. ⁵¹ Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— ⁵² in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. ⁵³ For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. ⁵⁴ When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
 ⁵⁵ “Where, O death, is your victory?
   Where, O death, is your sting?”
 ⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. ⁵⁷ But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
 ⁵⁸ Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.