In the 29th August edition of ‘The Tablet’, there is an excellent interview with Fr Michael McCarthy, our own local poet-priest, focusing on his eagerly awaited third collection of poems, The Healing Station. This is the fruit of a three-month creative writing post in the Adelaide and Meath Hospital in Dublin, working with acute stroke and dementia patients. As the article concludes, dementia is reaching epidemic proportions and none of us can afford to ignore it. There is a growing awareness in many parishes of the challenges this poses and people are beginning to ask the question “How can we make our churches more dementia-friendly, more inclusive?” All too often, people with dementia and their families become excluded and marginalised.
An upcoming event organised by Growing Old Grace-fully will provide an opportunity to hear more about Fr Michael’s writing and his experience of working with people with dementia and their carers in hospital, and in his life as a parish priest.
On Saturday 12th September at St Aidan’s Parish Hall,31 Baildon Road, Shipley BD17 6AQ, Growing Old Grace-fully is holding a day on dementia: “Welcoming People with Dementia”. This day is intended for all those involved with caring for or ministering to people with dementia. Eucharistic Ministers or SVP members wanting to learn more about dementia and how to make a visit to someone with dementia easier and more meaningful for both parties will find this day very helpful. Liturgists too may find this useful for planning prayers and services which people with dementia might attend.
Fr Michael is speaking alongside Rev. Gaynor Hammond, a Baptist Minister, who has encouraged churches to become more dementia friendly and has written a number of books full of practical ideas to help parishes, including “Help, We have Dementia!” and “Growing Dementia-Friendly Churches.”
Taken from ‘Fountain of Age’ by Betty Frieden, Simon & Schuster 1993.
This generation has a unique role in combating the “age as decline” model, which is still prevalent in Western society. We are living longer with health and assets, and the benefits of technology – at the turn of the 20th century average life expectancy was 45 years.
It is the nature of our human biology- and above all our human brain – that development can indeed continue beyond childhood, youth and beyond mid life up to and beyond the 70’s. It can continue to the very end of life, given purposes that challenge and use our human abilities
That is not how we look at age today. As things are now, we have good reason to fear age. We have seen, and are shown, only the losses and declines it can impose.
• In gerontology there is bias to studies of older people in institutions,/ of senility/ dementia / dependency.
• In retirement, although in the USA retirement age was raised to 70 in 1977, age discrimination continues to favour younger workers.
• The obsession with being young is characterised by face lifts, plastic surgery in general and Viagra.
• The retirement village complex, funded by business consortiums feeding on people’s fear of loneliness, illness, not coping – cashing in on the mindless conformity to the victim model of old age.
We have therefore averted our eyes from the face of age.
“Do you remember?” How often have we said that to an old friend or perhaps a person we have worked with for many years. Shared memories mean a lot to us. And we enjoy sharing them. “Talking over old times” in the company of a friend can be a real pleasure. We meet once more those long gone people we both once knew. The “old times” were part of what made us the persons we now are.
It is one of the trials of growing old that, one by one, friends are lost. Fewer and fewer people can go back with us into the past of fifty or sixty years ago. With the loss of people who share our memories our own lives are in a way reduced and narrowed. The past has become a more remote land into which we can no longer venture in the company of trusted companions and fellow voyagers.
This loss of shared memory is almost inevitable in a the course of a long life. I find it a real trial but I tackle it in three stages, just as I would arthritic knees or forgetfulness. The three magic words are recognise, accept and adapt.
For a start we need to recognise that we have a problem. Otherwise it will be like a nagging tooth which we try to ignore. Then, having looked it in the face, we accept it is a natural feature of life as an older person. But how do we handle it? I find it helps me escape from the voices the past by trying really hard to live in the present. After all that is where we now are. And, as Christians, we still have so much to look forward to. So, remember the past with affection, enjoy the present with appreciation and await the future with trust.
Fr John Dunne has just celebrated his ordination Diamond Jubilee.
This book of poetry is published in 2015 by smith/doorstop Books (isbn 978-1-910367-34-6) at £9.95.
Fr Michael is well known in the Leeds Diocese as a “poet priest,” a parish priest who writes poetry. He has had a number of books published and this most recent set of poems arose out of a part time Writer in Residency at the Adelaide and Meath Hospital in Dublin over a three month period, with patients with dementia and strokes, and their carers. Consultant Dr Ronan Collins says “Giving experience of patient and carer through poetic narrative allows a deeper understanding of this journey with its milestones of despair, challenge, acceptance, recovery, hope and humour.”
In one poem clled Hippy Hippy Shake with reference to the 1960’s pop song (remember it?), he likens the physiotherapy exercises Tony undergoes after his stroke to a dance routine. In the last verse Tony and his wife Maura reminisce on dancing. Humour and disability are melded with compassion.
In another poem The Hurler an ex-inter county hurler is practising his walking as he recalls past triumphs. The poem concludes:
“The memories are what matter to him now.
They’ve seen him through some tight corners.
‘You’re walking straight as an arrow Tommy.
You can go home as soon as you’re ready.’
There’ll be bonfires in Toomevara tonight.”
In one of the most moving poems, The Golfer, Fr Michael describes a Portmarnock golfer’s repeated determination to overcome health crises: “coming back on course.” One of the verses reads:
“Lazarus they called him. Again and again he came back
from the dead, coming out of the bunker however deep.”
At the end of the last verse we sadly read:
“Out in Portmarnock the flags are at half mast.”
With absorbing economy of words and golfing analogy, beloved of this determined patient, we learn of his death. The reader has got to know something about this unnamed patient and cares about what happens to him in only a few lines of verse.
In similar vein in Gleann Na Smol we learn of Maeve and her husband who rode bicycles “to Bohernabreena and back” in their courting, family rearing and then older days. We only learn at the end that she is in a wheelchair and is taking timed exercise on a hospital bike. With a tender comment her hospital carer comments:
“‘ Nice one Maeve. A personal best. Bohernabreena and back
in fifteen minutes. Are you sure you went all the way?’
‘Gleann na Smol’, she smiles, ‘we went all the way.’ ”
Fr Michael manages to convey how the staff creatively help to care for their patients and it is clear how well they have got to know their history and interests. This carer and Fr Michael convey the respect and humanity of personal history and the importance of reminiscence in the healing process.
The book is interspersed with poems about dementia. Some are clearly dealing with cognitive impairment. In others we are not so sure and are food for thought. What is the difference between impairment, imaginative retelling of memories, jokes and laughter which may or may not convey wisdom, diversion from the pain or some confabulation? Which is which? There are several poems around memory testing and a particularly poignant one called Joe. This reminds us of the importance of prayer and ritual that can be anchoring for us all. Joe answers yes to everything, but when prompted with the first two lines of the Our Father Joe says the whole prayer…How many of us have been surprised by people with dementia? For Eucharistic Ministers this is a useful tip: to start the Lords’ Prayer and see what happens…
The poems are profound and richer the more one re-reads them. A final section of poems in the book are good resources for more extended reflection. In the hospital chapel are “healing stations” which are artworks connected to passages in the bible. Fr Michael links these to events for people visiting the Chapel. In front of Jairus’ Daughter (Lk.8 41-46) a woman has flown long distance to visit someone in hospital. She likely hasn’t been to pray in a church since childhood but:
“the young woman’s awkwardness is eased by desperation.”
As she turns to leave her face is streaked with grief.
I believe, Lord, help my unbelief.”
Finally, a wealthy businessman who has had a stroke sits in front of an artwork about Jesus with the demoniac. This is the scriptural story where Jesus allows the man’s demons to enter a herd of swine who subsequently rush over the cliff side,(Lk.8 26-33.) The poem is entitled “The Celtic Tiger and the Gerasene Demoniac.” The man is reflecting that Ireland had been possessed by the Celtic Tiger and he had the best suits, cars, suites in New York. He says:
“..And here I am now in my top of the range
4X4 wheelchair, down in the chapel, watching that poor demoniac
as Jesus raises him up, and the pigs with the devils in them rush for the cliffs.
I’m not much of a religious man but I like a good story. The last of my pigs
went over the cliff this morning. I told them about my account in the Caymans.
“The devil is in the detail” they said. But the devils are in the pigs. I know that now.
The whole time right up to the time I collapsed I hadn’t felt right with myself.”
He concludes: ..”We’re free men at last, myself and the ex-demoniac.”
I have read these poems several times over, and each time I am more aware of the images, cadences and layers of meaning which enrich with re-reading. And as Jonathan Tulloch of The Tablet says in his review: “These poems are at once tender, yet uncompromisingly tough.” Don’t worry. I haven’t mentioned them all! There are forty nine in the book. It is a great read: funny, sad, poignant, unbearable, inspiring, comforting and nourishing food for thought.
Pippa Bonner, a Trustee and member of GOG Management Committee
If you would like to hear more about Fr Michael’s writing and his experience of working with people with dementia and their carers in hospital and in his life as a parish priest you have a chance soon!
On Saturday 12th September at St Aidan’s Parish Hall, (31 Baildon Road, Shipley BD17 6AQ) Growing Old Grace-fully (GOG) are holding a day on dementia: “Welcoming People with Dementia”.
This day is planned for all those involved with caring for people with dementia or who minister to people with dementia. If you are a Eucharistic Minister or in the SVP and want to learn more about dementia and how to make a visit to someone with dementia easier and more meaningful for both of you, this day may help! Liturgists too may find this useful for planning prayers and services which people with dementia might attend.
Fr Michael is speaking alongside Rev. Gaynor Hammond, a Baptist Minister, who has encouraged churches to become more dementia friendly and has written a number of books full of practical ideas to help parishes, including “Help, We have Dementia!” and “Growing Dementia-Friendly Churches.” Brian Allen, retired NHS Chaplaincy Team Leader reviewed Gaynor’s latest book in the Winter 2014 edition of Christians on Ageing magazine and commented “Gaynor’s commitment to the task of enabling churches to become more dementia friendly shines through her life and work and is well exemplified by this attractively presented booklet.”
Srs Catherine Houlihan and Mary Bernard Potter led a quiet day of prayer, reflection and discussion for older people at St Aelred’s in Harrogate at the end of June.
Sr Catherine, who was born in 1923, reflected on the opportunities as well as the challenges that growing older offers. Since her own retirement from full time work, Sr Catherine has undertaken a number of different and rewarding roles. “I have been ‘recycled’ in many surprising ways” she said. Sr Catherine reminded us that God’s ways are not our ways and the stories of Abraham and Sarah, Simeon and Anna remind us that God expects surprising things from older people.
Sr Mary Bernard invited everyone to consider older age as having the potential to be a time of blessing. “These years can be a blessing when we come to understand that it is the quality of what we think and say that makes us valuable members of society, not how fast or busy we are.” Sr Mary acknowledged the fear that the physical effects of ageing can bring, and reflected on the need to recognise our fears to live these years well. “Old age enlightens – not simply ourselves but those around us” she concluded.
There was time for discussion in small groups throughout the day, and many people enjoyed their lunch in the glorious sunshine sitting in St Aelred’s garden.
“Today has been real therapy”, commented one of the attendees, “Better than medicine”.
If you are interested in holding a Day of Reflection for older people in your parish then call Rachel on 07702 255142 or email growing.old.gracefully@dioceseofleeds.org.uk .
If you would like to discuss how Growing Old Grace-fully might help support older people in your parish then please visit our contact page here and get in touch.
