Campbell beautifully sang his trademark song Rhinestone Cowboy, engaging the band and audience as he has done so many times over the years.
As the song was over he graciously acknowledged the applause of the crowd and turned to leave the stage. Still holding the microphone to his mouth he says to the people around him, "Where do I go, or do I just shut up now?"
And therein lies the tragedy, sadness, and horror of Alzheimer's. The world witnessed a person slipping away into the "long goodbye," as Nancy Reagan once said about Ronald Reagan.
Linda Hogan in her short story states it this way, "I wake up in another country, there is no more north or south. Asleep we pass through one another like blowing snow, all of us, all." (Our Houses)
In the world of Alzheimer's I have also found what Hogan has found: North is not north, south is not south.
* Moments of brilliance interspersed with times of utter confusion;
* The "eyes of engagement" transformed into the "eyes of vacancy;"
* Times of calm switching to irritation, almost instantly.
My friend Nate has Alzheimer's. He is in a home in California. We have visited him a couple of times since he moved there in October. I enjoy being with Nate in those moments, but "being" is so very different with him than with others. As Mary Sarton has said about old age in general and dementia in particular: "It's a foreign country with an unknown language to the young and even to the middle-aged."
His more recent "last studio album" Ghosts on the Canvas is excellent, showcasing a ingenious musician along with many other more contemporary artists backing him up, like Jakob Dylan, Chris Isaak, Brian Setzer and Billy Corgan. "It's Your Amazing Grace" is a worshipful rendition mirroring Glen's utter and total dependence on God, and "Any Trouble" and "Strong" are gentle, honest treatments of the way he sees his disease. The title track is soulful and haunts the imagination about that space between here and there, life and death. Something we know is there but "we don't know when we're looking at soul, like a ghost on a canvas." Rick Gilmore
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