"I'll Be Me"

I know. My entries of late, infrequent as I know they are, have also been on "serious" subjects. More than one of my readers have suggested that they have been downright depressing. So, given that my subject today is that disease, often put under the general labels of Alzheimer's or dementia, I realize that I am taking a chance on driving my few "fans" away.

For me, though, neither this subject, as poignantly presented by a documentary on the Wrecking Crew member turned famous singer, songwriter, and actor, nor the others on which I have found myself reflecting in these pages, is coming from a depressive place within me. Struggle as I have, and do, as we all have and done, with internal demons, I am actually mostly in one of the most psychologically happy places that I have been in many a year. I guess I just don't actually find the subjects of old age and the diminished condition that often (not always as I can attest in dealing with one 94 year old with a quick memory) is consequent to the gift of long life depressing. I wish I could explain why with any clarity. It might be the result of my faith, which fitful though it is, grounds me in a sense of purpose, notwithstanding the presence of struggle and suffering, or even because of the presence of struggle and suffering. As a practicing (emphasis on it being practice) Catholic, I have come more and more to immerse myself in the Theology of Suffering, that starts with the Fall of Adam and Eve, moves through the events of the Old Testament, into the New with Christ's entry into time and the paradoxical transformation of Suffering via Resurrection. But trying to talk about that just gets too knotty, even to me. Maybe it is more visceral than intellectual. I really see I can't explain why it is not depressing to me (maybe it will be when my version happens to me if I live long enough), except to say that in all of this is an experience of the heroic spark of life in we human beings. A feisty spark that makes me want to smile and cry at the same time.

Let me put it imperfectly this way as it pertains to the Glen Campbell documentary, "I'll Be Me", I never appreciated the talent, the essence of a person (in this case one I don't know personally, but it is true or truer to me in the case of someone I have known) until being exposed to the reality of its loss.
Until then, the brilliance, the warmth, the whatever identifies a friend, a relative, a performer, a writer, you name it, we/I take for granted.

Glen Campbell has been around for most of my life. I used to watch his television show. I loved some of his songs back in the sixties. I can still remember singing along to Wichita Lineman in our first Bronx apartment, wishing I had that depth of voice. He was this young, brash character in True Grit. It was only recently I found out that he was part of that sessions group that backed up many a famous album without credit in the 1960s, before singular fame found him. But in many ways, as many human beings are to us, he was a backdrop to my life. As if he'd always be there. Always as he was.

In 2011 besieged by forgetfulness, Campbell was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. He was forgetting major things. He was forgetting names of people he loved. His wife (he has had several and a number of kids, three of whom are musicians in this documentary) thought to take one more tour, a final tour. Glen Campbell probably did not realize it was a final tour. He heard the diagnosis, but as you watch, it is not clear he really understands the enormity of it. He does what we all do. He attributes the problems he is having to something insignificant--he doesn't need the information he can't recall any longer. What he still has, for the duration of most of the film, for about one year, is the music that is in his bones. When his wife suggests the filming of the tour, as if it is sort of a fictional movie, Glen provides the title. He says, "I''ll be me."  And that of course is what we see. As he is losing pieces of himself, the memories of a successful professional life, and the joys and sadness of his personal life, in the music he is still very much present and whole.

He is ordinary. He is extraordinary. At once. He is a human being whose brilliance is oddly not diminished through the movie, despite the soon to be crippling disease. We know how it's going to end. He won't be able to continue after a while. But we capture him while he still can, for posterity. For us. For his family. To give impetus to fight a disease that will affect many a baby boomer just behind him.

All Alzheimer's is a form of dementia, but not all dementia is Alzheimer's. I have known or do know several people who have had the stroke induced type of dementia. The symptoms are much the same. You become the repository of their memories because they no longer have them. And yet, in every one, there is this kernel, this insistence on remaining, "me". And it is miraculous even as each loss of the everyday person you used to know occurs. Words really can't express.

This movie. This following of Glen Campbell, who now I have read is probably close to death, three years after the end of this documentary, if you watch it, you come away with an affection, an appreciation, an amazement at the human spirit that just can't be expressed. But most of all for me at least it can't be summed up with the word, "depressing." Oh, to be sure, sad, depressing, are there, but the totality is neither. Awe maybe. Or maybe, because of my faith, I see something that is intended to be, will be, eternal, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding.

I'Anyway, I recommend the documentary, for what that is worth.