Reflecting on, “Gentle on my Mind: In Sickness and in Health with Glen Campbell,” by Kim Campbell | Healthy Aging Series: S10 E13
I was the Canary Fairy. The proof is the picture. I was a senior at Boonville High School, and it was a skit called “The Tale of the Magic Weenie.“ I loved it! So much fun! Someone once said that life is a stage and we are just actors… stop, I know who wrote that :-). I was acting then and now I guess I am acting on life’s stage.
The Third Act
I was drawn to a TED talk by Jane Fonda on aging. It was called “The Third Act,” referring to the last third of our lives. She described it as a time of pulling loose ends together. The Third Act is a time of discovering how you became who you are. It’s a time of inner exploration, a time of growth, but, unfortunately, it’s not for some. I read Kim Campbell‘s story of her husband, Glen Campbell. It’s a story in three acts. Glen Campbell died from the effects of Alzheimer’s Dementia. Dementia took away most of his third act. He was still a character performing, but without a script, without memory, and without a hint of who he was.
The First Act
Glenn Campbell’s first act was full of chaos, lots of fame, and fortune. He sold 50 million albums.
He performed with Fleetwood Mac, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings. He was a familiar face at the White House. He spent most of this act abusing alcohol. Kim writes, “For three days Glen had been drinking around the clock. On the fourth day I woke at 8 PM. Glen was still passed out cold. I put on my pink robe, tied my belt around my belly, six months large with child, and made my way to the kitchen to find something to eat. I walked a careful path around a food-and-obstacle-course of empty booze, bottles, wine bottles, dirty dishes, and empty pizza boxes. Despite the carnage in the kitchen, the morning felt quiet and calm in contrast to the wild night that had proceeded it.”
About another incident she writes, “One night I saw that Glen stumbled into the bathroom naked. I pretended to be asleep. I did this often because I feared that if he knew I was awake, he would begin to rant and keep me up all night. When he did not return, I got up and checked on him only to find him passed out on the cold tile floor. When I saw him lying there, a story he told me about Willie Nelson’s first wife passed through my mind. Martha was so sick of Willie passing out drunk every night that she tied him up in bed sheets and beat the hell out of him with a broom handle. As tempting as that sounded at the time, I followed what I had learned which was rather than waking Glen up and maneuvering him into bed or putting a pillow under his head and a blanket over him, I left him lying in all his indignity. He came to bed, shivering cold, and hungover.”
Of course, there were wonderful moments. The birth of his children. Wonderful friendships. His faith experiences. But it was also a time of instability and unpredictability. That was Act One.
Act Two
Kim Campbell describes Act Two as Campbellot.
Really, it was Glen who referred to himself as the king of his little kingdom, he called Campbellot. In Act Two, he walked away from alcohol and drugs. It was the late 1980s.
“Writers wiser than me,” she writes, “have said most stories naturally breakdown into three acts. If that’s the case, I see Glen’s embrace of sobriety as a happy conclusion of the first phase of our life together. The second phase, a gloriously happy one, is about maturation. As we grew in our faith and our love for each other, we finally began to bear the fruit of the spirit. We matured as a couple and as children of God.”
Later she writes, “Winters were in Phoenix, summers in Sedona, the children growing healthy and strong, tour dates everywhere from Seattle to Sydney. Life was serene. Our faith deepened and our spiritual studies intensified.”
The Third Act
Unfortunately, the Third Act brought the return of chaos, instability, unpredictability, and confusion. But this time it wasn’t alcohol; it was Alzheimer Dementia.
Glen was diagnosed in 2010 at the age of 74, but the disease had shown itself years earlier. Alzheimer’s shortened Glen’s Third Act, or rather robbed him of it! I often tell people that you have to prepare for the last 10 years of your life, for your Third Act, but there is little that can prepare you for Alzheimer’s Dementia.
There are preventable types of dementia. Vascular Dementia is typically caused by a stroke. Strokes are 80% preventable by working on your cardiovascular health through a good diet and exercise and decreasing inflammation. I’ll have a complete episode later on inflammation.
True Grit
I watched a documentary about Glen (“Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me”), about his final tour in 2012, and I watched the 1969 version of True Grit as part of my preparation for this episode. He died in 2017. The book and the movie help fill in the blank spaces. They both celebrate Glen’s life. Glen plays Texas Ranger La Boeuf in the film. The La Boeuf character is full of Texas wisdom. He and Maddie Ross are sparring and talking to Rooster Cogburn while Rooster is intoxicated.
Mattie Ross: I will not bandy words with a drunkard.
La Boeuf: That’s real smart. You’ve done nothing when you’ve bested a fool.
True grit is a movie full of true grit. Maddie. Rooster. LaBeouf. They all showed tenacity in the face of adversity. Watch the documentary and the movie!
I think Kim, Glen, and their family showed true grit. True grit comes from love and compassion. I don’t read these dementia memoirs to experience the tragedies, I read them to witness the grit and tenacity that people show in the face of adversity.
