Richard Balaban first noticed a problem when his father Sol drove past the familiar driveway of his own home.\nThat was only the beginning.\nFor four years, Balaban saw his father's mind and memory fall prey to Alzheimer's disease as he watched him stumble and suffer. More than anything, Balaban wanted it all to end. And as a consequence of watching his father suffer physically, Balaban suffered mentally as he began to fantasize about ending his father's life.\n"I had previously been afraid of his dying," Balaban wrote in a journal he kept while his father was dying. "I now find myself landing more powerfully on the side of fearing his survival."\nWhen his father was sleeping, there were times Balaban would imagine smothering him with a pillow. And in the winter he thought about abandoning him in the secluded woods where he would freeze to death.\nBut he never drove his father to the chilly woods or picked up a pillow while his father was asleep. Instead, Balaban began to write, expressing his pain onto paper. For Balaban, 59, writing became his prescription for emotional peace.
Writing to heal\nIn 1991, James Pennebaker, a psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin, conducted a popular writing-to-heal experiment, which yielded favorable results in favor of writing's healing potential. Since then, expressive writing has shown time and again to be a successful method of coping with distress. More recent studies have even found that the beneficial healing effects of writing extend to chronically ill individuals who suffer from asthma and rheumatoid arthritis.\nBalaban, a clinical psychologist in Bloomington, began writing to heal shortly after his father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1990. He said his writing became a close friend, and he found it to be an effective channel to express his pain.\n"I needed something to help me deal with the pain of watching my father suffer and the difficult emotions I was feeling at the time," Balaban said. "Writing just felt like a good thing to do."\nWhen he first began writing, Balaban attended writing workshops in Bloomington so he could share his writings and feelings with others who were experiencing similar pain. He said he found comfort from the common bond of pain and creativity between people who attended the workshops.\n"Writing made me come to grips with some of the difficult emotions I felt at the time, like wanting to kill off my father," Balaban said. "But once I began to share it with others, it was actually kind of liberating to imagine smothering my father with a pillow. I realized I just wanted his pain to end."\nPennebaker attributes much of writing's healing power to the way in which it allows a person to interpret and understand particular emotions or events.\n"Writing helps people to work through an emotional event," Pennebaker said. "It provides an opportunity for people to stand back and organize a complex experience in ways they wouldn't have if they just obsessed about it."
Remembering his father through words\nFor several years after his father passed away in 1994, Balaban did not write a word. No longer experiencing the pain that had originally motivated him to write, Balaban said he didn't feel the need to carry on with his writing after the pain was gone.\nBut over the last three years, Balaban's memories of his father have sparked him with the inspiration to return to writing. Currently he is writing a book about the life of his father, whom he affectionately calls "Poppa Sol."\nBalaban has a clear idea of the purpose he wishes the book to serve. He envisions it being a small book and something readers can easily go to for support. \n"So many people have gone through or will go through the same difficult experience with Alzheimer's," he said. "I want people to move on and have a friend in the process, and I see this piece of writing as a friend they can turn to."\nOver the summer, Balaban was invited to participate in the IU writer's conference, where he and other writers shared their works in progress with one another. Although Balaban has written several revisions of his book, he said he's not sure when it will be finished. \nUnlike much of the work he wrote when his father was alive, Balaban no longer dwells on the pain of watching his father suffer. Balaban now reflects back on the touching, and sometimes humorous, memories he has of his father. \nBalaban smiles when he remembers the time his father laughingly, but seriously, asked his son if he saw that dog driving a car they had passed on the road. And he reminisces in a gentle voice about the words his father said when he found out that Pearl, his wife, was recovering from heart sickness: \n"I feel a tingle in my heart and breast to hear she is doing better, and I want to give her a kiss and hug."
Big Al comes to life\nThe condition of Balaban's father had grown significantly worse by the second year. He understood less and at times his speech didn't make sense. He became lost in his own surroundings. Gradually, his father became a different person -- both in reality and in Balaban's writing.\nBalaban created the character Big Al (Al, short for Alzheimer's) to represent the side of his father who was unable to comprehend any sense of reality. As time passed, Balaban said he and his family began to talk about Big Al more and more. He became a member of the family, Balaban said. \n"(Big Al) gave us some sense that my dad didn't have to be all depressing and exhausting," he said. "(He) could be humorous, touching and delightful. Big Al rose out of desperate feelings of pain and sadness."\nBut as his father's health grew worse, Balaban's writing improved. He was invited as a guest speaker at an Indiana Alzheimer's conference, where he was asked to share his writing with the audience. With his wife Julie, 55, Balaban narrated an account of his struggle with his father's disease. After he and his wife finished reading, he remembers looking into the audience and seeing the tears his words had brought to people's eyes.\n"In seeing their tears, I would come in touch with my own sadness and pain," he said. "I realized the impact writing could have by being able to articulate my feelings to others."\nJoAnn Campbell, a writing coach and IU staff member, said most healing occurs when work is shared with others.\n"(Sharing) opens your writing up, and it makes you feel less isolated," Campbell said. "So to create opportunities where people can really share deeply allows us to see past the surface, which is all we ever get most of the time."
a son's last moments with his father
Visiting hours at the retirement home didn't apply to Balaban on the night his father died. Sitting beside his father's bed, Balaban looked on as his father slept -- a sight that at one time might have given Balaban the desire to smother his father with a pillow. \nBut Balaban no longer had those thoughts. He knew the end was in sight.\nWithin the darkness, the only sound that broke the still silence inside the room was the sound of his father's ragged breathing. And as Balaban listened, he suddenly felt as if he heard a choir of angels singing around his father.\nAlmost 10 years later, Balaban has not forgotten the sweet lilt of the singing angels. The memories of Poppa Sol remain vibrant and close to his heart.\n"Writing helps keep my father alive," he said.\n-- Contact senior writer Colin Kearns at cmkearns@indiana.edu.
