Happy Thanksgiving

An E-Mail

N,

Talking with you last night about Gregory WAS helpful even if I said, "It doesn't help." Just being recognized for the troubles I have and for the good work I do is helpful even if it doesn't make it go away. I appreciate your not trying to "white wash" it. You recognize how terrible it is to deal with the details of Gregory's decline, the impossibility of it all. 

"We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it." (TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore) 

On the other hand we live to see a new day, and in the morning the problems seems tolerable, and maybe, just maybe we will find the fire escape or the fire department will arrive in time.

Thanks for being there and thanks for being our ART ANGEL! Gregory loves you even more than he loves painting every Tuesday!

Fondly,

Michael

Continuous Agony

This morning he heard me say,

"I'll get you a muffin to start your breakfast."
Saw me take it out of the refrigerator.
Watched me put it on a plate.
Observed as I put it in the microwave to warm.

He heard the microwave DING finishing.
Heard me say, "You can get it now."
So he sat down and waited at the counter.
He didn't get ... "Get it" ... or what that meant.

No associations, no connections
Between muffin, refrigerator, and plate.
Between Microwave, DING, and "Get it!"
So I did it for him and he said, "Thank You."

But I couldn't respond because I didn't feel thankful.

Marbles Anyone

Forgetting the name of an actor, after accumulating 60+ years of facts and figures in one's mind, should only be the worst of Alzheimer's/ Dementia Disease. However, I like that Mr. Reardon ends the article with: "Maybe I should be thankful to the threat of Alzheimer's. It reminds me to live life as fully as I can. Or, as Gwendolyn Brooks writes, "conduct your blooming in the noise and the whip of the whirlwind."

(Tribune illustration by Mike Miner / March 10, 2012

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-perspec-0311-alzheimers-20120311,0,6707658.story