Journal Sample

Well it's about four in the afternoon that means Oprah's almost on maybe I should quit work and watch.  Maybe I should check on the baby.  Maybe I should keep going while I have the time and the opportunity to do this.  It's been such a challenge finding the time to get this web page done and everything else, too.  Well, that's life.  Got to take the good with the bad. Just found out my neighbor across the street has a husband with Alzheimer's.  That is such an incredibly difficutl situation.  Sitting there in the rocking chair, talking with her I started thinking how you never know about folks... all the things they're dealing with... the good things, the bad things.  The many life experiences they've had... the burdens they have to bear... the talents they have.  I remember taking care of Mary when I was working as a caregiver.  Mary and her craziness when she got going about something.  The zillions of times she tried on her many pairs of glasses.  Her stories of moving out here from Boston and before that from China.  The lift of her chin and the smile on her face when she told me about working in a famous nightclub.  The sadness when she talked about her father - how he died and how he earned his living.  The shame when she told where she went to high school and what that told me about her, too.  And oh!  how hard it was when the infection that had set in on her brain started going and she would get irrational... trying on her glasses over and over or insisting that something be done a very certain and particular way.  The meatloaf.  There could be no onions!  Set the table the same way every day!  Put her reading glasses in the same place!  Watch the same thing on tv!  And talk about the wiener dogs she loved so well... get out their pictures... laugh together over doggies.  Well... there again... that's life.  So many blessings and difficulties in the same life.  And the wierdness of how age telescopes things... the person remembers the distant past so clearly but can't remember where they put their glasses.  I have had a lot of jobs through the years... talking care of old people, taking care of gardens, taking care of babies, taking care of houses... seems I was always taking care of something and seems now that I think about it there was learning in that.  Learned a lot about life... learned a lot about myself, other people... learned if I am lucky enough to live to be old I might remember the past -either distant or recent - and I might not.. but since I might,I definitley want to make choices I can live with then and now.  Choices... choices... life is all about choices.  Sometimes you don't know the consequences for years and years and years.

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