Cheryl will ask about school and for the longest time I was certain she was talking about school when she was a child. Now I am not so sure. She often makes reference to “that woman who runs the school here.” This morning while she was eating her new favorite cereal, shredded wheat, she asked who is taking me to the farm today? She had been looking at the used-to-be local paper. I gently reiterated that she did not have to go to the farm or school or church today. These are all circular conversations (my term) that we have.

Early this morning, when she first awakened, we started with the church discussion and I told Her today is Thursday there is no church service but you do have exercise class at noon. This seemed to satisfy her at the time.

Yesterday morning she asked about school and I told her that there was no exercise class today. These are often conversations we have early after getting up in the morning. Last evening, however, as she was getting ready for bed, she began to tell me about “that woman who runs a school here.”

I have begun to tell her what is in store for the day as soon as I am aware of her wakefulness. It is my own way of dissuading her anxiety about missing something. These days the calendar is meaningless. The LARGE annoying alarm clock we use in the morning announces the time and date but she seems unable to connect that information to the calendar squares to find any extra information that we may have written there.

A clue to this confusion may have been when I first put it together and set the time its display read; 4:00 PM, Thursday March 15, 2017, Early Evening or a display similar. She asked me, “early evening”, what does that mean? I turned off that part of the display so that now it only shows the time and date.

Now we have two calendars, one on her office door and one in the hallway to our bedroom. It is up to me to keep them in sync. My life is getting busier while hers is getting more confused.

One day medical science will have answers for where these thoughts come from in parkie’s heads. Maybe one day Dr. McCoy will understand what no man has understood before. Or maybe not.

Carpe Diem.