In this season of happy and family and celebration, after I have gotten through all the wrapping and cookie making and other organizational tasks, I slow to take stock of the year. Good things happened and not so good things happened but mostly this year was. It is in the past now.

Throughout this year Facebook is a personal source of joy, amusement, interest, empathy and puzzlement. When some political whiny rant appears, I am puzzled by the things total strangers will say to others that they would not say in person. I am filled with joy at the pictures of children both young and old. I am amused by the various MEME cards that folks post, sometimes without thinking. I am interested in other care giver’s thoughts as they travel down their road of Parkinson. And I am empathetic to their particular struggles. In this collage of pictures selected in no particular sequence are pictures of things, people and MEMEs that appeared on Facebook during the past year and I downloaded to my tablet as I watched the TV news and waited for Cheryl to wake up.

The good things

• The joy in Zachary’s face. He always makes me smile.
• Luke’s artistic muses in photography
• Family
• family gatherings
• Max is off to Miami University — I am class of ’72
• Laurencia is 21!
• Cindy Smith
• Linda Weisgerber
• Kathy Mellen
• Mary Jo Horton
• Jane Pohlman
• Parkinson Community Fitness
• UC Health
• Jeff and Stephanie’s ELFie – Elizabeth Laura Fisher
• Zane and Charlotte
• Lydia (think songs from the Music man)
• Anniversaries
• Anna’s 50th birthday (I love you)
• trips and vacations
• New people in our lives
• Looking back and memories
• Learning how to make cookies
• Sr. Carren and Nancy Strapp
• Visits from friends of Cheryl
• Phone calls to Cheryl from her friends
• Special friends
• small faces and their happiness
• Jana Ann
• The class I took on being a good care partner (Linda stayed with Cheryl so I could go.)
• A new found interest in cookies and muffins
• Finding out that adjusting meds, schedules and eating has reduced Cheryl’s upset stomach to non-existent almost. (and the neurologist MDS says bravo.)
• Lunch with Marilyn

The not so good things

• Constant reminder of Parkinson
• Anna’s Fiftieth birthday (wow, I am old.)
• Cheryl’s lost memory
• Learning how to make cookies (there have been disasters.)
• Cheryl’s worsening confusion in the evening
• dementia in all its forms – delusion, hallucination, Capgras, sundowner, showtime
• frost on the window (I have never been a big fan of winter)
• avocados
• Cheryl wanting to talk (call) to her mother in the evening (which worries me – I think – unnecessarily.)
• Late night punding in her office

These are both incomplete lists. However the good list is already way longer than the not so good list. (And a couple of those are tongue-in-cheek jokes.) I constantly try to turn away from letting Parkinson and dementia drive our life.

I will probably add to these lists during the holiday down time.

Carpe Merry Christmas Diem.