I first posted these thoughts on July 16 in a bit of melancholy. Melancholy and grief for abilities lost come to me when Cheryl is feeling tired and down from lack of sleep and simply too much activity. This little moment of nostalgia has passed for me but her confusion about life and other activities continues.
Yesterday evening she told me that the notes that Tari put in the cards are too confusing so I am going to bed. I chuckled to myself.
Cheryl has taken over her mom’s task of sending birthday cards out to the kids and grand-kids. Last month I started to help with the cards because Cheryl had struggled with who she had sent cards to previously. Some got two cards.
I conjured up a system in which I put everyone on a separate Postie note. As we picked out each card I put the postie inside each card. When she addressed them all she read the note and wrote the envelopes out. This month she thinks Tari wrote out the postie notes. (Smiley face here.)
A few minutes ago I went in to check to see how she was doing. She told me that Tari picked out some really cute birthday cards this time around. (Tari was not with us shopping for cards yesterday but that is not important.) She is working on the August birthday cards. She had just put on her favorite Rod Stewart CD on the player in her little office. This song came on. It happens to be one of my favorites. This disease of Parkinson is slowly taking her from me and I long for the old days.
What good are words I say to you?
They can’t convey to you what’s in my heart
If you could hear instead
The things I’ve left unsaidTime after time
I tell myself that I’m
So lucky to be loving youSo lucky to be
The one you run to see
In the evening, when the day is throughI only know what I know
The passing years will show
You’ve kept my love so young, so newAnd time after time
You’ll hear me say that I’m
So lucky to be loving youI only know what I know
The passing years will show
You’ve kept my love so young, so newAnd time after time
An old standard by Rod Stewart
You’ll hear me say that I’m
So lucky to be loving you
Lucky to be loving you
It is a lament of times passed and an optimism for the future. I often struggle with that last part when this disease of Parkinson appears in the middle of the night or I am researching incontinence products on various websites. On melancholy days I think about the preParkinson times. It helps to not look back with longing for those experiences. Time only moves forward. I am grateful to have had those experiences with her. I am grateful for the times we have yet to experience.
Do I wish she did not have Parkinson’s disease? You betcha.. Cyndi Lauper has a song that might be more familiar with a similar sentiment. Once in a while I get very nostalgic for our previous life. I let it roll over me in waves. It is helpful.
Tonight’s menu is Salisbury steak, rice, green beans and corn. I am baking a small cinnamon crumble cake for dessert. These are some of her favorite foods. I am following the Dinner for Two cookbook by Betty Crocker which is her favorite cookbook. She will compare her version before our kiddos came along to my version this evening.
Hopefully the hallucinatory little girls that often populate our home in the evening will not appear and we can rest later.
She is looking for earrings after she awoke from her nap.
Carpe Diem.
It seems that as time goes on the hallucinations are more common. It seems as time goes on she is stiffer at night and needs help to get to the toilet. It seems as time moves on she is more confused about her surroundings. It seems as time moves on she has difficulty sleeping at night. It seems that as time moves on her short term memory has completely failed. It seems as time moves on she has little concept of time – day and night can seem the same to her. It seems as time moves on the calendar holds little meaning even though she writes appointments and meetings on it. It is annoying to her caregiver.
Adjunct_Wizard 