Says the doctor says I can go home. No surgery.
Just wear this neck brace for a while and after 8 weeks or so all will be well. Hopefully after 8 weeks or so my face won’t look like it does now. Ill be back to my clean shaven, handsome self. Not looking like I went through the windshield of a car. Anyway It’s not too bad.
I still feel kind of dumb, but Oh well. Stuff happens.
Carpe diem
Music is playing today. It is Thursday. She is good. And that was earlier in the day. Sometimes when you least expect it. Life throws you a ringer. … two days later.
Today’s ringer is I fell on my face a couple of days ago and now I’m in the hospital. So I can’t really pay much attention to Cheryl’s health and well-being at this point in time. I have to keep track of my own health and well-being.
It’s not quite the same thing as being on vacation where I’m always thinking about how she’s doing what she’s doing who’s visiting those sorts of things.
While here I know who’s visiting because everybody that goes over to see her sends me a little text message. And also points out the fact that I need to take care of myself and get healed up.
So here’s what happened. I was having a few drinks out on the front of the building. Me and a couple of my neighbors were watching the Sun come down. Drinking beer and vodka. We were enjoying the sunshine and they had distracted me from worrying about Cheryl. I probably drank too much vodka but that’s okay. I had been over to see Cheryl and Cheryl was actually doing pretty good that day.
Anyway when I got up, I guess I stumbled and fell on my face. So now I have a fracture in my neck that they want to fix. I don’t feel any pain. I don’t feel any tingling. I don’t feel any nerve damage and the MRI doesn’t show any of that. But Here I am sitting here in the hospital bed waiting for the surgical guys to find an operating room to fix me
And then I suppose I’ll have this neck brace on my neck for a few weeks I imagine.
So It’s time to relax. I must not worried about Cheryl worry about me. Cheryl’s in good hands Somebody’s over there with her all the time. And somebody like her sister or like her daughter or like her sons or friends. They all go visit her at different times. So she has plenty. Plenty of visitors and help So when you got lemons you have to make lemonade.
This is a forced time out for me.
I am trying to not resist.
Carpe Diem.
I have a lot of extra time. Cheryl is being cared for at Bridgeway Pointe and I hunt for ways to fill my day. I take walks on good weather days, this is one of those. The Spring weather is warming. It is not warming fast enough for me. Every time I walk by my bike to get into the car to visit Cheryl I check the tires just because. My plan for the summer is to ride that bike as many days as I can fit into my open schedule.
This morning I was uninterested in the news of the day. Donald is going to badmouth Joe for eight more months. It is impossible to describe how uninterested I am with all of that. The primary in Ohio is March 19th. After that I will no longer hear about what stinkers Frank and Bernie are and the guy with the construction company may get to drive down and fix the wall. None of those guys are telling me what they plan to do make the world a better place. They are telling me what the other guy is incapable of doing. Politics is sport. Trash talk is here.
Losing interest in network television I woke up Prime video and eventually old TV shows appeared inside of the CBS app. Cheers is an old favorite. The theme song came on and took me back to long ago. Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got. Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot. Wouldn’t you like to get away? ….Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name and they’re always glad you came. You wanna be where you can see our troubles are all the same.
I sat and watched the very first episode (I think) where the bar burns down at 2 AM in the morning after partying hard at a wedding. Afterward I told Alexa to find the theme song and it politely played that for me before switching to a collection of other TV show themes. Nostalgia on some days is good I think.
Stephen Curry was on the morning news yesterday for a bit. He wrote another children’s book. He commented that his theme is to leave the world a better place. I think that is a good life philosophy. I used to have as a goal to have the money run out about the time I did, but that is a low bar.
Perhaps, “Choose happiness and leave the world a better place than you found it. And when you start something, finish it.” is my new motto, philosophy, theme.
Spring is coming!
Carpe Diem!
—
Cheers Lyrics: Songwriters: Gary Portnoy / Judy Hart
… Making your way in the world today
Takes everything you’ve got
Taking a break from all your worries
Sure would help a lot
Wouldn’t you like to get away?
… All those nights when you’ve got no lights
The check is in the mail
And your little angel
Hung the cat up by it’s tail
And your third fiance didn’t show
… Sometimes you wanna go
Where everybody knows your name
And they’re always glad you came
You wanna be where you can see (ah-ah)
Our troubles are all the same (ah-ah)
You wanna be where everybody knows your name
… Roll out of bed, Mr. Coffee’s dead
The morning’s looking bright (the morning’s looking bright)
And your shrink ran off to Europe
And didn’t even write
And your husband wants to be a girl
Be glad there’s one place in the world
… Where everybody knows your name
And they’re always glad you came
You wanna go where people know
People are all the same
You wanna go where everybody knows your name
… Where everybody knows your name (where everybody knows your name)
And they’re always glad you came
Where everybody knows your name (where everybody knows your name)
And they’re always glad you came
Where everybody knows your name (where everybody knows your name)
And they’re always glad you came
Where everybody knows your name (where everybody knows your name)
Dear Cheryl,
You know of course that you are the love of my life, the place where I am home. I do not say this to you often enough. I am writing it here so that you can read it often if you want.
This morning when I came to you to be home and see how you were doing, Jennifer told me that you had no interest in getting up so after the bathroom she helped you back to bed. This is where you were when I came. I kissed you and you ignored me. You were deeply sleeping. I sat and watched you breathe for a few minutes, hoping you would stir. You did not, so, I kissed you again and told you that I would return later.
Here I am again. It is almost three pm and you are still lights out. I talked to Mike in the hallway outside of the Harbor. He told me that you were still sleeping and he had taken your vital signs. He made a little joke about this being one of those days when you are not participating. He is such a gentle nurse.
As I was ending my conversation with him, I met Rosie Doud. You know, Bill Doud’s sister? She is staying at Bridgeway Pointe.
Even though Mike said you were sleeping, I came to watch you breathe. Maybe you will awaken later when Linda and Regan come. Maybe not. Obviously you need to sleep today. I am glad you did not need to doze yesterday afternoon. We held hands and you told me about something but I did not understand all of your words.
Sleep some more and I will check on you after supper.
I love you.
Paul
I have always been a fan of haiku. Seventeen syllables to evoke an emotional connection to the earth and our surroundings. I am also a fan of sonnet but the rhythm and rhyming sequence often escapes me. Haiku is free verse, an emotion, a summary. It is a painting in words to me. I like to experiment with it.
new life persistent
provides much beauty on gray
wintertime background
Regardless of where we are or what we are doing or what trouble may concern us, Spring flowers appear in the landscape. Take notice of them. A new year of growth is here. Breathe in, breathe out, enjoy your surroundings. This year this lone forsythia left to grow wild in the woods behind our condo shows its beauty once again.
Carpe the landscape Diem!
Today is Sunday. When I was here earlier Cheryl was dozing. She had taken her meds earlier and ate a little breakfast. Often when I come over on Sunday afternoon she is alert and active and talking to someone else who is invisible to me. This day is no exception.
She let me sit with her and hold her hands for a few minutes. Now she has rediscovered a knitted fidget that has beads, a pocket, a loop and buttons. Cheryl discovered this shortly after she moved to Bridgeway Pointe and it seems to keep her interest for long periods. She is struggling with the loop to hook it over the bead and button.
The loop is the most fascinating thing. She loves to loop it around her fingers.
I take every opportunity to hold her hand.
Carpe hand holding Diem.
After a few months, I find myself in Florida again without Cheryl. In June of 2023 when Cheryl and I came to the Florida panhandle with Anna and her family it was fun and it was exhausting. This time Cheryl is not with me. This time Joyce is often driving and I am able to watch the scenery. This time is different.
Last summer may have been our last trip together. This trip is not the first one without her that I was not going to work but this trip feels different. I cannot put my finger on what is different. Is it because Cheryl is not with me and it is the nation’s designated vacation spot? Surely that’s not it. I am visiting family with family. Is it because I am not worried or concerned about her care? As I was visiting with my sister in the previous October? I am still analyzing those thoughts.
This trip started as an invitation to participate in an informational weekend about the activities supported by the Southern Poverty Law Center founded years ago by Julian Bond et al.
The weekend’s events culminated in jubilee commemoration of Bloody Sunday 59 years ago on the march from Selma to Montgomery Alabama.
My impression of Selma is that it is remarkably poor. This impression is supported by empty and boarded up storefronts and the slow or non-existent recovery from the tornado that passed through a couple years ago. Whatever the vision is in the leadership of the great State of Alabama may be for the future it seems to have left the the small village of Selma behind. It is a pretty area. The few pictures I took of the river area show this fact and Selma has a grand boulevard in the center of it. There is a Walmart Super Center less than two miles from the town center. Big box stores tend to kill off the core of little towns. It seems to be happening here.
The bridge crossing happened on Sunday and after we walked across the bridge and completed wading through the crowd on the other side taking selfies and deciding what to do next and generally recrossing the bridge on the sidewalks back to the carnival atmosphere a block off the side of the boulevard, we found our bus back to Montgomery. That evening we went to a nice local restaurant for dinner. Fifty-nine years ago many of those bridge crossing folks spent the night in jail or the hospital somewhere. It is quite a contrast, then and now, but the poverty is still there.
The next day we were off to Port St. Joe, Florida to visit with our nephew Mark and his wife Leslie. Their little vacation home in Port St. Joe is set up perfectly no TV, no WIFI, just conversation. Port St. Joe is a sleepy little town with the distinctive title of original capital city of the State of Florida. Leslie grew up there. Mark and his family took us to a raw bar. I later found out this is another name for a sea food restaurant.
As I conversed with Mark it struck me that he is very much like his father, my brother. In addition to resembling his father physically, his mannerisms, his focus, his jesters, I felt like I was talking to a younger version of my brother. I have not seen Mark since Mom’s funeral and we did not talk at length at the funeral.
Cheryl came flooding back into my mind. I looked around and in my head she told me that if she could have been there she would have sat near Leslie and the kids to talk and catch up. Family and conversation is very important to her. Sitting with Mark, my sister Joyce and his family, I realized how much I was missing Cheryl. She would have enjoyed this trip very much. And the additional aspect of lived history would have had her telling about this trip over many dinner conversations into the future.
The next day we continued on to visit with Mark’s mother, my sister-in-law, Judy. My brother left this Earth in May of 2020. Sadly, because of the COVID travel restrictions, Cheryl’s inability to travel easily and other factors, we were unable to attend services for my brother Bill. Judy showed Joyce and me a wonderful memory book put together by the funeral services company as well as the program for Bill’s celebration of life. I picked up the book and looking through it had to catch myself as I wanted to turn and show it to Cheryl. (I was missing Cheryl again.)
This was perfect; family, history, hiking, a beach nearby, Judy’s beautiful house at the end.
When I got home in the early evening my son Scott picked me up at the airport. As we rode along my only thought was to drive over and visit Cheryl. She was in bed already so I kissed her goodnight and returned home to eat something and consider various aspects of the trip, my relationship to my own family and enjoy sleeping in my own bed.
Carpe the road trip Diem.
I am thinking about you this morning as I do every morning.
Earlier I listened to and old U2 song – With or Without You – And I realized that these words from this song have a very different meaning to me than the original lyricist meant. I cannot live with you physically. It is simply more than I can handle day to day. Between your Parkinson and the associated memory and dementia, it is overwhelming for me to take care for you by myself. This breaks my heart.
And yet, in my heart I cannot live without you constantly in my thoughts. Often in the morning when I hear some song or part of a song I think of a time when we were younger and this song was on the radio or the group was very popular and what we were doing in our lives. Some of those memories are vague with little flashes of pictures in my mind. The dream ends and I am in our home, alone, without you. I become sad again.
Songs and particular lines from songs often evoke an emotional (teary) response from my heart. Loving you and living without you is a very unsatisfactory feeling.
With you or without you – I miss you,
Paul
Dear Cheryl,
You were sleeping today when I came to visit. Sleeping so very soundly that I did not want to disturb you. I kissed you on the cheek like I usually do to tease you awake. I know that you do not like me to kiss you on the ear. You did not even stir, not one bit.
I sat in the rocker for a little bit to watch you breathe.
After a few more minutes I left you to rest and came home. As I was driving home I thought to write this letter to you. I have been listening to a collection of songs from Spotify entitled – Songs to Sing in the Shower. Pulling into the garage LeAnn Rimes started singing, “You Can’t Fight the Moonlight”. This line – “There’s no escaping love; Once the gentle breeze; Weaves its spell upon your heart” – stuck with me.
I suddenly realized how much I missed seeing you today. The past couple days you were alert and we were able to sit and hold hands quietly. Yesterday you put your head on my shoulder and we sat that way for awhile. I enjoyed that quiet time with you.
I think that touching you is more important to me than I admit to myself.
Sleep well and rest. I will see you tomorrow.
I love you,
Paul
Many years ago when I was still working our company had installed a machine in a manufacturing company in Glasgow Kentucky. If it was necessary to visit this customer I would try to steer the meeting to Friday because it was Catfish Friday at Annie’s Kitchen in Glasgow. That memory came to me today when I ordered the catfish in the Drake cafeteria for lunch today.
I do not remember when I was last to Annie’s but it has been quite awhile. The fish at the cafeteria was pretty good but the fish at Annie’s place was exquisite. I do not eat a lot of fish. I live in Ohio.
Lent is upon us and many churches, restaurants and volunteer firehouses have fish fries during lent. For many years that was our Friday(s) in Lent. Go to the fish fry and visit with friends and be Catholic like the old days when we were children for a time.
The pandemic pandemonium killed that all off for a time. And afterward Cheryl was less and less able to navigate the cafeteria and the commotion.
I miss that. Today I had fried catfish for lunch. (Okra and cornbread, too.)
Carpe Diem
Adjunct_Wizard 