admission of doubt

Time Is… Precious

Posted by

0

Time does not move in one direction. Time is never straight. – Alexis Pauline Gumbs

A long and winding road… – the Beatles

Life is a winding road. – Sheryl Crow

Observation, anticipation, longing, presence, reaction, observation, anticipation, longing, presence, reaction, observation, anticipation, longing, presence, reaction, observation, anticipation, longing, presence, reaction, observation, anticipation, longing, presence, reaction, observation, anticipation, longing, presence, reaction, observation, anticipation, longing, presence, reaction, observation, anticipation, longing, presence, reaction. Indeed a wiggly and tedious road life is.

I subscribe to poetry magazine. It is a small unadorned volume that appears in my mailbox every few weeks. It takes me elsewhere when it comes. The quote that appears first is on the back cover of the September volume. This morning it attracted my eye. My thoughts went off in a similar but musical direction. I found the rest of her writing inside and I read it for a bit.

Today, however, is for the students. The introduction to industrial robotics and computer integrated manufacturing class for which I am the instructor is very technical. The students are young and vibrant. They are just beginning. Near the first curve or the first fork or the first turn-off, they must decide continue or turn. Is this the way? They are not here today, so I can review their work without them yammering in my ear about why they did this or did not do that because I was unclear. Many will not or are unable to ask a question. Many are able to accept another’s work as correct and useful. (No it is not cheating. I want them to help each other.) At this early part of the journey many believe (I think) that they still need to be spoon fed. A few are beginning to try things on their own.

The software is complicated and I have not found the way myself but I have a different motive. (I want them to discover for themselves the bigger picture.) They are able to twist the software into a knot that is hard to untangle. Learning programming techniques on the fly is fun, terrifying, frustrating, satisfying and tedious. → Observation, code, check, test, reaction, observation, coding, check, test, reaction, observation, more coding, check, test, reaction, observation, coding, check, test, reaction, observation, much more coding, check, test, reaction, observation, coding, check, test, reaction, observation, coding, check, test, reaction, observation, yet more coding, check, test, reaction. Will this never end? (I imagine some in the class thinking this to themselves because they are reluctant to say they are struggling out loud to the instructor.) Indeed, a wiggly and tedious road coding is, similar to life itself, similar to writing.

I can feel it coming in the air tonight… – Phil Collins

A wiggly road teaching is. As I work my way through the material which is specific to industrial robots of a specific manufacturer, my thoughts go toward how to generalize techniques and ideas to other areas. Programming (coding) a process is an art form. It is both technical and elegant. Although I have had the good fortune to do this work throughout my working career, I recognize I do not know all. Teaching, mentoring and instructing is humbling for me. I find out how little I know.

… all I wanna do is have some fun before the sun comes up over Santa Monica Blvd. (also Sheryl)

All of these thoughts and others came tumbling into my head when I read Alexis Pauline Gumbs’s quote on the back of Poetry. On some days, most days, poetry centers me. When I read the quote from her above I felt a pull to the content. I was floundering with industrial robots. Alexis was not writing about that. Alexis was writing about a fellow poet Cheryl Clarke.

“Time is not straight. Time spirals and veers, embraces and releases. She shows up with a U-Haul after one date. Time doesn’t move stubbornly forward. She comes back and helps an ex-girlfriend mourn the loss of her more recent lover, maybe even helps her raise her kids. Time is not obsessed with progress. She wants you to come back and revisit lessons you thought you had already learned. Time shows up brand new, as an imp and a trickster. Time is guided not by security, but by the risk of love. Again.

This instant. This triumph. Time is a lesbian.” — Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Poetry, September, 2025 issue

These are powerful words. ( “She shows up with a U-Haul” made me chuckle.) Time (life) is an instructor. Wisdom is “she” in the Bible. We would do well to listen, heed, be present for the message. Our time here is short and winding. Listen. Observe. Embrace the tedium.

Carpe Diem

Men Don’t Like Questions

Posted by

1

Men Do Not Like Questions and Women Need Reassurance

That is a tag line that provokes thought. Debbie said that to me in a conversation we were having about I do not know what. It struck me as so true to stereotype I stopped to write it down in my notes app on my phone.

I observed the stereotype at work in an extra class I taught this spring at the community college. A logistics difficulty with the school caused me to take over a class that had been started by another instructor.

Young men in their all knowing way can plunge off into the abyss of I don’t need any help/I got this. In this case a little extra knowledge is helpful. They were building a control panel for the semester project. For one the magic smoke leaked out of a component. This is never good in electrical work. The young women, there were three, were unsure of their abilities and were more cautious. One told me one day, “I don’t feel like I know what I’m doing.”

I wrote to her at the end of the class my thoughts about her performance in the lab project portion of class. I do this for all of my students. I have done this since my student teaching days. I think of teaching and instructing as guiding the students. Lecture implies an all knowing authoritative relationship. I do not have that style. I think it helps me to get to know and understand their abilities and how I can guide and help them succeed. Along the way I make notes about them in the hope of aiding the journey.

To Simara: I recognize that my taking over the course midstream was disruptive to you. In my short time with you and the rest of the class I took the time to observe a few things about each of you. I am writing this to you to report those observations and offer some unsolicited advice. I detect that you are unsure about many things both in this class and around you in life. That observation may be an incorrect one as I have only known you for a short time. And yet you were not afraid to admit it as you said, “I don’t feel like I know what I’m doing.” That admission is a bold thought and shows an intelligence beyond your years. The important thing is that you asked for help. You may not understand how well that ability will serve you through life but it is a very useful ability to ask for help. Not everyone can do that. Often they are worried about looking stupid and unknowledgeable.

The whole idea of this class is to gain some practical hands on experience, so at the end of our time together I wrote to everyone to tell them what I thought of the class as a whole and to thank them for the smooth transition. They gave me the impression that the previous instructor did not like to answer questions. That simple fact would explain why they were so tentative about asking for information about the project they were working on. And for the project they were working on, they had incomplete information.

This experience was not unlike several business experiences in which I was tossed into a project that was going awry with the wish of, see if you can fix it. Sometimes that means starting over midstream rapidly and using as much of the existing disaster as possible. Sometimes it means finding a new piece of paper and resharpening the pencil. I failed one young man, Sam, who raced ahead not knowing he had incomplete information.

Not only do men not like questions but they do not like asking questions. Women on the other hand ask lots of questions. Follow up questions, many follow up questions help to define the edges of the path to be taken. The path becomes clearer as the follow ups serve to sweep the leaves off the pavement.

Debbie does this to me. My usual response is, “Hmmmm…” while I am stalling for time to answer whatever she asked. Sometimes our banter wanders off into the weeds while I am thinking about what I am thinking about. (It is another comment of hers, “you are always thinking about what you are thinking about.”) She is right. I am not a spontaneous answer-er. I have several stall techniques.

She asks hard questions sometimes, often actually. Her questions are often feeling questions. The answers to which are very often hard to put into words. I will see her today. I look forward to our long conversations about life. She helps me to see how bright and cheery the world is even though Cheryl is not in it. For that I will be forever grateful.

Carpe Diem.

Wishes and Hope and Doubt

Posted by

4

HOPE IS A WISH

I use “Carpe Diem” as a sign off to posts that I put here. A few nights ago as Debbie and I were talking over the phone about random topics, she pointed out to me that for me the use of that phrase is a wish. I responded that I think of it as a motto and that spiraled my thought process into analyzing what that phrase meant to me and why I use it as a motto.

A motto is a brief sentence phrase or a single word used to express a principle, goal or ideal – a maxim. This is from my big dict (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language) which I got from my mother many years ago. The online Merriam-Webster lists proverb as a synonym in their thesaurus section.

Debbie expressed the thought that I use it in the sense of a hope to remain in the present and to remain present to what life brings me. She is right again. I sometimes say to her teasingly that I hate it when she is right but I forget she studied sociological things in school.

Life or, as I like to think, the universal consciousness has brought Debbie into my life. She is a sounding board for ideas of mine and I am of hers. It is curious to me how similar and dissimilar our lives have been before we met. We attended the same schools. Her kiddos and my kiddos attended the same schools. Those are similarities. She chose psychology and sociological studies. I chose engineering, science and technological studies and later in life, education studies. Those are dissimilarities.

Engineers tend to think, plan, organize and prepare for some future activity – an installation, construction, machine, infrastructure – with things. I am always on the hunt for a manual to fix things (and situations), an extrinsic solution. Sociologists work with people – people as they are now. They help them to find their solutions within themselves.

Staying present is hard for me personally. So, seizing the current moment, especially when Cheryl’s disease was getting worse, finding something to do then at that moment, while she was doing good, became incredibly important. I constantly told myself, find what works today.

In that frame of mind I took myself to that first meet up with Debbie over coffee in a coffee house ran by a church group. I seized that moment, that fear of trying something new in my life, and pushed myself out of the doldrums of grief. You do not know if you are ready until you try it.

It worked. So far it is an ecstatic experience with Debbie; conversations about anything and everything, movies and dinner afterwards, fun little field trips, and just talking and flirting on the phone, she is special to me and at the same time I have a niggling fear of that happiness dissipating.

It is a fact that the last person I felt this way with is gone now. I cannot ignore that aspect. Debbie and I talk about that too.

We have now. My hope is our happiness will last until I am no longer. That idea is selfish. It is a wish, however. So far it is a wish fulfilled. (There is the niggling fear again.)

Carpe Diem.

Listening

Posted by

2

Listen with your heart. It is quieter than your mind.

Listening to my youngest son talk to his oldest son lightens my heart. They have common interests in sports. I do not have a strong interest in professional sport. Those are merely noise off to the side of the snacks and other refreshment.

Many years ago I listened to my father when he told me, you should always listen to the other guy even if you think he is a jerk because he might have a good idea. Dad rarely expressed his judgment of others. He also understood within himself that listening does not happen while one is talking.

Mom had a phrase that I remember from childhood. She used to say, you have to pull up your own socks. I do not know where that came from but I took it to mean that one should seek help from others when necessary but it is up to oneself to get up and move on from any difficulty.

Today I am listening to my heart. I believe I need to listen to that part of me. How do I feel about all that has unfolded in my life. Political noise has had no effect on that. Life and living with Cheryl for three quarters of that time has. She has made me a better man. But so has listening to Mom and Dad and listening to my son’s conversation with his son. So has listening to my heart. In a lifetime of conversation, real conversation, and listening to others in my life, I have concluded that only I can pull up my own socks. And as I write this I think about the times I pulled up Cheryl’s no slip socks (her name for them) in the evening and put her pajamas on her to prepare for bed. She would not accept my help to do that in the morning when she got up.

Last week I retreated from the every day so that I could listen to my heart. I find that to be easier and more fulfilling if I distract myself after awhile with some occupation totally diverse to a previous concentration. This method has worked often for me through life. (The mantra is “sleep on it.”) A book of fiction or movie that has no moral to convey, a romantic comedy will do this for me. The distraction refreshes. I can look for help where I can find it but only I can pull up my socks.

I have been listening to the Grief Share videos purposefully for several weeks. I find myself talking and commenting to the various experts and listening to the people relating their grief story. There is a yin and yang to it all in my thoughts. I resist experts telling me what wine pairs well with what cheese. Occasionally, Dad will say be quiet and listen. (Maybe not often enough do you talk to me, Dad.) So, today I will listen with my heart.

I will remind myself that my concept of God is not the same as other’s concept of God. It is important to see past the literal when reading the Bible or the Quran or any religious text and just listen. Listen to your heart. Meditation an eastern concept helps with this. Prayer a western concept helps with this. Keep an open mind. Be still and just listen. Read Siddhartha. Be still. Listen.

Yes, Dad.

Carpe Diem.

Guilt or Grief?

Posted by

0

Is it guilt or is it grief?

This morning as I looked for pictures and other small items to turn Cheryl’s room at Bridgeway Pointe into hers, I cried again. I have been doing that more lately.

I feel a wide range of emotions as I think about this next phase of our lives that begins tomorrow.

My son and daughter-in-law visited her new space over the weekend after we moved furniture into it. I asked my daughter-in-law to look around a think about what pictures and wall ornamentation would be appropriate. I think that really needs a woman’s eye. (It is a stereotype. I know but it is what I think.) She and my son made a list and over the past couple days I have been stockpiling those items in Cheryl’s office area in the extra bedroom we have here.

While doing that, selecting pictures and reading old notes that Cheryl wrote to herself, I had several crying jags. Looking inward for a bit, I may be an emotional wreck for a time while we transition. Just writing that on paper makes me think about our life. It was great. It is less so these days with her disease being a focus for everything.

So, is it guilt that I feel unable to take care of her as I want to? Or is it grief that we have come to the end of a part of our time together? It is my anxiety. Is this best for her? And me? How will I do when she is being cared for by others? A wide range of emotions wash over me.

Is it grief or is it guilt? Why do I use the term guilt?

There is much to meditate about.

Carpe Diem.

Palliative Care

Posted by

2

Today we saw the doctor whose clinic is concerned with palliative care. After a long discussion about drugs, symptoms and what the palliative care clinic does the conversation turned to what we hoped to achieve from it. My hope is for better existence for Cheryl. She has trouble vocalizing her hope.

From the National Institute on Aging — (NIOA) — the next couple paragraphs are useful general information. The doctor’s question hit me spiritually, what are we expecting? It is a good one — What are we expecting? A cure? Return of mental acuity? A better attitude about living with one’s plight? More mobility? A stronger core muscle strength? — A flood of thoughts entered my mind.

What is palliative care?

Palliative care is specialized medical care for people living with a serious illness, such as cancer or heart failure. Patients in palliative care may receive medical care for their symptoms, or palliative care, along with treatment intended to cure their serious illness. Palliative care is meant to enhance a person’s current care by focusing on quality of life for them and their family.

Who can benefit from palliative care?

Palliative care is a resource for anyone living with a serious illness, such as heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cancer, dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and many others. Palliative care can be helpful at any stage of illness and is best provided soon after a person is diagnosed.

In addition to improving quality of life and helping with symptoms, palliative care can help patients understand their choices for medical treatment. The organized services available through palliative care may be helpful to any older person having a lot of general discomfort and disability very late in life.

Who makes up the palliative care team?

A palliative care team is made up of multiple different professionals that work with the patient, family, and the patient’s other doctors to provide medical, social, emotional, and practical support. The team is comprised of palliative care specialist doctors and nurses, and includes others such as social workers, nutritionists, and chaplains. A person’s team may vary based on their needs and level of care. To begin palliative care, a person’s health care provider may refer him or her to a palliative care specialist. If he or she doesn’t suggest it, the person can ask a health care provider for a referral.

Why (a conversation with myself, often) is palliative care necessary and useful? What benefit will come from this method of viewing Cheryl’s worsening Parkinson and her associated dementia issues? These are my thoughts.

Since the beginning of this road all I have wanted is for Cheryl to be safe, comfortable, mobile, and as independent as she is capable. Seven years ago, just before we purchased this condo that we live in now we lived in a neat old five bedroom, two story house with a basement. It was a hundred plus year old house with much space and character. Cheryl’s main complaint was her knees. At first I moved her office area downstairs to the front bedroom. We called it the guest bedroom and sometimes “your Mom’s bedroom.” I rearranged the use of the other extra bedrooms upstairs. I remodeled one and took over Cheryl’s old office upstairs as my own. The upstairs bathroom was accessed through the office. The home office was moved to the guest bedroom downstairs as was the rest of her equipment – sewing machine, computer things, printer, etc. but Cheryl had adopted the upstairs bathroom as her own and regardless of where she was maintaining a presence during the day she went upstairs if she required the facilities. (The hallway to our big bedroom in our condo she now refers to as upstairs or downstairs as her Parkinson and memory issues worsen.) She complained about her knees everyday until we moved to our flat single floor living arrangement.

During the seven year process of moving, adapting, adjusting I put her needs first not thinking about or recognizing what those adjustments would do to my emotional and physical health. Not once did I think about how my life would change when Cheryl gave up driving voluntarily when she could not remember where she was or where she was going. Nor did I realize that she was starting into her creeping memory issues. A couple months later when she became terribly upset and anxious one evening because she could not find $1.89 mistake in the check register that she was still computing by paper and pencil, I did not realize that she was struggling with cognitive issues in addition to memory issues. Her math and logical sequencing was gone or mostly so. She did not admit it to herself or to me and I did not recognize it. (notice – cognition in recognize) It was perhaps two years later that she was unable to follow recipe instructions or sewing pattern instructions. (I found myself reading how to reverse an item so that the seam allowance was hidden.) In retrospect she was probably terrified that she could no longer do those things. She was in fear of losing her mind and it caused anxiety.

My hope or expectation is that she will achieve some level of relief from her anxiety. My hope is that she will sleep more comfortably. My hope is that she will accept her disabilities that inhibit what she wants to do and she will ask for and accept help freely offered by her spouse (me).

My hope is that I will be more comfortable with letting her do for herself as much as she can while she can do it. Whatever it may be. My hope is that I will find the strength and the financial means to provide for her future care. My hope is that I will plan activities and be cognizant of the fact that plans will change without warning and I will not rage out loud when it does not go my way.

My hope is to be able to let go once in awhile for my own mental well being. I hope that this group of clinicians can help with living and life. But mostly I hope to get a good night’s sleep most nights.

Carpe Diem.

Doctors Week is Tiring

Posted by

0

This week for lack of a better description was doctors’ week. We saw both our personal care physician and Cheryl’s neurologist a movement disorders specialist. He made some minor adjustments in her meds schedule and added one new one to help with anxiety and perhaps some depression he detected by interviewing Cheryl.

Prior to these visits over the past couple days Cheryl slept poorly. This morning she is sleeping in. She was relieved last night when I helped to bed with the fact that we had nowhere to go today. We had no doctor visits. She did not have to be on her toes to answer questions about how she feels that could make her feel sad. I think she is very aware that she can cry easily and is unable to control that response. Her neurologist is very gentle and recognizes her disease’s progression in her body.

It was very hard to maintain her showtime persona yesterday and the day before. I am gladdened by the fact that it is over for a few months.

I helped her up out of bed and into the kitchen for breakfast but I was premature. She kept her eyes closed in the kitchen. She seemed uninterested in breakfast after all. I asked her if she wanted to sit in the lounge chair and doze for a bit. She did.

I talked to the physical therapy folk to schedule the PT recommended by her neurologist. Eventually she awakened as I put a pillow under her left side because she was drooping that way in the lounger.

I rolled her back to breakfast. She ate and looked at the paper. She did not work the puzzles.

I talked to my Portland sister. She often makes me rethink things. The doctor has diagnosed Cheryl with some mild anxiety and perhaps depression. The brain floats in a sea of proteins and chemicals. Parkinson messes with that. I do not always recognize my own needs as a care partner.

The next phase begins.

Carpe Diem.

Heart and Hater

Posted by

0

This morning after I finished my old people chair yoga and relaxed for a bit in the morning quiet with the daily Wordle, I found that four of the five letters were contained in my search for vowel words. Those four letters led me to guess heart which contains all the letters but in the wrong order. The correct answer is hater.

It stuck me as sad that hater is an anagram of heart. These are two very different emotions.

In other news stories over the weekend a gentleman expressed chagrin at the failure of smaller local newspapers. His point was that lack of local fourth estate oversight allows corruption to creep into local government and institutions. The national news organizations will fill the gap but never tell the local story. National issues, although real, affect little in our local lives but tend to polarize our conversation. There is support for this in my home town of Cincinnati.

Indeed the last of the local newspapers, the Enquirer, is a sort of ghost paper. It is part of the USA Today paper equivalent of cable news. The sports section is often more pages than the rest of the paper. Whether it it is causation or merely correlation is probably unknown without more study. Nevertheless three city council folks fell prey to the lure of really fine campaign donations by developers vying for attention. It is sad really. And no doubt these folks thought that they were helping the community. No local news hounds were asking those embarrassing questions that make public figures think about issues in a different light.

Heart versus hater.

The combination of Parkinson and Lewey body dementia some times combines to embarrass Cheryl in the most private of ways. I hate the diseases and what has been taken from her. My heart goes out to her and wishes to save her from any embarrassing moments. Often I fail. No amount of planning for contingencies can prevent every disaster. Incontinence issues can be a disaster or a merely a learning experience. I can be a disease hater and take heart as I help her through it. I have learned to not hate myself for missing things that in retrospect seem obvious should have been planned for things. React and respond.

As Cheryl often reminds me, it’s an adventure. It is! I can hope that she will give me a hint that she needs extra help sometimes but I realize that it is not part of her persona to do so. She was raised to not be a burden and no amount for talking from me will convince her that to me she is not burden. I gave her my heart almost sixty years ago and she is still very private. I feel intrusive when I help her probably because I do it without her permission. I can not stand to watch her struggle. We are too close. I am too much in love with her to do otherwise. Occasionally it causes conflict.

I often write Carpe Diem.  More importantly seize every opportunity to learn and grow.

Our little trip to Florida provides many of those. It is an adventure. It is an opportunity to grow. It swells your heart. I feel any hateful feelings for the disease dissipate for now.

Onward. Carpe Diem.

Great Unknowns

Posted by

1

For the past couple days Cheryl’s watch has been missing. It is THE WATCH. As a routine each night we place the watch on what I call the little hat. It is actually a little ring holder that was given to her by Anna. She put her rings and her watch on it but a little more that a year ago I purchased for her a gold chain to wear her rings as a necklace. She had lost enough weight in her hands that her rings would fall off in the car or a chair or the restaurant. This last was the scariest.

But I have digressed. –THE WATCH – has been missing since at least Wednesday. Kathy came to visit on Wednesday. I first noticed that her watch was missing in action when I made dinner and Cheryl and I sat down to eat it. She is right handed so she wears her watch on her left wrist. I noticed it was not on her wrist but I did not say anything because sometimes she does not wear it. Later when we went to bed I noticed that it was not on the little hat. For a couple days I would surreptitiously search for THE WATCH.

About noon today as she was preparing to take a shower and I was searching, I found her watch. She often puts rubber bands on collections of random items in her office. Her watch was on a book shelf in her office near some items that had been banded together. My heart leaped for joy. (I have not been following my own rule of looking around her office to see where things might be.)

Lately, however, I have become anxious about Cheryl’s mental health. The watch story is not about that, it seems to me to be slowly worsening as time goes on. And I think that I am getting used to it. (That idea makes me anxious and adds a fear of not recognizing changes immediately.) My daily notes about bedtimes, falls and other behavior are no longer daily. I note falls and other anomalies. Bedtimes are between 9:30 and 10:30 typically. Her impostor delusion (a noted behavior) seems to appear if she is up later than 11 PM and disappears into her office to “work on stuff.” Last night was one of those nights. I drove her around a four mile loop in the rain as she anxiously gripped her purse waiting to get home.

She was okay with me helping to change her clothes and get into bed when we got back. She wished me farewell and safe driving home. I left the bed room and open and closed a few doors as though I was leaving. I took off my jeans and sweatshirt that I had put on over my pajamas to make the drive. I turned off the lights and gently eased into our bedroom as her husband coming to bed. It worked. I worry that one time it will not work. So far my fear is unfounded but I still worry because I do not have another plan except for sleeping in the living area on the pull out sofa-bed.

At one time in the past I asked her if she remembered any of that. I learned that a reminder in the morning of odd behavior is unwarranted and perhaps even stupid. Introspection of failed ideas is useful.

I still wonder (and worry) about her failing memory and confusion and general mental heath. And of course how to pay for it all should she need extra care that I am unable to give her. Maybe I need some counseling? Or something to ease my mind? Engineers spend too much time what-iffing the situation.

On the morning news the U.S. Congress spent much of the taxpayer’s dollars annoying the CEO of TikTok. That social media platform gets more time per average viewer that Facebook and Twitter. Alas when will we discover the unimportance of Facebook and other social media? … except as another form of 1960’s TV.

Carpe Diem.

Reflections

Posted by

3

Sunday for me is a day of reflection.

As I loaded the dishwasher I thought of David our middle child. He and Melissa are not feeling well.

I thought about Anna as I started to write this. Perhaps I will call her later.

I sent a text to Scott and Mavis and asked about a do-over of our unsatisfactory Cracker Barrel experience. We were compensated by the manager with 4 free meals. Scott invited us for dinner instead. I volunteered dessert. It will be Cheryl’s favorite – pound cake. I cleverly ordered two box mixes when I ordered online from the Kroger near us. I rarely order from Kroger but I did the other day for pick up on Saturday.

Cheryl was worried about organizing an Easter party last night. She thinks Easter is tomorrow or next week. No matter how much I reassure her that it is not for a couple weeks yet she is worried about candy and small children and hard boiling eggs. I convinced her to sleep a little and we could do that in the morning. (I had hoped she would forget her anxiety.)

This morning as she was putting on clothes she made reference to those thoughts. I texted her sister Nancy since Nancy was part of Cheryl’s thoughts. Nancy came to visit for awhile. They talked for an hour or so.

Often on the weekend this road of Parkinson is disturbing for me. The dementia aspect of Cheryl’s Parkinson is disturbing for me. I wonder if there is a class or something I can do to feel more comfortable with helping her.

More reflection is needed.

Carpe Diem.