not tonight, most likely

When asked, the nurse said that the odds were that Miriam would not die tonight.

There is a degree of comfort there, but her struggle with this damned disease is about over. She won't make it to Christmas most likely.

A week from Sunday the family is gathering here for a "Mom Celebration." Whether Miriam will be alive is doubtful, but it is the family getting together to remember this dear person.

My emotions are all over the place. I am not sure of much of anything. When the Nursing Home requested that we make arrangements with the funeral home for the remains, it hit pretty hard that they, the professionals in this stuff, know our time is limited.

So we signed papers and made plans and now we sit and wait. I spent several hours with Miriam today, Daughter Arline spent more. Tomorrow we'll do it again.

She has been a wonderful person, a great wife and a sterling mother and grandmother. She is loved and cherished.

Once I gave her a note: "If Love were fattening, you would weigh a ton." She was loved and she loved in return.

It's OK to sleep my precious.

With my brother Ben and sister Joyce. 

Joyce and I have both parents in common, but our father was killed a few months after Joyce was born. We all have the same mother.

The graves are of our parents on the right (Thatcher) and our maternal grandparents (Wilson) on the left.

I've posted this picture before.
Josh is now a Junior at the University of Southern California. I am exceedingly proud of him. I had  Thanksgiving dinner with Josh and his family. It was good.
Miriam was such a beautiful grandmother!

update

I am in Portland now with daughter 4.

A week  and a half ago I was in SanFrancisco and then LosAngeles with daughter 3. It was a week trip that we had planned a long time ago. 

Last weekend i spent many hours with Miriam. Not pleasant hours to be sure, but a good bit of time.

Since I saw her last she has forgotten how to feed herself. She will eat whatever is put into her mouth, and she swallows good. 

When I was with her she spend most of time slumped over in what seems like a coma. Her eyes were often open a bit. She looks like she is sleeping, and she sleeps a good bit of the time, but sometimes she looks asleep but she is not. In the 10 to 12 hours I spent with her she rallied enough to talk to me a little. She said she loved me. I told her I loved her and that we had had a great life together. She agreed, then put her head down and went out again. That happened two times. 

Sometimes those few seconds are all we have to live for. They are pretty precious. Mostly she does not talk, and when she does it is very quiet and impossible to understand, but her words make no sense either. 

I am told she will soon forget how to swallow. That is about the end. We absolutely will not have a feeding tube put in, there will be no major effort to keep her alive. Keep her comfortable and out of pain and let her go.

That is as hard to write as it is to live. 

Happy Endings?

“There are no happy endings

Endings are the saddest part,

So, give me a happy middle

And a very happy start.”

Given enough money (a pickup load) it is possible to make the rusty one look like the green one, but it is a lot easier to photograph them!

muddle along

For the most part I've settled into a rather dull routine.

About the first of each month I go to Washington to see Miriam. I am glad to be with her but as she deteriorates more and more it has its hard side too. She is getting wonderful care and I am glad. Gradually, she is curling up into this awful fetal thing, however.

Yesterday I had a surgery (minor I think). Hydroceleectomy. Curious? Look it up! So today I am laying low and will probably most of the rest of the week, at least. Doc says to figure on taking it easy for two months! Not sure I can do that very well.

Winter is not far away but my little corner is warm and comfortable. As soon as I feel up to it I'll continue work on the inside of the house. Right now I am still a bit dizzy from the Anesthesia and the pain pills, but that should go away.

I have been a saturday church goer all of my life, but recently I have began attending a nearby sunday church as well. Partly boredom, partly needing something to do (a church is a pretty safe place to visit) and it is also a bit of a social outlet. It is working out well for me.

This church has a pipe organ which I love to hear as well as some pretty good musicians. The pastor is a woman, whose husband is named Dave. Dave pastors two smaller churches in the area, so I don't get to see him. Kathy has good sermons that have a beginning middle and end pretty much on the same subject. I really like that!

So I muddle along, trying to keep busy and not let bad thinking or boredom take over entirely.

Old stuff. A bridge that is only a memory and a typing machine that is quite useless. Just old stuff that caught my eye.

The Corona was in an office supply window and the bridge was on my place in Idaho. A tree fell on the bridge and then the ditch company took them both out.

Like a lot of things in my life, memories.

Visiting

This week I traveled the 4 hours to see Miriam.

She was not nearly as sharp as she was last month. I knew it would be this way, but it still made me feel deeply sad inside.

I spent quite a few hours with her. Most of the time she was sleeping in her wheel chair. Her posture, which was always good, is turning into a definite lean to one side. Some AD patients end up in a fetal position. I don't want it to go that long.

I stayed a couple of nights in my tiny house. I visited with daughter and her family. It was a good visit.

My intention was to stop to visit my 2nd daughter in Pendleton Oregon. Daughter wouldn't be home for another couple of hours and grandson for an hour. That was OK, I killed some time and waited.

I have not spent much time with her for a while, and with her husband gone along with 3 of her 4 children, it would be a quiet visit, so I decided to stay for the weekend.

It will be good and I might even get some rest!

Last weekend I took a ride out into the desert. We are on the north edge of a giant desert area that includes a good part of Idaho, Oregon and Nevada. It is called the Owyhees. 

One of the reasons I love living in this area is that wonderful desert. Most people don't appreciate desert so there is not too many people around.

if it ain't one thing it is two

Today I made two more trips to the plumbing store.

As you can see I am a horrible plumber, but i finally got all of the pieces and plugged them altogether.

Then I made some whole wheat pancakes and ate a good breakfast. Often i will keep a sink of hot soapy water to put things in as I cook and this time to bring dishes from the bathroom and the utility room.

I washed them all quite carefully.

Then the faucet broke! I kid you not water squirted the wrong places. It would shut off but not like should. Back to the Plumbing store I talked to my old friend Blane. He looked at my iPhone picture, shook his head and said that those are not repairable. He said he was sorry.

So I bought a new one. This time it has two knobs so hot and cold an be easily controlled (it was also cheaper and my budget is strained).

But I had to take that cast iron sink out to put the new faucet in. Otherwise it is an awful job. I was able to lift the sink out (after I cut all of the caulking that had it glued in place). It is heavy, but I was able to get it onto the floor, prop it up on edge and change the faucet.

Tomorrow morning I'll hook the water lines up and fix a breakfast of something I have not had for a while. (Not sure what it will be!)

In the top picture the uppers are mostly installed and I am repairing some of the floor tile.

The lower photograph shows the new butcher block counter tops on the south side. Today I took the back splash tile out and tomorrow I'll replace it with a different style and different color tile!

Progress on the house

I have been working on my house pretty steady since I got her in July.

My bedroom/bath suite is livable and comfortable. That is a big deal. It is small enough space (400 square feet) that I can heat it easily, even in nasty cold weather.

But the kitchen consisted of a new range and a new refer and to begin with no cabinets of any kind. I put some of the the uppers back in (there was no real reason they were taken out, the water did not get that high. Later I put up nearly all of the upper cabinets.

I could cook after a fashion, but water was in the Utility room, and that is camping not living!

Last week I took the range out so I could install the new lower cabinets I was building. This week I am working on the butcher block counter tops and tile for the back splash.

But the finish I wanted for the counter tops is not available locally (tung oil!) so I cannot finish the wood and install the sink till it gets here and I can get a couple coats in place near the sink.

But, I am hoping by the end of this week to have a functioning kitchen: Sink with hot and cold running water  (and a plumbed in drain!); a Refrigerator and a range with an oven.

Then I can begin to cook and make bread and eat really well once again!

Friend of mine live in a place where if it is not raining, then it will rain very soon. Nice and green, but wet!

Miriam a few years ago.
This is one of my favorite pictures of her.
I miss her.