Scary October

 

October is a month of witches, ghosts, nightmares, and scary movies on TV. Make believe scary though doesn’t hold a black candle to real October.

You don’t have to believe in ghosts to be visited by one, and you don’t have to believe in witches to think that you have personally met one. There’s no way around the fact that strange things happen in this world.

October is the month when weird things just can’t help but happen. I can take my dog out at midnight any other month of the year, and enjoy the starry sky, a gentle breeze, a brilliant moon, and even a gentle falling snow.

On the other hand, go out at midnight in October and expect to hear coyotes howling, dark racing clouds obscuring the moon, the wind causing mysterious bangs and clangs, and the feeling that someone is watching…and waiting.

If you want to “see something really scary” (As they said the movie Twilight Zone) read the possible side effects of the medicine that you take every day. If that doesn’t make the hair on your head stand up, a ghost or goblin doesn’t stand a chance.

Don’t you just love the commercials on TV that tell you all the benefits of a medicine and show happy, tanned, and beautiful people enjoying life. Then in the last half minute talk at warp speed about the horrible things the medicine can do to a person.

 It seems that the scarier the disease, the more frightening the treatment. Makes you wonder which is going to get you first. We made the decision to try a study drug on Jim for his dementia. Knowing Jim’s personality before the disease, we knew that he would be the first in line for an experimental drug for a disease that had no cure. Unfortunately, the drug didn’t help him, and we had to stop it because of the side effects. It was a small study, but when we dropped out of the program, we found out that all participants had stopped the drug.

Jim showed a slight cognitive improvement with Exelon. As the dosage increased, Jim had to be taken to the emergency room because of the side effects. Before the drug cleared his system, he became agitated and was kicked out of the nursing home for behavior.

While Jim was in regenerations, an antipsychotic medication made him so aggressive that he was like a different, scary person. Eric and I took him out of the hospital for a few hours, and he tried to open the van door and mumbled obscenities.

After arguing with the physician, we insisted they take Jim off the medication. Within a few days, he was his old self again.

Prescription drugs are a part of everyday life for those of us who reach a certain age. In the U.S. around 16,000 people die each year from prescription drugs. More than 100,000 people in the U.S. die each year because they can’t afford the drugs they need.

There’s no doubt about it, real life is much scarier than make believe spookiness.            

 

Copyright © Oct 2023 by L.S. Fisher

http://earlyonset.blogspot.com

Running out of gas

The last time I drove to my brother’s house to practice music, I noticed that the gas gauge on my car was slowly sinking toward the big E. I didn’t want to go through town to fill up my tank, so I made the decision to head home. I knew that my next trip would have to be to the gas station.

I sometimes feel as if the big E is permanently attached to my body. I’m often exhausted, and regardless of all the tasks I should be working on, I make my way to the recliner to watch TV, code for “take a nap.” When I take a nap, it does help make up for my lack of sleep at night.

My alarm goes off at 5:30 a.m. to have quiet time before the day starts. The problem with getting up early is that most nights, I stay up until the witching hour. Then, I feed and walk the dog, fix the coffee pot for the next morning, fill our water containers to put at our bedsides, take my medicine and make sure Harold has taken his. Finally, I put on my pj’s (if I’m not already wearing them), brush my teeth and use my Water Pik. The timeframe that all this preparation for bed is often determined by how long the dog takes. Once I’m in bed, I read until I’m sleepy enough that I can shut my eyes and drift away.

My short nights are a carryover from my caregiving days. Jim would only sleep about four hours a night, and that meant I slept about four hours each night. I didn’t often have the luxury of a nap since I worked fulltime. At work, I coffeed and went through the days like a buzz saw. At home, I ran on empty on a regular basis and zombied my way through the weekends and evenings.

Life can be exhausting at times and it takes all the energy I can muster, and more. It’s staying at a task for one more hour, complete one more project, push it to the limit, and cross another item off the To-Do List.

Lately, as if there isn’t enough to do, we are completely renovating our rental house. Daily decisions have to be made until my head is spinning from the effort. We are flooded with bids, bills, and various contractors. By default, one trustworthy contractor makes sure that the other contractors do what they are supposed to do. We’re nearing the goal line on the inside, now for the outside. I will be so thankful when the house is finished and rented.

The main difference between the rental and the house that Jim and I built is that we did almost all the work ourselves. It took us a lot longer since we tried to pay as we went. We finally broke down and made a small loan to finish the inside. Every spare moment was spend building on the house, but when we looked at what we had accomplished it was amazing.

The thing about running on empty—when you fill the tank, you can go for miles and miles before the gauge shows the big E again.    

 

Copyright © Oct 2023 by L.S. Fisher

http://earlyonset.blogspot.com

#ENDALZ

The Ten Signs

 

 Several years ago, a friend and I went to see Bill Engvall in Columbia. As I neared the venue, I saw people holding signs, and I said, “Oh, look. There are protesters in front of the building.”

 When I was closer I could read the signs, and they said, “Here’s Your Sign.” Well, at that moment I wondered what it was a sign of that I hadn’t figured that out before I read the signs.

Life is filled with signs and clues. We might read daily horoscopes to see what the day holds in store. 

Signs are everywhere, including ten signs of Alzheimer’s disease.

 

1.   Memory loss that disrupts daily life. The most common sign of Alzheimer’s disease is short-term memory loss. Often old friends will not realize someone has dementia because they can remember in detail something that happened thirty years ago. “There’s nothing wrong with his memory,” one of Jim’s cousins told me. They had been talking about the old days, and Jim had perfect recall. What his cousin didn’t notice was that Jim couldn’t remember recent events no matter how important. 

2.   Challenges in planning or solving problems. Forgetting how to complete tasks that you once knew is one of the obvious signs. Jim was always mechanically inclined and could fix just about anything. After dementia affected his reasoning, he tore apart a vacuum sweeper and couldn’t put it back together. He tore into a VCR with the same results. The man that planned and built two homes couldn’t figure out how to measure the well house for siding.

3.   Difficulty completing familiar tasks. One day I asked Jim to make a grocery list for me. He took a pen and paper, and I started telling him what we needed. He wrote a few items on the paper and then told me he didn’t want to make the list. I picked it up to finish and noticed that although he had printed letters on the sheet, some of them didn’t make words. I remember he had written “taper powels” for “paper towels.”

4.   Confusion with time or place. Jim often asked me what the date was or the day of the week. Reading a calendar became too difficult for him. One time during a doctor’s visit, they asked him what season it was, and he didn’t know. He couldn’t answer the question  from multiple choice or clues. He also didn’t know what town he was in, only that he was at a doctor’s office.

5.   Trouble understanding visual images and spatial relationships. Jim had always been a reader, and we visited the bookstore on a regular basis. I began to notice that he bought several copies of the same book. I finally noticed that at night when he was reading his book, he wasn’t turning the pages. He couldn’t follow the storyline of a book or a show on TV . He watched To Hell and Back so many times that we replaced the VCR movie three times. He taped (or tried to) every Walker Texas Ranger TV show.

6.   New problems with words in speaking or writing. Jim had aphasia and eventually quit speaking except for rare occasions. At first, he occasionally printed something, but after about five years, he could only write his name—and his signature changed, with some of the letters in cursive and others printed. 

7.   Misplacing things and losing the ability to retrace steps. Jim was constantly looking for objects, but with his limited speech, he would say, “Right here, but I can’t find it.” Sometimes I could figure out what he was trying to find, and other times, I just helped him “look” because I had no idea what he had lost.

8.   Decreased or poor judgment. Jim became the telemarketer’s best friend. He didn’t understand what they were trying to sell and would agree to buy anything. I had to cancel Dish channels, tickets to charity events, and extended warranties. Some of the people were easier to work with than others. Since Jim couldn’t write a check or give a credit card number, they eventually had to deal with me.

9.   Withdrawal from work or social activities. Jim had always loved visiting with family, but as he lost his ability to follow a conversation, or to participate, he would sometimes just wander away from the group. We had always played pitch, and Jim went from being a formidable opponent to one who didn’t know which cards to play. Before he stopped playing completely, his mom sat by him and helped him.  

10. Changes in mood and personality. Jim’s personality underwent drastic changes. He liked to tell stories to the kids, he joked around with his cousins, and he was an expert on many subjects. All that changed. He became more childlike, sometimes docile, other times frustrated and angry.

 

The signs of Alzheimer’s or dementia are far beyond the typical age-related changes. I know that I can sometimes worry when I can’t find the right word, or find my cell phone, or multitask the way I used to be able to do. I also know that a recent scan showed “age-related changes” in my brain. My doctor assured me that it is not Alzheimer’s, but I needed to watch my “numbers” to maintain my brain. We all know that we need to use it or lose it under the best of circumstances.

Forewarned is forearmed, and I intend to stave off vascular dementia. Here’s my sign: “Monitor blood pressure, blood sugar, and weight.” So far, I’m doing fine, and I intend to keep it that way. 

 

 

Copyright © Sept 2023 by L.S. Fisher

http://earlyonset.blogspot.com

#ENDALZ

Walking Since 1998

Last Saturday we had our Walk to End Alzheimer’s. It takes months of preparation and planning to have a successful walk. For several years, we’ve had a small core group. To add to the difficulty, we began the year with a new walk manager, who we met exactly once. Then, she left.

Being without a walk manager isn’t new territory for the Sedalia Walk. The three of us, WyAnn, Jessica, and I met and decided to set up our committee meeting schedule for several months. 

Eventually, the Greater Missouri Chapter found a new walk manager, and Julie turned out to be a dynamo. Although she had a long drive each time she met with us, she came to town often.

Last year we held our walk in the afternoon during sweltering weather. This year, we moved it to the morning to avoid the heat. As luck would have it, Saturday was much cooler anyway. People were wearing jackets, and I took advantage of the cooler weather to break out my 1998 denim “Memory Walk” shirt.

My family arrived and we took a group photo. During the opening ceremony, the MC announced that Jim’s Team was the best fundraising team. Following the flower ceremony, I spoke briefly about the 1998 walk and caregiving. I didn’t rehearse what I was going to say because I wanted it to come from the heart.

After the opening ceremony, the walk began. Ginger found a place on one of the golf carts, the rest of Jim’s Team walked through the balloon arch and stopped for a photo. After we walked through the covered bridge, I saw a sign that said “short” route, and I figured that was the route for me. The rest of the team opted for a longer route.

As I walked the short route, I paused to read some of the signs and meandered along the path, coming to the realization that the short route was beyond my capabilities. Luckily, a golf cart came up behind me and I gratefully climbed on board. I had a nice chat with my friend Anna Lee Bail, who coincidentally happens to be the most photographed person in town. She never misses a community event. In fact, she had left the walk for a while to participate in another fund-raiser that was taking place at the same time.

I had to leave soon after the walk, so my sons helped me carry the items from my sponsor table to the car. “I can unlock it from here,” I said. “I need to tell a few people goodbye.” They headed to my car in the parking lot, and I made my rounds and headed toward the car. My sons were standing by the car and it occurred to me that I hadn’t unlocked the doors.

As I clicked the locks, I said, half-jokingly, “Before long, you’re going to have to change the name of the team to Jim and Linda’s Team.”

For several years, I’ve noticed that my memory isn’t as good as it used to be. For about two months, I had bouts of vertigo. One day, I had a series of them and went to the emergency room. They started with a head and neck scan. The scan showed that I had some “age related” problems in my brain. I have to agree that getting old isn’t for sissies.

The important thing with age-related brain changes, according to my physician, is to watch my numbers: blood pressure, cholesterol, and A1C. Keeping active and maintaining a healthy lifestyle has always been a goal of mine. My arthritis has made exercising difficult at times, but I give my dog credit for dragging me outside on a regular basis despite my whining.

I’m giving myself the same pep talk that I would give anyone with health problems: concentrate on what you can do, not what you can’t do. A positive attitude won’t make your problems go away, but they make them seem less burdensome.

  I’ve also discovered that when I’m tired, I need to rest. If I’ve walked as far as I can, there’s no shame in accepting a ride on a golf cart.

 

Copyright © Sept 2023 by L.S. Fisher

http://earlyonset.blogspot.com

#ENDALZ

Bookmaking, the Legal Way

 

Mozark Press has been a sponsor of the Sedalia Walk to End Alzheimer’s for more than a decade. Each year, I make a monetary donation and provide free books at the walk. The books are a compilation of the previous year’s blog posts.

I know it sounds easy to just take what you’ve already written, slap it into a book, and publish it. I’ve always found it to be more complicated than that. 

One of the first decisions to make is a title for the book. For the 2023 book, I had chosen a title midway through the year. Music was so important to Jim and it’s an important part of my life since I’ve learned to play the ukulele and joined the family band. With that in mind, I chose Music for the Soul as the title for this year’s book.

The process for a simple blog book: After I plug the book into a template, format, and edit it—then I fix the formatting, and edit again. I write an introduction and the back page matter.

Of course, every book has to have a cover. Until last year, my husband downloaded a template based on the exact page count, and used a fancy-smancy program to design the cover. Often this process took longer than formatting the book itself. Lately, we have used a free cover layout and modified it to suit our vision. That also turned out to be a lengthy process as we modified their cover—sometimes trying to fit that hypothetical square peg into a mythical round hole.

Once the cover was finished and the table of contents and pagination were correct, I uploaded the book to KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). In a few short minutes, a digital proof copy was available for review. After about 24 hours, I received a notification that the digital copy of the book was approved for publication.

Without fail, I have always found more errors on the printed page than I ever could on a PC screen. To speed up the process, I ordered a copy from Amazon Prime. I don’t have to pay shipping and received the book in two days.

I read through the printed copy and marked multiple corrections with red ink and colorful Post-it page markers. After I finished, I painstakingly made the corrections and hoped that I didn’t make more mistakes while updating the manuscript.

What I have described are the mechanics of publishing a book. As I read the stories that I wrote the previous year, sometimes, it was almost as if I was reading them for the first time. The stories jogged my memory about events, thoughts, and feelings that were on my mind as various events unfurled.

The creative process of writing and publishing my blog posts is an integral part of who I am. The blog always brings me full circle. I explore the beginning as I remember Jim before dementia. I remember the middle when I talk about caregiving, dementia, and our journey through the decade of loss. In April, I remember the end when Jim left this world. Then, finally, I talk about picking up the pieces—and a new beginning.

 I’ve heard people say that writing and publishing a book is like birthing a baby. Sometimes the process is painful, but the joy makes it all worthwhile.

My box of books arrived the last day of August, so I don’t have the angst of wondering if they will arrive before the September 16 Walk to End Alzheimer’s. I breathe a sigh of relief to realize that my legal bookmaking is over for a while.

  

Copyright © Aug 2023 by L.S. Fisher

http://earlyonset.blogspot.com

#ENDALZ

If You Go Down

 

The last Saturday in August, I participated in the International Play Music on the Porch Day. This was the first year that I was able to sing on our sun porch. I was hoping it would be complete by the time the big day rolled around, but the tile hadn’t been laid and the shiplap wasn’t stained and finished.

This is the third time I’ve participated in the big day, but for once, I knew exactly what I wanted to sing. Recently, I discovered Kelsea Ballerini’s “If You Go Down (I’m Going Down Too)” song and knew it was the one song I was going to sing on the sun porch. 

I dragged all my music equipment out to the porch. I carried my ukulele and the dog trotted along with me. It was a beautiful, cool morning and just as I got set up, the guy that mows our lawn showed up. As I started recording, the mower buzzed past the window. Take 1,2, and 3 erased. After several attempts, I made it through the song without mower interruption.

The song is a humorous take about friendship that knows no bounds. A person is lucky indeed, if you have a friend who will, without question, have your back! I don’t know if I’d go to the extremes that the song implies, but I do have a few special friends and family members that I’d bail out of jail.

I remember one time my sister called me and said she was in jail and wanted to know if I’d go her bail. I was quickly calculating in my head how much money I had in the bank.

“What did you do?” I asked.

She said, “Embezzlement” and then laughed. She was “in jail” for charity and had to raise a certain dollar amount to do her part. With great relief, I donated.

Although we may (or may not) have friends that we would stick to through all pitfalls and disasters, we more often will have to know when a person has gone too far. At times all we can offer is tough love. We may have to say, “I can’t do that” when we get that call in the middle of the night, and someone wants you to bail them out of jail. Several years ago when I was living alone, I received one of those calls and although I was half asleep, I knew it wasn’t something I could do.

 I’ve seen heartbroken parents who refuse to enable their kids when they get lost in the illegal drug world. I had a conversation with a woman whose son relapsed and was circling the drain. She refused to help him saying, “He has to hit rock bottom before he will stop using.”

There are reasons to refuse to let someone drag you down with them. Imagine that someone is drowning and in their panic, they pull you under, and you both drown. In that case, if you have a long pole you can let her hang on and drag her to safety. Or you might throw him a floatation device and let the person save himself. It does no one any good if you both drown.

I know that as a caregiver, I had to work at not sinking into despair. I had to hold on tight to my own identity to continue life outside of caregiving. Friends and family who walked beside me and pulled me forward were the saving grace that kept me afloat.

Lately, playing music with the family band has been my lifeline. Relaxing with my ukulele helps me make it through some exasperating days.

I wasn’t 100% satisfied with how I sang the song, but knowing me, I could have gone through it twenty times and still would have found something wrong with it. I took the SD card out of my camera and inserted it into my PC. I used Movie Maker to finish the video and format it for Facebook.

In past years, my video was lost among the thousands of videos posted throughout the world. This year, was a little different. I started getting comments about the song. One lady said that it would be a good song for her trio. One of the Play Music on the Porch administrators said this was her new favorite song, and asked if I’d post it to the Facebook account so that she could share it. Songs posted to the community can only be viewed by other members and cannot be shared. Later in the day, the administrator said she had been singing the song all day!

I know the enthusiasm wasn’t for my singing, but for the song. It will probably take another year for me to find a song for 2024 Play Music on the Porch Day. In the meantime, the message for my best friends—if you go down, I’m going down too.

  

Copyright © Aug 2023 by L.S. Fisher

http://earlyonset.blogspot.com

#ENDALZ

The Lazy, Hazy, Days of Summer

  

When I took the dog out last week, we found thick fog and scorching hot weather. Later in the day the haze was gone, but the heat and humidity made outside time almost unbearable for me, and I’m not covered in thick fur like my dog. The heat made me feel lethargic—or one might say—lazy.

I could feel myself wilting when I had to take the dog out. At least when we finished outside, we came inside to a cool house with a dehumidifier. It still took time for me to recuperate after a stroll around the yard with a recalcitrant dog. The dog led and I followed.

On those foggy mornings, the heat made my glasses fog over. I sat on a chair in the shade, and the dog promptly jumped into the chair next to me. As we sat there panting in the heat, I suddenly felt a cold wind hit me for a few seconds. I thought maybe I’d left the door open, but it was closed. About the time I decided I’d imagined the cold wind, I felt it again.

It didn’t matter whether it was 6 a.m. or midnight, the air was heavy and oppressive. I thought about the hot nights when I was a kid and we had only a box fan to stir the air. Summers may not have been  hotter, but when you had no respite from the heat, it seemed that way.

When Jim and I first married, we rented a one-room apartment in Kansas without air-conditioning. We had one window, a screen door, and a fan for circulation. It got so hot at night that we wet a beach towel and put it over us.

Several years later, we lived in a two-story farmhouse, and the downstairs was comfortable even in the hottest part of summer. When we bought our land and moved a mobile home on it, we made it until June without an air-conditioner. It took us that long to decide that our mobile home was a heat trap in the summer.

Our favorite way to beat the heat was to go to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. August was our favorite time to go because that’s when the weather was miserable in “Misery” as we often called Missouri. It was always great to put on a jacket and sit by the campfire.

I recall how vigilant I had to be with Jim during the summer. When he was inside the house, he sometimes wore his denim jacket to stay warm. In his confusion, he would try to warm the house up, but instead he would push the thermostat lower. I finally had to put duct tape over the control to keep him from pushing it as low as it would go.

One day I told Jim we would go to town to eat. After I was ready to go, I grabbed my purse, but couldn’t find Jim. I finally decided he’d already gone to the car. That’s where I found him, with all the windows shut tight, wearing his denim jacket, and sweating profusely. I couldn’t imagine what would have happened if I’d taken longer to get ready.

When the thermometer hits triple digits, it’s hard to stay comfortable without a fully functioning cooling system. I feel for those who suffer through the hazy, lazy days of summer without a way to cool down.

I hope we have an autumn this year and don’t go from the summer heat to the bone-chilling cold when all the winds are cold. As I bundle up to take the dog out, the summer heat will be only a fond memory. As for the dog—she prefers the snowy, windy, icy days of winter.

 

Copyright © Aug 2023 by L.S. Fisher

http://earlyonset.blogspot.com

#ENDALZ

Sunrise, Rainbow, and Rain

Today would have been a great day to sleep late, except my body had other ideas. After a restless night, I woke up hurting from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. It had been raining outside, so it wasn’t a big surprise that my arthritis had overruled my meds.

I tried re-medicating my knees, but still couldn’t go back to sleep. Finally, I crawled out of bed and grabbed my walker for a trip to the medicine cabinet for my arthritis-strength Tylenol.

Since it was almost six o’clock, I decided to go ahead and brew my coffee. I pushed the button on the pot. It spewed and sputtered for about twenty seconds and shut off. After lifting the almost empty carafe, I realized I hadn’t prepared my pot the night before.

After the coffee was brewing, I turned off the security alarm because I’d decided it would be a good morning to sit on the almost finished sun porch to drink my coffee. Turning off the alarm signaled the dog to stretch in preparation to going outside. “Okay, I’ll take you out while the coffee is making,” I told her.

Being awake so early made me think of Jim. He was a morning person and liked nothing better than starting the day drinking coffee and playing his guitar. As the dementia progressed, he often sang a cowboy song about having a bad day. It was stuck in his head and he sang it repeatedly. I suppose that somewhere in the recesses of his mind, he knew his good days were mostly behind him.

As soon as I stepped outside, I noticed that it was sprinkling rain. I glanced over to the East and saw the sun peeking through the clouds. In the West, I noticed a very faint rainbow and following the arc, the rainbow was brighter in the South.

I hustled the dog back inside and grabbed my camera. I captured what my eyes had seen and thought about the wonders of early morning, life giving rain, and the promise of the rainbow. It made me wish that I took time each day to appreciate the beauty that surrounds me.

As I sipped my coffee, I could feel the pain leaving my body. I looked out at the trees, the crops in the field, and at the backyard where the grass is sporting spots of green among the sun-scorched patches of brown. I heard a lone bird chirping.

This is how I had always envisioned retirement would be, and yet this kind of morning is rare. I suppose it’s my own fault, but it seems that too much of my day is out of my control. I’m pulled in different directions between chores I have to do, projects I need to complete, volunteer work, or the things I really want to do—play my ukulele, read a good book, watch a movie, or spend time with family.

I’m such a late night person that it’s hard to drag myself out of bed in the mornings. It seems that late night is “my time” to relax and reflect. When I go to bed, I like to read and, hopefully, sleep through the night.

I see more sunsets than sunrises, and that is a disturbing thought. Sunsets represent endings, and sunrises represent beginnings. The rain today is quenching the thirst of the earth. The rainbow is a sign of hope and a promise of better times ahead.

 

Copyright © July 2023 by L.S. Fisher

http://earlyonset.blogspot.com

#ENDALZ

Try to Remember

 

I was listening to 70’s on 7 in my car while I was on the way to play music at Cole Camp. A song came on the radio that I didn’t recognize at first. Gladys Knight sang a song that came up on my display as “Try to Remember.”

      During the intro, she talked about the “Good old days” and my ears perked up. I think we’re all guilty of remembering the past with feelings of nostalgia and longing for the good old days. It seems that time was simpler then than now.

We lived in the country so our summers were spent playing outside. We didn’t have the distraction of video games, computers, or TV with endless channels. Sometimes, outside was cooler than the house. We had no air-conditioning so I read books while lying on the floor in front of the box fan. Summertime was sweating time. The good old days.

When Gladys starts singing, she talks about September memories. September to me was back to school after the long, hot summer. I liked school and enjoyed spending time with my friends. Well, that is except for the year that for some reason the girls I usually spent time with suddenly weren’t talking to me. I never did find out the reason and when I asked someone about it later, she didn’t remember it. The upside was that once I wasn’t a part of the “cool kids” I became better acquainted with the girls that weren’t part of the “in crowd” and didn’t even care.

September also brings back the bittersweet time of when Jim joined the Army. After Vietnam, PTSD, and Agent Orange, we lived in Manhattan Kansas while he finished out his three years of service. I didn’t care much for Army life, but still have sweet memories of us becoming the parents of a baby boy, days spent at Lake Tuttle, going to the nearby park, and how our house was filled with love, laughter, and music.

We couldn’t foresee the future where the time spent in Vietnam would become a darkness that would close in on us. Jim’s mental anguish lasted for years until the brain disease erased some of the painful memories. Unfortunately, it also erased many of the talents and traits that made Jim, Jim.

I’ve lived seven decades and that makes for a lot of old days, good and bad. I believe the best part of the old days was before I was plagued with health problems. I was extraordinarily healthy in my youth with sick days being few and far between.

I think the key to remembering the good old days is to remember the good. One line in the song mentions that as bad as times are now, these will be the good old days for our children.

Life is not all roses, but it’s not all thorns either. Turning thoughts to roses is part of my basic optimism. I prefer to dwell on the pleasant days, time spent with friends, and forget the angst that I felt when things didn’t go according to plan.

The thorns that prick my memories, have long since dulled and turned into lessons learned. The “could have, should have” mind game usually ends badly. I feel that the choices I made, whether right, wrong, or ambivalent, have landed me exactly where I am supposed to be. When it comes to the past, it is what it was, and although the past cannot be rewritten, it can be edited. We can strike through the negative and highlight the positive.

Copyright © July 2023 by L.S. Fisher

http://earlyonset.blogspot.com

#ENDALZ

I Love a Parade

 

The hallmarks of Independence Day are fireworks and parades. Because of the dry weather, backyard fireworks were in short supply. It was unusual to pass by fireworks stands and notice they had no customers. Most people opted to the big displays provided by communities throughout the nation.

 Our Walk to End Alzheimer’s Committee has participated in the parade for several years. We toss candy, bracelets, and T-shirts to the crowds who mostly line the shady side of the street. One of our corporate sponsors has provided golf carts that we decorate in red, white, blue, and purple. This year, our walk manager and her family joined us with a decorated truck.

After the puny polka-dot rains we had before the 4^th, I wouldn’t have been surprised if it hadn’t rained on our parade. The day of the parade, I carried my purple polka-dot umbrella so that I had shade from the sun while waiting for the parade to begin.

The parade is a lot of fun. Along the route, we see people of all ages decked out in their patriotic colors, smiling, waving flags, and enjoying life in these United States of America.

As we ride down Ohio Street, we pass by majestic historic buildings, some of which have witnessed more than a century of parades. We see the courthouse with its statues honoring those who fought for our freedom. Although I can’t see them, I know that we pass close to the bricks alongside the sidewalk in front of the courthouse honoring veterans—including Jim and my dad.

 I smile and wave at the crowd occasionally spotting someone that I know. When I’m in a parade, it seems to go by quickly.

There’s something about a parade that just makes my heart smile. I love a parade!

 

 

Copyright © July 2023 by L.S. Fisher

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