Thursday, December 30, 2010

Time Marches On

Tomorrow is New Years Eve. Time is marching on and it will soon be 2011. Sometimes time seems to stand still. Other times it flies fast as hummingbird wings. Time is snails pace for Elbert. He has no concept of time or place or things or people. Yet, I am marching on with life as best I know how. Seeing family, paying bills, cleaning a messy house (how is it that one person can make such a mess?) and so on. Time is not constant. It weaves in and out of our lives, marking life's events but no one can put a label on it. It is that measure we give each thought, each act, each kindness, each ache.

Today my time has been filled with returning from a trip(all that unpacking, laundry, organizing) and visiting with Elbert. How my feet flew at home with each task. How my feet were slow, oh so slow, as I wheeled Elbert down to feed him. Tough chore today. I noticed for the first time that he did not seem to know how to swallow liquids. (tea or water). It was swished around in his mouth and then held there. I rubbed his throat (I'd seen him do that trying to get a dog to swallow pills) and finally it would go down.... if it did not spill out onto the bib. Time... I would love a ton more time with my sweet hubby but not like this. Time is crawling and it's painful to live in this time frame.

Friday, December 10, 2010

A Big Day

Don't you just love it when your loved one is having a good day? Elbert was pretty good today and that was special because it is our 60th wedding anniversary. Of course, I drove down to spend some time with him.

It was cold on Dec. 10, 1950 when we ran off and got married.  That was 60 years ago. Today was a very special day indeed. I had Elbert with me and we would celebrate however his mind and body would allow.


Elbert seemed somewhat agitated when I got there, just about wringing his thumb off with his other hand. Finally he settled down and ate his lunch. Fish, grits and stewed tomatoes. I thought that was a dumb meal but took a bite and you know, I may make me some of that fish and tomatoes. I'm a Southern gal and grits is for breakfast, people.

I wheeled Elbert out to the lobby where a big Christmas tree was decorated and lighted. He seemed to enjoy looking at that.

We went into the dining room to listen to a high school glee club singing Christmas carols in the dining room. That agitation was evidently still lingering under the surface because when the glee club started singing a really jivey tune from the 1980s by JOURNEY he started getting out of his chair. I pulled him back and he drew back to hit me. Then he started shoving the table around so we scooted out of there in a hurry. As soon as he was away from the noise he was alright.

It wasn't the wonderful anniversaries that we had celebrated in the past. But, we were together, that's all that mattered.