COMING TOGETHER--70

Now it is Memorial Day Weekend. We have had a good time. No conflicts, Mom and I have been eating well, doing our duties and relating much better. I have been reading to Mom, she likes that because it is so hard for her to read herself.

I've been reading a novel called Princess Elizabeth's Spy, a spy novel set in WWII, about a young female spy. I've started reading to Mom, The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler. He used to live in LaJolla CA where Mom and Dad lived 30 years ago. I even read her part of my novel about Dad's life in WWII. She didn't know I wrote that. I think she was favorably impressed.

This is a sign that she is able and willing to do less than before, but it also means she has accepted she can do less than 6 months ago. I have to accept that, too. I can't push her beyond the limits of a 92 year old woman who can barely walk. I'm grateful she can feed herself and dress herself, so I have to remember to not be too impatient about how slow she is.

Mom's daughter Nancy and her husband Lamar have grandchildren. They sent me a video through the email, which I showed Mom. She smiled through the whole 4 minute video, in fact, she wanted to see it 3 times.

I am working more than I have in two months, maybe that's good but my job of working all night--8pm to 4am--is boring and drudgery. I'd like to do something better but the job fits my life with Mom so well I won't give up the job just for money.

Anyway, we go on. We don't have any answers to life, they are not coming. We just go on living, more out of default than anything else. The alternative to living is just a nothing. Not a black hole sucking us in, not a destination out there, not a fear scaring us into retreating into the past, just a nothing.