All of this news of what is amounting the WWIII is not funny. Coming home to my mother in the middle of a dementia episode is not funny. It’s not funny that theVatican announced that, while it paid $9 million for the funeral of Pope John Paul II, it still made a $12.4 million profit in 2005. It’s not funny that Red Buttons died. Except for the statement about my mother, the above “not funnies” are from Harper’s Weekly.
I don’t know if it’s funny, but it sure is interesteing that:
— Scientists in Maryland found that two thirds of people who consumed the hallucinogenic drug psilocybin had extremely meaningful experiences.
— scientists in Massachusetts implanted sensors in a paralyzed man’s brain that allowed the man to check email.
— Jack Kevorkian, who is dying, said that he would not choose suicide
The above interesting facts are also from Harper’s Weekly.
What was really funny was watching my grandson in his airline pilot uniform, and his chef’s uniform, and his astronaut uniform (with talking space helmet), and his Red Sox uniform — all of which he got for his birthday. In addiition to trucks, of course. And watching him hit a ball with a one-handed bat-swing and then run around invisible bases, only to roll around the grass in his version of a slide into third.
And now I’m back to what’s not fun in my life, and it’s not just a matter of my mother’s self-centered needs sucking up all my time and energy; it’s also dealing with a sibling who wants everything done his way. We are as unlike as two siblings can be. I am almost at a point at which I can pack up and leave all of this behind and feel not a shred of guilt.
But then I get a comment left on one of my posts from someone who found my weblog and is in the midst of a situation even more exhausting than mine. Her weblog is part of her strategy for dealing with the tragic death of her daughter, a victim road rage, and with the challenge she now faces of raising her daughter’s twins — in addition to her own young son. I read this post of hers and I have such admiration for what she is so lovingly and valiantly doing. She does have family nearby, and they are becoming that “village” that it takes to raise a child.
Unfortunately for me, there is no “village” here to share what it takes to help at the other end of life’s line.
So, I will get up early tomorrow morning and plant the colorful annuals I bought on the way back from Masschusetts today, and I will weed and water and try to create a little more color and beauty in my own life before she wakes up and I lose sight of the sun and the memory of fun.