I’m back in the place I left. Blood sometimes takes away the choice.

Plans hardly ever go as planned around here. New roofs sag, ceilings get cracks, seeds planted and nurtured succumb to frost, walls never get painted.

My plan for this trip to visit my mother was to help a new live-in aide acclimate to my mother and to this forsaken place. But, after an on-site interview, the aide changed her plans and is not coming after all. I can’t say I blame her. It would take a kind of frontierswoman personality to take on the situation here.

So, I’m here, instead to nurse my mother through some kind of sore throat. Or cold. The doctor said it is not strep.

She can’t seem to swallow pills any more, so I’m giving her liquid Tylenol. There are two bottles here, one is labeled “sore throat relief” and the other is “rapid blast.” The ingredients of both are identical. I guess the marketing ploy works, because here I am with two separate bottles when one would do When she wakes up at night, I make her tea with lemon and honey..

I am making a big pot of chicken soup. A whole chicken. Five cloves of garlic. Lots of carrots and celery. A parsnip and a turnip and onions. I wanted to put fresh parsley in the for Vitamin C, but the grocery store was out of parsley. Something to do with Easter and eggs, I’m supposing. I will cook the soup for hours and, hopefully, she will drink the broth.

She hurts all over. Our bones are tired.

I miss my grandson, he of the wall of hats, one of which belonged to my dad and is over a half-century old. Here he is, wearing it, acting out scenes for Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium

From my daughter’s post on Facebook: Mr. Magorium: “You don’t have to be happy that I am leaving. All I ask is that you turn the page, keep reading, and let the next story begin. And when someone asks, tell them my story, with all its wonder, and end it, simply, ‘he died’.”

Ditto.