Monday December 21 2015  AND TIME GOES BY

Photos from yesterday were picked up today.  That is good. Shopping for Christmas Dinner is done.  That is good.  My sum total on my list was to pick up a rutabaga for the root vegetable bake I must bring to the dinner.  Of Course that rutabaga only cost $40.00 plus.  And then we needed to stop by Costo for 4 flats of bottled water and two roasted chickens.  Those only cost $80.44 cents.  If you are like me, you can’t walk through a grocery store without remember everything else you need (or think you need) to buy.

The chicken is deboned, the bones are boiling and the bottles of water are still in the car.  This was Dave’s first lifting day since his surgery over eight weeks ago.  I told him to wait until tomorrow to do any more lifting.  Those flats weigh over 40 pounds each and must be carried quite a ways to their indoor parking place. 

A few presents to wrap and our Christmas is ready.  That is tomorrow’s duty.

So…has this blog been short enough?  There’s lots more I could write but must leave in one hour for our Monday night movie.  Oh yes, I will say that I found out my deceased brother’s middle name, the one my mom couldn’t remember.  My older sister remembered it and emailed it to me.  It was Marion.  Wilfred Marion.  I wish we had thought to ask my sister while my mom was still concerned about it.  Thanks sis!

AND TIME GOES BY

By Kathleen Martens

December 21, 2015

Time goes by and some thoughts leave.

Where they go I’ll never know.

Loss of memory such a grief

Until hunting you no longer go.

It’s as if the brain begins crumbling

We become forgetful over our loss,

As if our thoughts begin mumbling,

Pulling to surface our ancient dross.

Thoughts of yesteryear seem to swim

Bringing memories of bygone days.

What happened five minutes ago become dim

As we become forgetful in our ways.

It’s sort of like losing yourself,

Wondering who you are.

Your present identity sits on a shelf,

And you are fearful of wandering far.

And the parent becomes the child

Self-absorbed with years of recollection.

All those memories no longer filed

Leaving one without direction.

Will it be me? I can’t help ask.

Will I be the one who is lost?

Leaving my care to another’s task,

Unaware of the toil and cost?

In this plight which position is worse?

The one who is now the parent?

Or is it the child who was born first?

To whom nothing is now apparent?

I was thinking of my mother as I wrote this poem.  Her last few years were lost to her.  When we cleaned out her living quarters after she died we found a page torn from her journal, hidden in the drawer of little table in the entrance way.  One of the sentences she had written was, “This is Sybil…or at least I think it is Sybil.  I don’t really know who I am.  I think I have lost myself, but I have a daughter and she will help find me…”  She went on to write much more but I do not have the torn page with me right now and cannot remember the precise words.   It was written at the beginning of her years of dementia.  It was such a sad place for her to be.  Living so far away there was not a lot I could help out with, but I have two sisters who lived with her and faithfully cared for her until her death in 2010.  It was very difficult and exhausting for my sisters.   How grateful I am to them for giving her round the clock care like they did.  I believe she was happy in her own way, in her own little world. 

Why did I think of my mom now?  I do not know.  But I write what is going on inside and that was what surfaced.  I guess that was the poem I was supposed to write tonight.  A lot more to the story but this is all I will comment on this evening.  I am not sad for my mother now.  She is spending Christmas with Jesus this year.  How awesome is that!  Besides, she has lots of family with her now, brothers and sisters and mom and dad, cousins, her grandparents and great grandparents, and a baby son.  And I bet they don’t even have to do the cooking.  Merry Christmas up there in heaven mama.  I still miss you but I wouldn’t want you to come back to this world for anything!

And I wish all of my friends down here on earth a wonderful and Merry Christmas, even if I don’t know you! 

MERRY CHRISTMAS