Wayne's birthday

It's May 18. I haven't forgotten.

The Heart's Music

My grandson, Edmund, sang to me last night. He's three months old, but he sang. I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong. He sang.

Don't be doubting it. I know singing when I hear it.

He was lying on my bed, and I turned on the ceiling fan to entertain him. But--and who knows why?--he was more interested in me than in the fan. I began to sing, "When blossoms flowered amid the snows, upon a winter night, was born a child, the Christmas rose, the king of love and light."

I know it's May, but Charlie, that's Edmund's oldest brother, had just asked to hear Christmas music, so it just came out of me. It's a song I've always loved anyway. No question it was a hit with Edmund.

I'd watch that kid, if I were his mom or dad. They may have a musical genius there. Last night his pitch and his voice matched mine, high and clear, his a little clearer. No, I won't go so far as to say that he got the tune right, and he has no words yet, but what he sang was beautiful. Bring a smile to your face and a tear to your eye. Oh yes.

Okay, this poem

I could explain some things I have learned since writing it, but I choose not to.

Alzheimer’s

which makes Dale not

always Dale

because he has it

tangles develop deep in the brain

and my sister, his wife,

some strange person

he wants to push out of his house

someone he accuses of crimes

against him, but she did not steal

what he has lost.

She can take him to

last year’s photo,

the two of them together,

and he will know

who’s in the picture, and it looks

just like her

plaques form

but when he turns

and looks right in her face

she’s not the one in the photo

not his wife

and he might ask

as he does most nights

where are you

going to sleep?

He can’t help it--

everyone knows that--

neurons work less efficiently

and should not be blamed

but it’s hard to remember

when he’s in the middle of

being lost

and something or everything

is her fault somehow

and she does not belong

with him, where she has lived

more than fifty years.

Hard to remember, hard

to hope, hard to forgive.

Then, in a moment

or an hour

there is no treatment to cure

or more

she is someone he knows

his wife again delay or stop

and he says nice things

no more pushing, no

accusations, only smiles

the disease

he calls her by her name

and he is Dale again

and she thinks

maybe this time for good.

Carol Schiess

Yes, yes, yes

I have pictures. Not 800, like Alyce, but about half that many.

And yes, yes, yes, I'll post some. I know all my readers--unlike Ann I have no big number following, cannot claim stardom--but all my three or four readers will want to see some photos.

I'll post some but not until I get a new computer. It's got to happen. This one is--are you ready?-- nearly ten years old.

Don't Worry

Yes, I'm taking a camera. I'll take pictures.

Once Again

Next year, I suppose, I'll just throw the wreath away right after Christmas. I have set it out for the trash guy today, finally, and have given up for good on the finches. This is the third year they have not come. After 15 years of being my small notes of cheer, February through May.

No need to scold the crows again, their part already known if you've read this blog for a while.

It's a door closing, an end of something we liked--those birds building their nest each year and raising their family in the wreath just outside our front door, and after Wayne died, they were a reminder of him, of us, as if I needed one.

It's a beginning, too. Every ending brings a new beginning. Right?

More than just not leaving the wreath up. More than not looking and listening for the birds. Something more. Something positive. Just give me time. I'll think of it.

"Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything." C S Lewis

Now and then I have wished for time to stop, to hold still, if only for an hour. To let us think or rest or weep.

Some things warrant it, you know.

But nothing--no matter how large or small or how profound or heart-breaking--nothing makes it happen. Nothing and no one.

Because life goes on, as they say, and I have heard it said so easily, so cavalierly, perhaps even said it that way myself, which just now seems heartless.

But it is true. Time does not stop, and life goes on, and we who are living must go on with it.