Days like this, in early Autumn need to be cloned. Repeat performances should occur upon demand. They are delicious, cooling, uplifting, and they dare to foster hope and promise. Perhaps there will be more. And if luck holds, I will live to see more...this season and the next. Always, of course, providing that luck holds, I look forward to the morrow.

Headed for the library this AM, singing loudly all the way. Kind Petey sent me a tune-about drinking coffee in the afternoon and reading T.S. Eliot. And I dared to follow the suggestion. T.S. wanted to question and defy his society and it's constrictions by expressing his feelings, it would seem. It was not standard decorum in his day,early 20th Century America and England, to concentrate on or display one's feelings, but instead to maintain proper manners and dignity, pomp and circumstance. T.S., I am told, is responsible, the original author of what became The Broadway Musical "Cats." In his plays, it can be found as "OLd Possum's Book of Practical Cats". Now, that bit of information pleasingly surprised me, and I am looking forward towards some experimentation of my own, literary attempts at a type of osmosis and absorbtion. The librarian was so excited for me when she asked what works I wanted, and I told her that I wished only to discover. So, with her recommendation, I checked out "The Complete Poems and Plays,1909-1950" and then "Life and Works T.S.Eliot" by Sue Asbee. I know that in past English Lit. classes (always places I loved to be) that I have studied him, but time has worn away the particulars...I wonder if he would be the author that triggers my memory about "fog coming in creeping in like cats on grey, soft feet..." or something remotely akin to that...I recall that my instructor was as excited about that passage, as the librarian was that I wanted to discover T.S. I, too, hope to be excited.

And yet, inspired by the beauty of this crackling September day, I covered my bases. After the death of my father, against my therapist's better judgment, I had promised myself a "Stephen King Summer." I know I am not alone in being mesmerized by this "Master of Suspense," or this "Master of Horror", or however folks want to label him. A freak show at the Carnival? An upsetting ride through the Haunted House further on down the same path?...it matters not what others think. "The Green Mile'" "The Stand," "Hearts In Atlantis"...they do not have to work for you, as long as they do the trick for me. "The Tower" books, that of "The Gunslinger" confound (and borderline bore) me, but as his writings are, indeed, an acquired taste, perhaps I can learn to grow into them at a later time and place. Today, the library loaned me "An unauthorized guide to...The Lost Works of Stephen King" and the VHS of "Hearts in Atlantis"-a book I started shortly before leaving California the last time, and lost track of, and rediscovered and loved reading last month. It stars Anthony Hopkins, so I don't see how it can lose, plus there's a lil' note that "Ebert & Roeper" gave it "TWO BIG THUMBS UP!", so, I gotta guess that the odds are in my favor.

I could not pursue Mr King all summer, it would seem, without running into Mr. Koontz. They are birds of a feather (in my humble opinion), and of course, both collections on fiction hung out in the K's at the aforementioned local library. Now, I just finished two real stinkers from Koontz that I cannot recommend. I can only surmise that they were written very early in his career, and published after he had attained some fame. "Fear Nothing" and "Seize The Night," I would venture to guess were meant to be the first two books of a trilogy, but I feel Dean (no real disrespect intended) would have been forced to name the third book something like "Please Don't Bother"...there was plot potential, but so much unneccesary description, unlikely dialogue, and preposturous situations and short cuts, peppering the first two books that reading them was next to impossible,and following them, just plain was impossible...for the reader or for Dean. But I am fond of "Odd Thomas," and "Forever Odd," and I really enjoyed "The Husband," so today, I got "The Good Guy" on CD, and, "Brother Odd" the book, as my SK Summer is almost gone, and I will soon be forced back into the gray ranks of a working class reality, leaving no time for such adventures, so that I may continue to live my life in the manner to which I have become accustomed-which by the way, is a pretty doggone great life.

Last weekend, Sweet sister Kathy, piled Angel Sister Jan, & myself into her really nice car (a new gray something or other ) and drove us to Illinois to visit our favorite Aunt & Uncle, Gretta and Merle. It was a mixed bag of extreme emotions. Merle is my mother's brother. When he was very young, he victoriously overcame Polio. Now, that he is leaving middle-age behind, "Post-Polio Syndrome" has hit him hard...and there are no more victories to be had, other than Gretta's daily victories in her fight to keep him out of the nursing home, and out of harm's way within their home. And, oh, she fights these battles with such dignity, perseverance, and courage! He has lost more brain function than his Alzheimer's afflicted sister, my mom. And darlin', I cannot lie-in both beloved relatives,that is an unfortunate amount of brain function to lose. It is wasted effort to compare them or describe them, as there are good days and bad days, and for those of us left here to watch, there are mostly only sad days. Time has not been kind to either sibling. Both children of my grandparents, Ray and Hazel, are vacant, rambling, incomplete, and totally dependent on others to get through their remaining days with any semblance of comfort, or hope of pleasantly passing the time. Lordy! Lordy! After all I have seen this summer, I think that The Who said it best-"I hope I die before I get old..." Yet, somehow, I am already 55, and I still have got such a lot of living to do!!! So very many books to read, and movies to see, and adventures to be had...

After the heartbreak of Merle on Friday afternoon, and Saturday luncheon, Kathy decided we needed some cheering up. We had rendezvoused with brother Mark, and his wife & son, Kim and Ken, at Aunt Gretta's, and they followed us Saturday afternoon to revisit our childhood home in Illinois, Galesburg, birthplace of Carl Sandberg.

You cannot begin to imagine our excitement, or our luck! We found our big old white house redone in blue, with a hot tub on the remodeled back porch, and didn't the garage used to be off to the right, we asked each other? There were so many questions, and of course, no one was home. Mark spied a next-door neighbor returning from a fishing trip, and strolling up the driveway, as if invited, extended his right hand in greeting, and marched into the neighbor's back yard behind their returning fishing boat. We girls demurred for a few minutes out in the front yard already feeling we had invaded private property that was no longer our own, but then, we quickly followed Mark's lead, as we had nothing to lose.

This friendly neighbor, Todd, was the first in a line of wonderful surprises. He had been neighbors to Peg and Wayne(the current owners) for 18 years, and he knew that Peg would welcome our unannounced arrival with open arms, "She'll talk your ears off!" he laughed. But as she wasn't home, he got back in his truck and led our little caravan downtown, to where Wayne ran a favored local Italian restaurant. The evening meal was lovely, and Wayne phoned Peg who hurried home to await our arrival. It was better than we could have dared to hope for... Indeed, most pleasantly, she did talk our ears off, as promised, and she also gave us free reign to roam our old house at will. We were soon split into groups of 1, 2, and 3, alternately listening to Peg and her passion for the place, and then, straying off to explore old rooms remodeled, and long forgotten. It was my first major experience with a repressed memory, when Jan moved a fan, and opened a door, and we followed steps up into the attic.

"The playroom," I heard myself say as we ascended the stairs, and peeked over a railing, "We used to roller skate up here on rainy days...and play in the winter!" A room I had entirely forgotten came flooding back into my memory. We'd spent hours up there, with paper dolls, Barbies, and doll houses, and I now remembered groaning and whining, when the summer heats hit, forcing us to retreat to the lower floors. It came back to me in bits and pieces...but, come back to me, it did. What a rush! I have a vivid total recall of watching an old man through a playroom window one winter, struggling against the gale-force winds, fighting his way, head into the wind, gripping his hat, across the street from our house. I remember how he looked so old, cold, weak, and lonely, and maybe even, afraid...and how I felt so bad for him, so guilty, while I was warm and loved inside a house full of food and family..I couldn't have been much older than 10 or 11 then, as we left Galesburg the summer after I had graduated from the sixth grade...I could have spent hours wandering the house, asking questions and listening to Peg's stories...and she could have spent hours telling us her stories, I know. It was all pretty great. But again, never enough hours in the day or the night, and all too soon we were headed back to our suite in Peoria, with me asleep, like the child I used to be, in the back seat. Sweet sister Kathy's sweet husband, Bob,insisted upon picking up the tab for our 4 day, 3 night stay in Peoria, where we also viewed from the outside the home of another of our grandparents, Larry and Sarah, and our first home on Sheridan Ave., before Mark was born. We only saw these homes from the outside & one was better than well-maintained, and the other had painfully been allowed to be run down to a shadow of it's former style. Such is life.

The motel suite in Peoria was pretty wonderful, too. I only had to pay for my meals the entire weekend, so the manner to which I have become accustomed remains a very nice manner, indeed.

Sunday, we wandered into Metamora to meet with Dad's favorite cousins, Bev and Carol. The faces were vaguely familiar, but we really didn't know them. This was one of Dad's last wishes...that we attend the annual family reunion in Metamora...Rene had never allowed him to go, and all-too-soon, he was too old and sick to go...and then, all-too-soon, of course, Daddy was gone. But not before he had begged his children to go where he could not go...We did it for him. We knew nobody, but they made us feel welcome. It was all too clear though, had Dad been able to go, there were few folks that would have remembered him, let alone my grandparents, his folks. Time marches on, and rarely, at this stage of the game, is it ever pretty. I did meet a cousin who shared my migraine affliction... our symptoms fit to a "T," which was a close enough quirk of a stretch for validation.

I am always grateful to find something that validates my own affliction as there is no rhyme or reason for the attacks, and people are often suspicious that I am faking the headaches or bringing them on myself. I really have to learn to not think twice about what other people think...they think that it is all in my head? They're right! It hurts all over my head, especially starting in my right rhomboid muscle traveling in an unreal straight line up the right side of my neck, up the backside of my head on the right side, down the right side of my forehead, landing throbbing, stabbing and pounding behind my right eye...(had a recent run-in w/a non-believer, if you couldn't tell, but I hurt too bad to stick up for myself).

Well, this post got away from me,(again!), another novelette, but there was so much that I wanted to enter. Someday, when I am depressed, I want to be able to flip through my blog & find days like today, when it is almost all good, and try to get back to here from there. There are bound to be plenty of almost all rough times ahead, and I want to do all that I can to remember the good times. Most of early September 2007 was pretty good-I really hope that I can remember that. And not repress the memories, especially, those that are all good.

Here, in Nowhere, Indiana,the winds are balmy and cool to the touch. It is recommended that one immerses oneself into those gentle winds...and smile. The tops of the corn fields surrounding Bubba's lil green acre are burnished in orange. The contrasts of gold, rust and green keep ya' smiling. There is still Heaven sent music from friends to be played, words and picture to explore and exchange.

Three dogs, fat and happy prance around the safe, enclosed yard with undeniable grins adorning their slobber jaws. They can be tricksey. And fun. Well-fed, curious, loving sweet K-9 kids that enrich our present days with unconditional love. This is what counts, for us.

Right here, right now...we can be happy. Eat healthy, stay busy, burn energy from within, enjoy life.

The world cannot be saved by the likes of us...perhaps for the likes of us, but we are middle aged, and gratefully near-sighted, concentrating on what surrounds us in the now. Corn, Soy Beans, Pumpkins...Harvest Time is upon us. There is cause for joy and contentment. Allow it to come. To be. And we, on occasion, stop and be still, and feel the young Autumn winds sway our souls and save our days, and we can look forward to our tomorrows when the forecast is for more fair, cool weather to come, as far as the limited eye can see.

This is good. Rare. To be cherished. This is my life today, and it is more than fine & dandy...it holds promises of repeat performances provided we keep our prospectives...in perspective.

There simply are not enough hours in the day...or the night, for that matter. So much to do, to experience, to enjoy and accomplish...and the approach of Autumn fills my senses with startling fresh air and beauty. Sometimes, I think I am about to enter a state of sensory overload, and then, I just try to ride with it.

Once upon a time, when my mother spoke in structured sentences, she told me that as I grew older that I would require less sleep. That remains to be seen, but I really do not feel especially rough this morning, considering gnawing muscle cramps in my legs prevented me from easy slumber, and at the most, I only got 4 hours of sleep last night.

Yesterday, with great effort and moderately severe stabbing pains in the aforementioned legs, I successfully completed my goal of 5 miles of treadheading. Yestermorning was filled with excitement & pleasure, much as this morning is, as I started the day downloading the gift of music from my on line Blogstream bud, Petey. Ever since I visited "Petey's Music Place," on the Stream, well over a year ago, out of the kindness of his heart, Petey has been sending me wonderful music through cyberspace. I have no clue as to what I have done to deserve such heart lifting gestures, but I must have done something well. "I Put A Spell On You" starts my day with Joe Cocker. Can it get any better than this? Sensory overload, indeed, here I come, complete with shit eating grin of delightful anticipation on my face. Three Dog Night, "Never Been to Spain" and The Beatles, "Rocky Racoon." Thursday was an array of Hank William's Sr. classics...roots, that grew to rock n' roll's fruition. So many days start out on so many glorious notes, random acts of kindness from a sweet young man who belongs on your favorite radio station, spinning platters that you never knew that you loved until you heard them in the here and now. His youthful, yet deeply insightful perceptions start my days magnificently, and I am inadequate to reciprocate due to sadly limited knowledge of this wonder, the computer age. Perhaps, one day, I will learn how to do something to repay his kindnesses over almost the past two years...rarely a word or a phrase from Petey, the Giftster, just soulful, tender, beautiful, soaring music every day or so in my mailbox. I try to write to him to thank him, but I feel sorely lacking, in comparison to the unspoken wisdom of his musical selections that he send my way. "Mad World" now...Petey lists the artist as "Unknown", but I will find the song via google or something akin to it, later today...I vividly recall hearing it on the radio, awestruck, related, heartfelt...and, perhaps if I can tell Petety who recorded this sad and real tune for us to, for a change, to do something nice to him. Thank you, my as yet unmet friend, thank you for making so many of my days so much more profound and magical.

I try to re-gift Petey's music...send it to friends and family, but no one other than myself will ever know the full signifigence of these almost daily insights of the selector, Petey. I know he is in pain, and yet borne of his pain are these presents of his heart to a strange lady he met on line who babbles incessantly about her little life and knows next to nothing about his life...other than his generosity, and the intenseness of his experiences described only in the music that he sends to me. Yes...it is a "Mad World," Petey-Friend, but you make mine, so very much better. You ease my pain, and I thank you with all of my heart. I know that there is hope for this "Mad World," when there are people as giving, thoughtful and kind as you are..you lift me up, and you give me hope, and again, and again, I have only praise and thanks for your efforts...heartfelt praise and thanks.

I have a lot that I want to blog about-my little life has been so full of late.

It was not possible for me to blog on 9/11, nor to browse the Stream for painful insight from others. I know no one who died on that infamous day, but I was watching "Good Morning America" when things began to happen. A puzzled, unsure Dianne Sawyer interrupted what ditties had been planned to report that a plane had been reported crashing into one on the Twin Towers and that they were going to cut away to a live shot of the incident. How could anyone have yet realized the full implications resulting from the first crash, let alone expect the fallout of the second? I like to believe that the television show was in shock and denial after the first plane or the would not have cut away to show it to us, thereby catching the second impact with the resulting dark figures of human beings leaping from the Towers to escape the blasts. I have difficulty thinking that they knew what they were showing before they acted on a journalist's impulse. Even to see it on the tube, in Nowhere, Indiana, live from New York City...Dianne and I screamed in unison. Shock and awe-we were being attacked and droves were downward airborne people left no room for denial. If I had not seen it, perhaps, for a few hours, I could have denied it, but I did, and it was so very horrible.

I remember forcing myself to leave the house and start the drive to work. I was already late when I saw it happen, and so much the later getting out of the door, longing for the ability to deny. I drove to home of my co-worker, the young and beautiful Myra, to find her still asleep. lightly hung over from a 21-year old's night before the morning after. She could not grasp the signifigance of what I was trying to tell her had happened and she was annoyed at my rude awakening. We had jobs feeding, watering and perfecting interior landscapings in our town's motels, hotels and well-moneyed business offices. We didn't have to punch a time clock...just complete our jobs and make everything pretty and shiny.It was a great job, and as I was still in shock started the day at the Holiday Inn where I could do busy work and talk about what I had seen and try to come to terms with it. I was barely hanging in, robotically visiting one peaceful mini-jungle to the next, when someone told us that a third plane had crashed in a field, and yet another, into the Pentagon.

"The Pentagon?" I repeated, "The Pentagon?" I sat down hard in the midst of the interior tiny golf course where we were working.

"Oh no, Myra... I can't work today...they can fire me. I can't work. This is too much." It was a sensory overload of a different color, a sudden impact to my soul.

I was still drinking then,just starting to wind down the ugly habit, I guess, as I voiced my desire to go have a drink at my favorite bar where we could watch the television.Thankfully Myra, the young, the innocent and the beautiful and the already slightly hung over Myra, was to smart to allow me to indulge in my shattered state.

"You don't need a bar, you need your friends. We're going to Debbie's"

Deb is still one of my best friends, and her sage counsel, I agreed, is exactly what was needed. I was trying to quit drinking then, and Myra knew that, so she kindly spared me the temptation of the hour.

We went to Debbie's house, and due to her love of work, found her busy in her home office unaware of the proceedings.

"We have to go in the house to watch your television," I rudely insisted when she indicated that she was too busy to stop her business. This was not the norm for me to contradict Deb, and she told me to wait until it was time for the noon news, and then, we would go from her office to her house.

"We have to go watch it now, Deb. We've been attacked. This is big time. It will be on the air now, there won't be any scheduled programming. I have to go see it, now"

In her little world, she was still allowed denial, "For this?" she challenged me, incredulous that a plane crash would interrupt "The View".

"For this. Now. Please. Or I have to go to a bar," I re-insisted. Deb knew I was trying not to drink in order to be a better me. In my own way, I was threating her, as she was intent on assisting me on my quest to improve. I forced her hand, and she set aside her business day.

The rest of the day was an unreal blur. Even now, years later, the rushes of emotion are just too intense. It is why I could not blog in remembrance on 9/11/07. Still, a sensory overload, and even now, I have to take a break from writing. It is still too intense, and too real.

There is so much more I wanted to post today. Good and bad things over my last week. But 9/11...it still takes precedence. I only watched "GMA" and "Oprah" last Tuesday, and when Bubba came home from work & flipped on "World News Tonight," my head was hit with a double intangible ice picks...Wham! Wham! Sudden onset migraine...and I had to go to our darkened bedroom to encase my head with multiple packs of ice. I still cannot entirely contain my emotions, even with the passing of time, and the fact that I only watched a part of it from afar. I did not mean to write so long on such sadness & madness...it just kind of came forth...I have to take a break and rearrange my head space, as it is not healthy to continue, even at this late date. It is still, too profoundly disturbing, and I must strive to keep things in proper prospective. If there can ever be such a thing about that horrible day...I have to try to handle the event from a place somehow, more removed.

I hope to post another entry soon. I am woefully inadequate to even touch on the pain from that day...and I did try to avoid it, but, still, it would not be controlled.

"Mad World," Artist...unknown...

This Friday, some of my family plan to embark upon a trip back to our native Illinois to visit cousins, aunts, and uncles. Cousins that we barely know, and now, hope to know better. And to spend time with our favorites, Aunt Gretta and Uncle Merle. I am really looking forward to seeing all of our relatives, but especially this aunt and uncle. Since childhood they have stood the tests of time and change, retaining the ability to spark love and warm the hearts of all of Larry and Doris' children with, but a word. From as far back as I can remember they have been the favorites of all of my siblings and myself, and I get teary eyed, with a happy lump in my throat just to think of seeing them again.

Uncle Merle is my mother's brother, and his wife, Aunt Gretta has always held the key to all our hearts and souls, seemingly without trying, just by being the wonderful person that she just is. She has always been a joy to be around, and we cannot wait to see her once again. A tall, blond Scandanaivian beauty, she is and always has been humble, caring and kind...always going the extra mile to treat the five of us with TLC. She is only 15 years my senior, but each time I have seen her of late, I always felt myself the worse for wear, time and tribulation do nothing to detract from her beauty inside or out.

Uncle Merle is a few years my mother's junior, with an acerbic wit, a highway engineer of near genius proportion and an uncanny ability to talk like Donald Duck. As I age, more long term memories flood my brain...I can remember him home on leave, visiting us when I was, but a child, Merle in his sailor's Dress Blues...bell bottoms and a white sailor's hat, quacking his way into our hearts...my memories are made of this, and so much more...

And then, time marches on.

Much as my mother suffers today from Alzheimer's, sweet Uncle Merle suffers from Post-Polio Syndrome, an affliction of his youth that once he fought and won, that has now come back to prematurely haunt him in his "Golden Years". When Aunt Gretta brought this brother and sister together a few years ago for my step-dad, Daddy Don's funeral, Merle and Doris met with we 3 girls and Aunt Gretta in attendance in Mom's nursing home's Day Room. As they faced each other, speechless in their individual afflictions, we had all hoped for so much more. Hearts were breaking all around me as an overload of sensory input confounded their abilities to communicate. Each knew that we all wanted more from them, but so many thoughts, emotions, and so much confusion crowded their brains, that the best that they could come up, with when prompted, was Merle saying a faint, "Hello" and Mom saying "You're too skinny!" As I recall, it was the total sum of their conversation, and as frustrating to them, as it was to all of us who love them, gathered around, hoping in vain for more.

Merle took a tumble last month and some of his abilities were improved and sharpened as a consequence. I have worked in nursing homes, and seen similar good results follow bad falls. The theory I was told was that the brain excreted a rush of chemicals to defend the patient following those falls. In the nursing homes, the improvements were fleeting, transient and as the body returned to normal, so did the diseases return, same as it ever was. I hope Merle's improvements are still in full gear when we arrive for our visit, but I am prepared to see him as he was, speechless at the reunion with his sister, each gazing into space during a time of grief. You'd think medicine would have been able to seize upon this course of events and re-establish that rush of chemicals at will. I have seen a similar miracle, more than 20 years ago with a patient named Lula Belle, who all of a sudden after breaking her hip, could hold conversations and answer questions and express her love to her devoted sons and husband. It lasted slightly less than 2 months. Perhaps Merle's will last longer. These are reasons for hope and prayers, tempered with the harsh reality that what will be will be, and we must take each day as it is, and live it fully, to the best of our abilities and enjoy what we've got for as long as it lasts.

My sister Kathy will drive us, with Angel sister Jan riding shot gun, and Kind Kathy tells me that she has installed a DVD player for me riding in the back. She has given me strict instructions that I am to relax and enjoy myself, and I plan to do my best to comply. Kathy & Jan are smokers, but with adequate ventilation, I forsee no problems for the ride. I've ridden with the both of them many times, and they take special care to ensure that their habits do not rain on my ride, as I take special care not to be overly sensitive. I gave a ride to a friend recently who reeked of smoke, and in all likelihood poor hygiene in my junkyard errand car and was retching from the smells and the poor ventilation. I believe it to be just one bad instance, that will not repeat itself on our sister-bonding family adventure. We plan to swing by the home of our brother Mark, his wife Kim and sweet son, Ken enroute to Illinois & hope that they are packed and ready to hit the road right behind us without delay. 2 smokers there, as well, with a wise no-smoking Ken either helping to drive or kicking back in the back, as I will be. This should be quite the adventure, and I am really looking forward to it. Kind and thoughtful Kathy has reserved a motel room w/an indoor pool, and we hope to squeeze in a few hours to visit our childhood home town, Galesburg, about an hour away from where we will be staying. It's a pretty packed agenda for 4 days and 3 nights, but with Kathy planning the routes and events, I have no doubt, all will go smoothly. She has an born power to lead, coordinate and organize. Just as I have an inborn power to kick back & enjoy the ride,and go with the flow as directed. This will be so cool.

And the biggest attraction of all will be coming home to Bubba and my K-9 kids on Monday evening. He plans to drop me off at Kathy's Friday A.M. & pick me up in the evening, Monday P.M. We plan to miss each other a great deal, but will not whine to any one about it. He is so good to me, so very good for me, indeed, I am blessed.

I fear that with my aging brain chemistry certain unpleasant chemicals are being excreted with more abundance than in my youth, and am finding this a bit difficult to deal with. I read Mark's Blog yesterday, about his hopes
that Bush will be impeached and his fears for his son who plans to volunteer for the military to fight for his country, and the steps Ken has already started taking towards that end. That end. He is only 16, but he is determined to do what he sees as his duty after his 18th birthday. Whoa! There goes that going with the flow thing-right out the window! I spent over 2 hours in a frenzy, dashing off what I felt to be political realities and my fear for young Ken's life. I barely slept last night fearing for my beloved nephew's future, and when I did sleep, there were nightmares of this gentle soul being caught in dire straits. My politics, like my religion are my own, and I choose for them not to be shared or debated in this, my memoirs on line. Everybody has a good argument about whatever, but I can get so involved, too involved...I spent all this day trying to lighten up, and beat this headache borne of sleep deprivation, and fear for yet another loved one. Ken's choices are his own. I can do nothing, but hope and pray for his welfare. And that is what I do, and yet today, I bordered for hours in my own private hysteria...Once again, I need to get a grip, and all too slowly, I am relaxing and letting things be what they may. All I can do is get a migraine over falling prey to my emotions. If Ken wants to talk this coming weekend, I will keep my cool, and softly say what I feel and think, and if he does not want to talk, I will let it be.

I have failed to mention some marked improvement in my own Mother's behavior, of late. When Daddy was dying, of course, all attention and time was spent with him. Now that he has passed, and some healing has haltingly begun, my sisters and I are spending more time and attention with our Mother. The other day, she shouted "It's Cher!" down the hall to me as Jan was pushing her wheelchair towards me. My heart fluttered like a bird with unexpected joy. It has been well over a year since she has said my name, and I thank the Lord for that one glorious instant. We have made remarkable progress by taking her to private room, closing the door, playing a little music, speaking softly, letting her attention wander at will, with only gentle reminders when her behavior flirts with being less than appropriate. Talking without necessitating her to make any decisions, as the simplest of answers tend to escape her bewildered mind. But yet, she retains her sense of humor. And when we remind her of past events, she claims more often than not, to remember, and at this time, we usually can tell if she is shining us on, as she has tried and failed to do so often in the past. The key is the controlled environment, as devoid of distractions as possible, with soft voices, lots of smiles and lots of love. And music. We had almost forgotten her love for music-a passion she once shared with my father in their earlier years before things began to crumble. We sing a little Patsy Cline, "Walking After Midnight, and remain silent during piano compositions that do not require lyrics from memory. Jan is working with her mother-in-law to make a CD of Mom's favorite tunes that she used to sing around the house, or request that we girls sing, while we did dishes after the evening meal. It is a very tender journey and we have been blessed with 5 good visits in a row, working it out this way. We know that this minor success is for a limited time only, but then again, what isn't?

My life is full of promise, many colors, many flavors, many memories and each day is a new adventure should I choose to view it as such. When I can remember to look at it thus, the adventure continues.