home to the sea
We drove into the sun, with a pale moon still high in the sky, and we brought our father/grandfather/father-in-law/once-husband to the place he asked to be laid to rest.
The morning wind whipped around us, and the tide was beginning to flow, as we searched along the deserted beach for a place to leave him to the sea.
His daughter prepared the place.
His son placed him in.
Until that point, the small waves inching up the shoreline were a good ten feet away. Then suddenly, before he filled the hole, one wave reached and carried most of him away. Ah, we all thought -- the sea is as eager for him as he was for the sea. It was odd, though, that none of the other waves had come up as far.
After they filled in the sand and were ready to place the flowers on the spot, another single wave obliterated all traces of where he had been placed. And so the flowers were left on the shore line and petals tossed into the spray.
And then we left him to the sea.
My photos of the trip are here.
Our daughter's are here.
And our son's are here
With b!X back in Portland, OR, who knows when we will be all together again as a family.
Myln Monday: See Here
For a while before his death in April 2008, non-blogger Myrln (aka W. A. Frankonis, i. frans nowak), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter, who has salvaged his published, performed, and none-such writings, continues to send me some to post posthumously.
See Here
We don’t need to go to the stars
To find wonder.
A backyard is light-years enough.
And maybe it used to be a star anyway.
Waf oct99
Myrln Monday: Wind Walking
For a while before his death in April 2008, non-blogger Myrln (aka W. A. Frankonis, i. frans nowak), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter, who has salvaged his published, performed, and none-such writings, continues to send me some to post posthumously.
Wind Walking
When you walk in the wind,
sometimes it’s helpfully behind,
other times right up in your face.
Which makes wind a lot like people.
waf oct99
Myrln Monday: notes from "Nepperhan Days"
For a while before his death in April 2008, non-blogger Myrln (aka W. A. Frankonis, i. frans nowak), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter, who has salvaged his published, performed, and none-such writings, continues to send me some to post posthumously.
This is one: Notes from “Nepperhan Days” his self-tale:
Immigration experience of body and soul/heart as human condition. We are all immigrants. A family story of three Italian generations: those who left Europe, then the first-born in America and thus the first to be assimilated, then the second –born generation which rejects the experience of the 1st two before coming to realize we are all immigrants of a kind and thus come to anew place in the heart: immigrants to acceptance, love and pride in ancestry.
In many ways we are all immigrants.
Myrln Monday: SONG FOUND IN A DORY.....
For a while before his death in April 2008, non-blogger Myrln (aka W. A. Frankonis, i. frans nowak), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter, who has salvaged his published, performed, and none-such writings, continues to send me some to post posthumously.
This is one.
SONG FOUND IN A DORY BOBBIN IN THE BAY IN KANKANEMONIOUS GULCH
Enter an old man who moves to a bench and sits. He wears a heavy topcoat, a suit, vest, old shoes.
Very deliberately, he begins going through his pockets and removing the contents.
Coat: one glove, a crumpled handkerchief, a cigar butt.
He removes the coat.
Jacket: one key, a stub of paper, a broken pencil, an empty matchbook, a red balloon.
He removes the jacket.
Vest: one paper clip, a creased snapshot.
He removes the vest.
Trousers: a second crumpled handkerchief, a penny, a hole in the pocket, a stone.
He sits, moving his hand from object to object without touching any of them.
(Sound in.)
Small girl: (singing)
Bring back the old man’s wishes.
Bring back the old man’s hat.
Bring back the old man’s wishes.
(Slow fade to black)
Myrln Monday: a daughter grieves
For a while before his death in April 2008, non-blogger Myrln (aka W. A. Frankonis, i. frans nowak), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter, who has salvaged his published, performed, and none-such writings, continues to send me some to post posthumously.
On this Myrln Monday, however, she adds her own grieving voice:
Myrln Mondays: There have been a few in a row now, I think, that I have missed. Forgotten. And then when I remember that I’ve forgotten I feel terrible. And ironic. Because while I have forgotten I have not nearly FORGOTTEN. Not even close. It creeps up on me unexpectedly. Often at night as I’m trying to fall asleep. And suddenly it’s upon me. The too soon-ness. Too quick-ness. Unfairness. Eeriness. Incomprehensible
-ness. Surreal-ness. And I am overcome. All the clichés exist within me at once: it’s a bad dream and I’m going to wake up and he’ll still be here.
Just one more day -- one more day to be sure we said everything. Wish him back – on a star, on the moon (“I had a talk with the moon last night,” he’d say to me, “and it’s all going to be fine”) -- on my worry beads. Self-admonitions, I should have gotten out there more. I should have heard something was really wrong when we talked. I should have gotten out there more. The truth of the phrase “sickening feeling” because every time it comes my stomach hollows out and I feel like I’m going to be sick.
Then it’s gone. The same way each time: full of feeling foolish, selfish, sorry-for-myself. Like I’m the only one who has ever lost someone. Only one who has ever lost her father. Who has ever lost him too quickly, unfairly, unexpectedly. The only one who has had to continue on after…
I may forget the Myrln Mondays amidst painting new rooms, preparing for homeschooling, living my life (as my father would be demanding I do anyway as he pointed out in number 8 of his life lessons poem: “Remember the dead in your heart, but honor life and the living with your time and attention because afterward it’s too late”. but I have not FORGOTTEN. Not even close. And as everyone has told me, as painful, unbearable, agonizing, maddening, sad, lonely and empty remembering is, forgetting is far, far worse that all those together. So I am remembering. And missing. And hurting. And crying. And remembering. Always.
SAND HOLE
They excavated sand,
this father and daughter,
digging to China.
I knew it’d really be closer
to Afghanistan,
but their game had a tradition
to follow.
Fathers and sons
have growing between them,
which can be another kind of hole,
while
fathers and daughters
share games and imagination.
And dug holes
always come out in China.
I wonder where the holes Chinese dig
Come out?
Waf jul99
Myrln Monday: Poem Written in the City..
For a while before his death in April 2008, non-blogger Myrln (aka W. A. Frankonis, i. frans nowak), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter, who has salvaged his published, performed, and none-such writings, continues to send me some to post posthumously.
POEM WRITTEN IN THE CITY
OF LANDLOCKED PEOPLE WHO
THINK THAT OCEAN IS ONLY
A WORD AND SUN IS A BALL
FOR SUMMER SUMMERTIME FUN
(for mdf)
bobbing seaborne
on flashing flat planes
of sun's bouncing image,
a single dory --
oars shipped and tucked
inside for keeping --
seems adrift and lost
from coves safety.
but horizon blocked,
navigator waits --
(dancing dolphins
side the gurgling surf
astride the swollen thighs
of seaweed waves...
...candy apples and taffy twists
and caramel is a candy) --
with sleeping eyes
and fingled breath
and hands for firmly guiding.
Myrln Monday: chipper munky
For a while before his death in April 08, non-blogger Myrln (aka Bill Frankonis), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter, who has salvaged his published, performed, and non-such writings, continues to send me some to post posthumously.
CHIPPER MUNKY
The chipmunk who was unhappy with his life
Friend Crow
“great shiny suit” Chipmunk admires
“neat racing stripe” Crow notes of Chipmunk
Little top hat, tux, cane – Chipmunk becomes a socialite renowned for dancing prowess.
Learns emptiness of superficial life.
Myrln Monday: ex memoriam
For a while before his death in April 08, non-blogger Myrln (aka Bill Frankonis), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter, who has salvaged his published, performed, and non-such writings, continues to send me some to post posthumously.
ex memoriam
somehow it seems appropriate
my art lives in transcience
(theatre)
while friends, students, lovers
reach for permanence in written words
(poetry).
(theatre) leaves behind no marks:
Is there a moment and is gone.
struck, as we say.
(impermanence).
Appropriate because some say
there should be no memorials
(me)
mucking up the lives behind us
with our droppings
(bullshit)
all right, so why a paean to (impermanence)
In this (permanent) form?
well, sometimes letting contemporaries know
where you stand is necessary
(bluntness).
Or so cap’n billy if’n say.
major ear worm
It's been there all week. I can't get rid of it, no matter what other music I play.
Famous Blue Raincoat.
It's haunting me.
As I'm immersed in music, I get this poem from and by Jim Culleny.
The Pumpkin Harvesters
Jim Culleny
In town the café’s coffee buzz
seeps into the street from under the door
as a tender singer moans her song
not as in the old days
(as in rockabilly and rhythm and blues before)
but with power chords
and a fresh monotony
My dad preferred country tunes
and hearing Little Richard first time
stopped where my big-holed 45 spun
and in his best blue-collar voice said,
“You call this shit music?” and I did
as we twirled off each other about then
and went our separate ways awhile
until a fresh dew froze on the pumpkin
in a new late game and the harvesters
off across the field sang both
Coldplay and Hank Williams
as they came.
As we sorted through his CDs, we rediscovered just what an eclectic taste in music in once-husband had. From Willie Nelson to Anrdea Bocelli, with Moody Blues somewhere in the middle.
As for me, Hank Williams and Kitty Wells were my high school idols, which, I know is strange for an urban kid, but I hung around with guys who had a country band.
Gotta get rid of that earworm.
Myrln Monday Memoriam
For a while before his death in April, non-blogger Myrln (aka Bill Frankonis), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter has been sending me some of his writings to post posthumously, but we were all away all weekend at the party Bill said in his will that he wanted.
So, today, I post my second letter to the dead.
Dear Bill:
Were you whirling in your ashes as so many of those people whose lives you touched so meaningfully told stories about their relationships with you? Even a few with whom you were no longer on the best of terms stood up and remembered the good times.
I know how much you wanted to let those people with whom you felt close at various points in your life know how much they meant to you. Well, obviously they already knew.
I didn't count how many of the little theater's seats were filled, but there had to be between 50 and 60 people who came in for the story telling. And there were others who came and left before that time as well.
You would have loved to hear the stories -- some funny, some poignant -- all remembering you at your best. There is no doubt that you will be remembered by your colleagues and students not only as an amazingly talented writer and director, but also a uniquely nurturing mentor and teacher.
You would have been so proud of our two kids. Well, I should say proudER, since you always have been proud of them.
You also would have loved to see your almost 6-year-old grandson and the (equally young) granddaughter of our friends Pat and Bill. They hit it off amazingly. Word has it that she said that she really liked his hair and was going to marry him. The pairing of our respective offspring didn't happen last generation. Wouldn't it be a hoot if it happened with this one.
I wish I could talk to you about that novel Enchantment that you gave me a while ago and I found in my pile of books-to-read last week. I couldn't help see you and me in the princess and the scholar. I wonder if that's what you thought as well. I'm only half way through, so I don't know how it ends. I hope that it ends better than we did as a couple.
On the way back to where I live now (I can't call it "home"), I played the Famous Blue Raincoat CD that you gave me.
There Ain't no Cure for Love.
the lone crow
For the first time ever, I see a lone crow wandering around the area of the bird feeders. At first I wonder if it's a grackle, but a quick look in the Audobon bird book confirms that, indeed, it is a crow.
I leave tomorrow to join family and friends for my late once-husband's remembrance party. A lone crow, and thoughts of death.
My mother is now losing her hair. Her digestive system is screwed up. She is always afraid, never satisfied or happy, constantly restless.
I watch the crow march back and forth across the small area where squirrels and doves are pecking at what the finches and cardinals have accidentally tossed their way. He doesn't seem to be eating. He looks like he's checking things out.
Is he wondering "Is this the place?"
the last post-it
My late once-husband often sent me books that he thought I would like, after he read them. He always had an uncanny knack for selecting both books and music that I liked as much as he did.
As I continue to clean out my "stuff," I moved a pile of books yesterday and found one I had forgotten about. And so I started reading it last night.
He was right, again. From the Amazon review:
Mixing magic and modernity, the acclaimed Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game) has woven threads of history, religion, and myth together into a convincing, time-hopping tale that is part love story, part adventure. Enchantment's heroes, "Prince" Ivan and Princess Katerina, must deal with cross-cultural mores, ancient gods, treacherous kinsmen (and fianceés), and ultimately Baba Yaga herself.
Thanks, again, Bill.
Myrln Monday: Legacy
Myrln is gone, but his spirit remains with us in the power of his words, thanks to our daughter, who salvaged his collection of writings.
Legacy
My children:
I want to leave you something –
but what?
My images are either silver compound
or airy theater –
both without example or duration:
mere light reflecting a moment of existence.
I was, my children,
but how to prove that to you?
What will serve as evidence –
for what is legacy but proof
your forebears were something more
than momentary makers of egg or sperm?
There is only this:
I came from shadows,
and toward shadows I inexorably moved;
I dove (or sank) deeply into shadows,
skirted the light flanking them, reflected awhile
then wrapped myself in them.
(Wrapt myself in them.)
waf 1977
should I or shouldn't I
That's the dilemma of every blogger who is considering whether it's appropriate to post a certain entry.
b!X deliberated and then made the decision to post. And I could have left it at that.
But I see his Deathbed post and photo link as a tribute, a reminder -- in a sense, a virtual wake, a moment to say a final goodbye -- and, for those of us who were not there to actually witness, closure.
You can read his post and decide for yourself. This entry is my decision.
And, just as an added note that reflects how attuned our little family is to the magical occurrences in life that Myrln loved to recognize, Myrln died just about at 5 p.m. When we survivors were at his apartment last weekend sorting through his stuff, our daughter noticed that the clock on his wall, which was keeping accurate time the last time we were there, had stopped at 5 o'clock.
a birthday uncelebrated
Today would have been Myrln's 71st birthday.
garden legacies
Yesterday's Myrln posthumous post was a poem with a "life as a garden" metaphor. Reading it made me think about how many of the legacies he left are what continue to grow from the seeds of his thoughts, his words.
While the "garden" has always been a life metaphor for me as well, I tend to use it in a different way. And that fact is also a perfect metaphor for how we related as spouses: we started in the same place, with the same need, but we went out from there in very different directions.
Here's my garden poem, written in 2002 and posted here (with photo) in 2003.
The Gravity of Gardens
They gave me a garden
the size of a grave,
so I filled it with raucous
reminders of sense:
marigold nests,
nasturtium fountains,
explosions of parsley, and
layers of lavender --
forests of tomato plants
asserting lush ascendance
over scent-full beds of
rosemary, basil, and sage.
And waving madly above them all,
stalks of perplexing
Jerusalem artichoke,
an unkillable weed
that blossoms and burrows
and grows up to nine feet tall,
defying the grim arrogance
of gravity.
elf
may 02
My literal gardens are transient. When I move away, they decay away and are forgotten. Such is the nature of many of my legacies.
Once in a while, though, I need to believe in something permanent -- hence, the two lilac trees I planted back from the edge of the woods around this house, where my brother most likely will not mow or snow blow them down when I move away from here. Someday, new owners will look out the window at the acres of rotting windfall and scraggly brush and old shaggy trees and see two blooming lilac bushes -- a sepia landscape touched with unexpected color.
Myrln Monday (4)
Myrln is gone, but his spirit remains with us in the power of his words, thanks to our daughter, who salvaged his collection of writings.
Myrln's birthdate is this Thursday. He would have been 71.
Poem for My Birthday
Through years
-- with seeds my own, some received before, some given later --
I planted myself:
a feeling there, a thought,
a sense of what might be, was, seemed to be,
a tear, a laugh, angry shouts and happy,
whispers, a reaching, holding, letting go, loving,
isolationliness,
some hiding, fear, joy, longing,
scatterings
of pain, risk, uncertainy, determination,
bit by bit
seeding through the years.
And making my garden of word and heart:
some parts stillgrown,
others modest,
and a few full flourished,
all being the what why where
whole of me.
waf
may '03
Myrln Monday (3)
Myrln is gone, but his spirit remains with us in the power of his words:
From a scrap of paper on his desk -- quickly hand-scrawled, a stray thought, bit of story, strand of memory:
Dinner table – metal goblets
These goblets belonged to my mother. Asked us to drink a toast from them because had she lived she would have been 89 years tomorrow. She was 23 when she had me, and had only 4 more years left to live. There are 4 generations sitting here today. I ask you, in her memory, to remember to make the most always of the time you have with those you love and who love you. So, Mamma, here’s to you…salut…by remembering you, we remember ourselves.
salut
See www.myrln.com for information about the remembrance party being held in his honor on May 25, as well as plans for publishing his non-published works.
music, music, music
I've been thinking about my life's soundtrack -- the songs that have played in the background as I lived through various eras in my life so far. My still new car still has it's free trial satellite radio connection, and I find that the only station I really listen to is the 1950s one. With each song, my being remembers the feeling of when I heard it played all those decades ago. I don't necessarily remember events; I remember feelings. That's the magic of music.
I have discovered that many of the songs from subsequent decades that I still like to listen to are the ones written by Leonard Cohen. Not sung by him, but written -- or co-written -- by him. They seem to generate the most visceral emotional response.
I'm thinking particularly of the songs on Jennifer Warnes' Famous Blue Raincoat all-Leonard-Cohen-album, which was a gift from Myrln.
Simon and Garfunkel were major players in my 60s and 70s head -- poignant and soulful and melancholy: "Cloudy," "Bookends," "Patterns," "America."
And Don McClean with his "And I Love You So" and "Winterwood" and "Vincent."
Judy Collins singing "Suzanne" and"Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye" and "Sisters of Mercy" ..... -- music that took me through bittersweet 70s.
Over the past decade or so, especially those years taking care of my mother, I haven't been listening to much music. There is no stereo in her rooms, and I spend a great deal of my time there with her, watching television.
Occasionally, in my own space, I listen to Josh Groban. "Vincent," again.
I'm finally starting to download songs into my MP3 player, but it's not any new music that I want to listen to. I want to hear the old songs, the ones that bring me to remembering when I had a real life.
Myrln Monday (2)
Myrln is gone, but his spirit remains with us in the power of his words:
Fathers and Daughters
Little girls are nice,
but we do them wrong
fussing with their hair and dressing them up
like dolls –
teaching them from the start
they are decorative playthings.
Better we should feed them
words and numbers and tools
to remind them
that before women, they are people.
Teach them love and caring and nurture, yes,
but not as the entirety of their being,
else those qualities
become walls and prisons.
Give them, as well, wings
and teach them to fly –
in case later in life
someone builds walls around them.
Little girls are nice,
but daughters who are their soaring selves
are better.
Fathers and Sons
All the time they’re growing up,
sons try hard to please their fathers.
They play ball, follow dad’s interest in cars,
or in building things,
or in fishing –
whatever it is that pleases dad.
Mostly learning how to be a man.
If they’re lucky,
they’re not required to embrace any of those
for a lifetime.
If they’re lucky,
somewhere along the way,
they’re let loose
to strike out after their own interests
and to please themselves.
And fathers,
if they’re smart,
realize that somewhere along the way
is a turning point:
a time when sons become teachers,
and fathers can learn
what their sons became on their own,
how manhood is not a fixed concept.
And say to their sons,
“Good job.”
Then both will know
they did right
in pleasing each other.
William A. Frankonis, 1937 - 2008
life is so confusing
I'm back from another day of helping my daughter clean out her Dad's stuff. I focused on his clothes, setting aside some that I'll send to b!X, since they probably will fit him. As it turns out, I took a pair of summer shorts and a pair of cargo pants that fit me because they both have elastic in the waistband. Men's pants always have lots of pockets. I wish more women's pants did.
It was so strange going through his things. An invasion of his privacy. Except it doesn't matter any more. Except it sort of does.
His being gone forever still doesn't seem real.
I took a Best of Moody Blues CD. A blue pottery bowl. A mortar and pestle. An orange windbreaker. I don't have a windbreaker. I took the two new deliciously soft bed pillows that he never had a chance to use.
I took five trash bags of clothes, a big box of shoes, and several suits on hangars to the Salvation Army. And there are still clothes left in his closets.
His walls and shelves (except for the full book shelves) are covered with art and crafts. Beautiful stuff that none of us has room for. It will all have to be disposed of.
We keep reminding ourselves that these things are not him, they are not his legacy. They are the things he liked to look at, to think about, to help him remember. They served an important function in his life. He no longer needs them. His legacies are our memories and all that he accomplished through his creativity and passion.
We assess his belongings with great practicality. One or the other of us will make use of his recliner, his couch, the chest of drawers that was part of the first real bedroom set we bought when we were married. (When we divorced, he got the bed and the chest of drawers. I took the dresser with the mirror. The dresser fell apart two of my moves ago. The chest of drawers still looks brand new.)
We go on with our lives.
Myrln Monday (1)
Monday was the day that Myrln (aka William Frankonis and my once-husband) posted his rants here on Kalilily Time. He wrote a great deal more than political rants, however, and from now on, Mondays will be the place where Myrln will post some of his best writings, posthumously, through the auspices of our daughter.
Snippets from “A Letter to My Grown Children” -- post 9/11 2001
[snip]
…We live in the Now. Sometimes drastic events make us aware of that simple fact we tend to forget or ignore; we always live only in Now. As Buddhism has been telling us for centuries. No matter how or how much the world changes, we can still live only in the right Now. How is ours to determine. We may mourn loss and worry what’s to come, but here we are – Now. And Now is sometimes good, sometimes bad; sometimes easy, sometimes hard; sometimes joyful, sometimes sad. But whatever it is, it is, and we have no choice but to live in it. Which, when you think of it, is a fine thing.
[snip]
It makes sense, then, to make Now the best possible o us because we never know. And that fact should teach us: no delaying, waiting around, procrastinating, habituating, sinking into torpor. Look. See. Be. Whether alone or with others, do it. Now…not tomorrow.
[snip]
So how do I know the validity of what I’m preaching? Because in many ways, I have always delayed Now for dreams-to-come or for fear of future consequences. But I know – Now – those dreams/fears will never come to pass. And even if the fears prove true in the end or the dreams went unfulfilled, so what? Why didn’t I at least make my Nows what I wanted them to be?
[snip]
Only love lives still in past and future. Strange thing, love. It’s why I can always say I love you Now, always have, and always will.
[snip]
a letter to the dead
Dear Bill,
"..a bit of sun and the touch of love's hand," you wrote once in your script about "Myrln."
That's what we had yesterday when we gathered to pick up your ashes and bring them home. I know that you will appreciate the plans to temporarily keep them in the old Orville Redenbacher popcorn tin that you kept on your bookshelf. We are making plans to gather again this summer to take you where you found the most peace and comfort and leave you to the gentle rocking of Mother Sea.
It was a beautiful early spring day sandwiched between those wet and gloomy days April often brings. We took you to lunch. Well, we left you in the car while we had lunch. Here we are, leaving the restaurant. Not me, of course. I was taking the picture.
And then we went back to your apartment, got a bat and ball and went out into the sunny field to play. There was lots of sun and lots of love. We felt your spirit there with us, popping the ball and chasing it out into left field. I was too warm in the sweater I had worn, so I went back to the apartment and changed into one of your shirts. I hope that was OK. I guess it's too late if it wasn't.
"We're a quirky family," Melisa commented to a strange look from the funeral director after something she had said.
We all took something of yours before we left (although we will be back in a week or so to manage what needs to be saved from the complexities of memories you left behind). I took the little laughing Buddha as company for the traveling Buddha you gave me so long ago. I also took a little side table with a tiled top painted with two flowers that look kind of like anemones. That is going to become my altar space. I think that would be just fine with you.
There are so many chores I should be doing now that I'm back here with my mother. Instead, it sit alone at my computer and write and cry.. You would understand that.
I wish we had had more time with you -- a lot more of Myrln's magical
bit of sun and the touch of love's hand
love,
your wacky once-wife, Elaine
going....going.....
While my mom fades slowly away, we are dealing with another crisis in the family, and that's why I haven't been blogging. I haven't been here; I've been in Albany with my daughter as she struggles her way through the health care systems to get support for her dad when he leaves the hospital.
My role was moral support, source of experiential information, and entertainer of my grandson, who had to come with her from Massachusetts. There was no one with whom to leave him for four full days while his own dad went to work and also monitored the construction process on their house addition.
Other patients came and went throughout those four days that we sat in and out of his hospital room. We watched them being taken to surgery, watched them come back and get going again.
But my offspring's dad didn't get up and didn't go anywhere. His lungs are waging war against hope. We are waiting to hear where he will be going.
And now I'm back here with my mother, and my daughter is back in her home as well. I am worried about her own health, as her commitment and persistence kick in and she continues her long distance struggle to manage her dad's care (with crucial help from a close friend of his who lives nearby).
I help from here as best I can -- checking out a county program that provides financial assistance with home care for eligible elders, local home care agencies, walkers, tub chairs, recliner lift chairs.....
Whatever the outcome of his final tests today, he will need an awful lot of help. And our small family is scattered, each with his/her own responsibilities. But we are doing all we can from where we are, knowing there will come a time, too soon, when we will all be gathering for the final going.
