VERY RELEVANT STUFF: ALZHEIMER'S

According to the Alzheimer's Association, there are currently 10 million Americans providing 8.5 billion hours of unpaid care to people with Alzheimer's disease or other dementias.

This Association also states:  "...not only is it very expensive to pay for care in a nursing home, but the patient is someone you  love a lot--a mother, father, spouse.  Someone who has taken care of you, and so it's only natural to want to take care of them." 

Alzheimer's can take a great toll on the physical and emotional well-being, not just of the patient, but of the caregiver as well.

"It's not uncommon for the caregiver to die before the patient...it's a 24/7 job and often the caregiver has no help...it's a long haul, you cannot live like that and survive."

Caregivers must be able to find some respite...a sense of themselves outside of the caregiver role.

The Alzheimer's Association's 24/7 Helpline provides reliable information and support to all who need assistance. Call toll-free anytime day or night at 1-800-272-3900

My Father's Eulogy......Delivered By Me 2000

When I am thinking of different words to describe my father,

I think: either he was a paradox, or a true renaissance man.

My father was a man of steel, yet I have seen him cry.

I have listened to him laugh out-loud at cartoons, or the funny papers.

He was easy going, and he had an Irish temper.

He was a private man, yet everyone knew him.

He enjoyed telling stories, gardening, fishing, cooking, reading recipe books, and eating.

He enjoyed talking with people and getting to know them. And, learning from them, too.

He seemed to know a little bit about everything.

He was fascinated about the weather, science, animals, or birds.

It did not matter. He was a sponge.

Ultimately, he could "hold his own" in those conversations.

When I began to think of the values he instilled in me, three examples come quickly to mind.

GETTING CLEAR

Join me on my journey towards ILLUMINATION.  I will be reporting my thoughts, my growth, and my altered thinking...I'll be sharing the growth I am experiencing.....comparing my thoughts from the journey to an earlier time.




 

Whenever I have down time, I go "inside" myself.  Growing up as a single child, rewarded me with a heightened level of creativity.  My mind becomes my active playground.  I love to watch people. Their funny quirks, the way they gesture, and what my "sense" is of them and the situation.  Often times, I allow an observation to link me back to a memory; therefore, a new thought process.


I'm sitting in a small diner.  I spy a mother and her daughter arrive and sit in the booth in front of me.  Without realizing, I am making a value judgment on the mother.  Her daughter takes off a new backpack to place next to her.  The name JULIE blazes across the back.  Evidently, the mother doesn't understand this was a most unwise decision to personalize the bag.  TMI for pedophiles.


Mom orders pie and coffee; Julie orders a hamburger.  I would judge Julie to be 10-ish in age.
What unfolds next, causes me to say yes to another coffee refill...and, then another.  I sit transfixed.  I observe something which indeeds links me back to a memory.


Although the mother speaks gently to Julie, she serves up instructions:  cut the burger in half, use your napkin, you need less ketchup, use your napkin, next time tell them you don't want lettuce, use your napkin, etc.  Julie can't even enjoy her burger with all the instructions given to her.


Isn't this what you do to me?

Aren't you always telling me how to cut and eat my life?

You want the gift of SAM....but, this gift can only be in a certain shaped box, with a certain colored wrapping paper, and a certain style of bow on it. 

If I give you the gift of myself, exactly as your instructions state, am I really sharing SAM?  Or, your version of SAM? 

I spent so much time following your instructions, that I lost track of me.