New full moon dawn yesterday. Today everything is still on schedule. The memory care home is all set to receive a new recliner tomorrow and the movers Friday morning. Then Barbara and I Friday afternoon to set the room up.
Lee is with a favorite caregiver today. The termite man came and went after his quarterly check. Now the yardman is here with his hole digger putting in new rhododendrons. I am having wine after finishing my drawing and stitching for the day.
I decided after drawing myself now to get reacquainted with who I used to be all by myself. So the next page is me at about one year of age then as a girl in fifth grade.
I will do one more as a young woman starting college. Shortly after that I will be back on my own and can pick up wherever I want with whatever is important that day.
Lee and I moved some camp chairs into the sun yesterday to feel the warmth of our place and each other. We sat for about an hour with our backs to the world and watched squirrels.
Today I rushed out to get a knee brace for myself to get through these next few days. a six pack of Lee’s favorite beer to last til Sunday night, two bags of his favorite chips, some new underwear for him and one more half gallon of ice cream. We are set to really enjoy the next several days and then he is off to a new adventure.
He toasted me yesterday.
I bought him a final bottle of Southern Comfort yesterday. We have drinks on the porch each evening and he told me I was very lucky to have inherited this house from my mother. He remembers nothing of building this place or any of our others. I agreed that my mother who has been dead for many, many years was very smart to leave this house to me. He seems happy that I have a good place to stay when he goes off somewhere…back home I think.
There is little interest in placing rocks now. He has them where they should be.
And to close, a poem I wrote the other day … it is not meant to be sad, just an acceptance of life’s changes.
The Haircut
It was Saturday
I said, “Let’s give you a haircut”
and steered him to the stool
in the laundry room where
the tattered basket was waiting
with towel, old electric clippers,
comb and hairbrush.
I helped him remove two shirts
and sat him down.
The clippers buzzed and buzzed
as I held the comb just under them
and a quarter inch away from his scalp.
Not until I put the comb down
and ran my gnarled fingers through his hair
cutting anything that stood above them
did I think that this could be the last
of fifty-four years trusting
it would look okay when I finished.
And finally his favorite part
of having the brush
stroke his bare back
to remove the hairs.
He picks up his shirts
and starts down the hall.
I sweep up the grey hairs
and toss them into the yard
for nesting birds.
Til later….