Today as I start to write I am wondering if this will be my final entry in this volume. I don't usually write anything on the weekends and my plan is to end this book at the end of June.
This morning as I write, I am again reminded that I am noticing more problems with my short-term memory. What I observe does bother me, especially because I have witnessed what happened with my mother. Her problems started with her short-term memory - at least when I first noticed that things were not the same.
I do not think that spending all my time alone and cooped-up at home every day is healthy, but that is what I have been doing. The longer I do this, the more comfortable it becomes and the harder it is to make changes.
Today is raining and in some way I feel a sense of relief - I have an excuse not to go out and tackle a problem.
Yesterday I had a minor incident with the table saw, an incident that was dangerous and could have caused injury. I was using a stick to move short cut-offs away from the blade and I must have touched the blade with that stick. The stick was yanked out of my hand and bounced off the shed wall even before I knew what happened. Had I been hit, I would have been hurt - maybe even blinded - and it all occurred too fast to react to.
Afterward when I came inside to take a break the telephone rang. Kathy called me to let me know that my father fell and scraped his arm. Alan decided to take Dad to the hospital to have him looked at. He was not at the hospital long and he was sent home a few hours later.
I don't know what else to say or think about concerning this entire situation with my father's failing health - it is hopeless and I don't want to think about it. Having said this, I cannot stop thinking about the situation and I have no peace. This is the heavy weight of worry that I bear but do not want to bear. This is the way it is.
"As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. As for a man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.
(Psalm 103:13-16)
Such is life and such is the truth of the Bible that truly speaks to us about the harsh reality of our life and existence.
We once sang part of these verses in the choir under Fred's direction. That work was titled, "Like As A Father" and we sang that on two occasions.
When we are gone, the place that we leave behind remembers us no more. So it has been when my grandparents left Milan. So it was when we moved out of Roxboro to Etobicoke. So it was after Mom left home about five years ago.
Jesus said, "Or those eighteen upon whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think they were worse offenders than all the others who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish"
(Luke 13:4-5)
I believe what Jesus is saying is that tragedies do not happen to others because they are worse sinners than others. Jesus is telling us, warning us that we are all lost and dead to our sins, equally dead and equally lost, unless we repent - yet from birth we are all doomed to death.
"For they cannot die any more, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection."
(Luke 20:36)
Again, Jesus speaks about a new life after death.
I do not have any plans for today but I may go in the shed to do a bit of fiddling to push small things to completion - a new box to hold round turnings - and a holder for Kie's glass vanilla tubes - so they do not fall and break.
The Oddblock Station Agent
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