Update And Blue Sky

Update:  Another improved day for my father.  He recalled his name - or rather, a version of his name that he only used at work.  He was a little humorous.  Mostly resting yesterday.  He walked about 10 feet with a walker and assistance, and possible using the commode.  He was overall compliant with requests and has had his restraints removed.  If today goes well, we will start to talk about the next steps.

Blue Sky:  Yesterday I got up and it was a blue sky kind of day.

I do not know why blue skies look bluer here.  Intellectually I know their is no difference; artistically I can see it.

The resident cattle were enjoying the sun and sky.

Everything is greening up again.  The yearly cycle.

The artisan spring has started flowing again.

The local horses watch me with a jaundiced eye.  I have neither food nor bridle, so I am neither friend nor foe.

The stream at the base of the meadow is running again.  Behind it, you can see the seasonal pond filled up.

This stream runs the length of the pastures.  When I was a child, my sister and I used to float sticks down the river, racing.  Later, this became the on-site action location for any number of action figure rescue and exploration scenes.

The cheeping frogs of February have been busy in the pond.

Blackberries are coming back.  Ugh.  I will have to get down here and cut them out.

If there is a better spot on Earth, I am unaware of it.

Update And No Update

 

No real update today.  My dad is essentially in the same state he was yesterday.  We have not heard anything from the doctor yet, but the nurse I spoke with suggested that he is reaching the point them consider him stabilized.  Once that has been reached, the hospital will have done what they are able to do and we will have to look towards longer term solutions.  We are prepared but are awaiting the final call to start with the arrangements.  As a result, I am not sure if I will extend my visit (mostly likely yes - who am I kidding) - I do miss home.

Hope you all have a wonderful Sunday.  I am hopeful that this week brings better news.

Update And Mist

 Update:   Less of a good night and day.  My father was apparently restless all night, seeing and talking to  someone that the nurses could not see - conversations, she said, not just isolated sentences.  I have no idea who they were:  His Dead?  Us?  Angels?  I do not know, but only hope they can give him the comfort that we cannot.  They finally administered something to help him rest.  His blood pressure peaked a bit so new medication there.  We await the results of his Lumbar Penetration.

The nurse with whom I was speaking commented to me twice "Your father is so cute!".  Once, apparently he thought he saw someone behind her and called out for her to be careful; it was the wall.  The second time, the computer screen she was working at partially blocked the screen.  My father said something and the Nurse peeked around the computer monitor.  "Oh, it's you" he said.

Even in his delirium my father, ever the charmer.

The nurse thanked me for the privilege of being able to care for my father.  Where do we find such people in such a cynical Age?

My sister called with an update later, similar to mine but with the addition that the confusion and mental unraveling seems to be continuing apace.  She spoke with the doctor as well.  The EEG revealed nothing as did the data from the Lumbar Penetration.  They have recommended a CT scan from chest to pelvis to look for a mass and test panel which can take 10 days to get results as it has to be sent to the Mayo clinic.   They will try changing his anti-seizure medication to see if that helps with the restlessness and confusion.  Beyond that, the most likely plan is to work to stabilize him to move him into a skilled nursing facility.  And wait.

Mist:  Yesterday was a rainy day, the sort of day that if were not a work day, one would stick one's head out, cry out like Christopher Robin "Tut Tut, it looks like rain", and then retreat to the house for a day of reading and toast.  Sadly, it was a work day and so there was no reading to be done, only typing away as the rain fell until the end of the work day.  That said, I needed to stretch my legs and so down the road I went.

The mist perfectly captures my mood:  the feeling of being trapped in a bubble that is clear, but only within a certain line of sight.  Beyond it, things are hazy and unclear and cut off as by a solid wall.  Move, and the bubble moves with you, obscuring where you have come from and revealing - only a little where you are going.  

I clod down the road, the waterproof boots I am wearing (having, sensibly, worn them instead of my tennis shoes) keeping my feet dry but also creating a din as I pound down on the road grindings that form the driveway.  I have always tend to walk on the ball of my foot and drag my heels; the boots and chewed up blacktop make this all the more noticeable.  The woods are silent, the silence of the rain when every creature has elected to stay under whatever shelter it had.  There is no sound of man either:  the recreational walkers and possessors of the infernal motorized bikes have all sensibly decided, like the animals, to remain indoors.  Only I, the insensible, walk.

Certain trees always appear greener to me in the rain and mist.  I have no idea why this is so; it is not as if they are somehow changing their colors like chameleons, and even if they did this does not nothing to conceal them.

It is as if I am in my own world as I shuffle along, a very light rain dusting my jacket and head and the sound of nothing but me in the surroundings.  Even the road going home is obscured in the distance, a future that I know is there and know the nature of, but cannot see right now.

The rain puddles and drips off of the house and implements at barn.  Some of these are actually functional; some of this, like this plough, are just things that caught my father's fancy.  It would still work, I think, with a little effort and oil.  Sometimes I find that I am the same.

The meadow is starting to green up to the point that I can see it, as it passes away into the trees and mist.  Somewhere on the top of the hill is where the Tom Turkeys go to roost at night; I have seen them earlier today, strutting about even in the rain, looking for food and fights and love.

As I stop and lean over the fence to take this picture, two birds suddenly spring from cover in a burst of thundering wings and move into the field.  One of them eyes me reproachfully, as if it had not choice but to flee when it heard something alarming.  I nod back to it:  fly if you can, little friend.  Not all of us can flee at the sign of danger or distress. Sometimes we have to sit in the mist and wait for it to pass.

The runoff from the hill is starting to fill the seasonal rill that runs at the bottom of the valley, as it has every year I have come up here.  It is not running enough, given the date.  We need more rain and less mist, but every little bit helps.

My mother loved Camellias.  They were in her wedding bouquet and we always had a plant - the same color as this - when we lived in the home I grew up in.

The camellias bloom, uncaring about all of the mist or rain or anything but what their internal timetable says to do.

The fire, when I get home, is a seething bed of hot coals.  It brings to mind Orodruin of Tolkien's Lord of The Rings, Mount Doom, the only place where The One Ring could be destroyed.  The coals pulse and breathe as I open the door, the opposite of the mist that I have been walking through.  Instead of creating a bubble through which things cannot be seen, the fire destroys all that it touches - but delivers heat and light in exchange for its voracious hunger. 

The rain begins again as I drop another log on the fire, the grey curtain descending to block out the world once again.

Update And A Visit

Update:  Today started with a little better news.  I spoke with my father's assigned physician (first time I have had the pleasure.  Just my dumb luck calling the time I did, I suppose).  My father was more alert than he had been previously, knowing his name and the town he was in.  It is the first good news we have had since Sunday.

The Lumbar Penetration also occurred under sedation.  Data will be trickling in over the coming 24 hours, but we do know that he does not have meningitis (low probability, but now ruled out).  In the evening my father was resting, apparently as well as he has since he arrived, and was not too agitated.  Still confused though.  They also took an EEG, which we are waiting for a neurologist to review.

Visit:  Yesterday I stopped by and visited my mother.

Visits - especially without my father - are a very short affair.  Five, perhaps ten minutes.  We go through the now-standard round of conversation now:  How are you feeling?  What have you been doing?  How is the food?  Are you reading any new books?

The answers are becoming the same:  Feeling okay.  Some activities, although she does not really remember any of them particularly.  The food is "okay".  She has some books, but she does not remember the titles of them.

And then she always asks "When can I come home"?

Sigh.  The moment.  It seems to come now with every visit.  I smile and say "Soon Mom, you are working on your memory".  

I fill her in a bit with goings-on of The Ravishing Mrs. TB and Na Clann, and then suddenly there is nothing left to say.  "I will see you soon Mom".  She thanks me profusely for stopping by and always waits by the window as I back out and waves goodbye as I pull out into the driveway.

On one hand, these conversations are not that different than ones we have had in the last year, only shorter in length.  So in that sense there is no difference.

But there is a part of me now that sighs when I leave, the part of me that knows that "soon" is "not really soon" and that this conversational interchange is likely to become the same one - or some version of it -for the rest of our relationship.

It is not that I will not continue to go - I will, as long as she is able to engage.  But the resetting of expectations around them has become harder than I anticipated.

Reality continues to close in, whether or not I choose to see it.

 

Update And Circumstance

 Update:  Another not great day.  My sister received a call at around 0630. They thought my father had a seizure - a nurse thought she caught the tail end of it but was not sure.  He had a second one later in the day, observed by a doctor and nurse.  He is now on antibiotics to help with potential infection from any infection (apparently this can happen when liquid from the stomach or food gets into the lungs).  He has been moved into the ICU.

They attempted the Lumbar Penetration but he would not co-operate (like an epidural injection, the patient must remain completely still).  They will try again tomorrow but they needed our permission to sedate him - which, of course, we readily gave.  The doctor hopes that it will tell them something - it sounds like he is just as confused as we are.  He will consult with another colleague.  He remains unresponsive or asleep, but this may be caused by 1) his condition; 2) the after effects of the seizure; or 3) the anti-seizure medication, which has drowsiness as a side effect.

I talked with The Ravishing Mrs. TB today.  I was intending to go home in about a week and half, but will stay here as long as it takes until things are settled out, one way or the other.

Also as a note, I have now started compiling these series of writings into a separate page, Moving TB The Elder and Mom, as a way segregating and filing what has come to be an ongoing exercise.

Circumstance

By way of introduction on this meditation, if you are at all follower of this blog for more than a year, you will  recall that approximately one year ago, I underwent an inadvertent and unplanned job transition (called A Sort of Hammerfall) in which I was transferred from the career field I had spent the last 18 years in to a completely new one (Project Management), with the resulting loss of job title and reporting structure (I went from a "manager of people" to "the managed").  

It was initially a shock, of course, something I had not ever planned on.  And through the intervening months to June, I negotiated the "Work At Home" order in March, the hiring of my replacement in June, and then the complete change in how work "worked" for me in July.

Now, I am looking through things with a different lens.

Without Hammerfall, I would not have been in a position to work from home as I am now.  Without changing my position, I would not have been able to work remotely - The Ranch remote - one week a month.  Without working remotely, I would not been here  over the last six months to spend time with my parents or even now when I needed to be for an extended period of time. Without working remotely and being able to come, I would not have been here now but somewhere buried in ice and snow trying to make my way here.

Without The Plague, I would not have been ordered to work from home nor have the freedom to come here.  Without The Plague, I would be in Japan (or just coming back) instead of here to help.

That is a lot of circumstances arising from a single event that took place a year ago.  Almost as if there was a Hand at work, knowing what was coming in the future.

I am trying to have a wider view of things as a result.  The first thing that has come to mind, frankly, is being out here for a longer period of time.

At home, I really have four or five activities that are my life:  Iai, Weight Training, volunteering at my local rabbit shelter, my prayers and reading, writing, and whatever I languages I happen to be studying (currently Japanese and Old English).  A great many other things have become curtailed as a result of The Plague, of course - church attendance for one, and Highland Athletics for another.  

But now, those things are being interrupted too.  I practice Iai and train when we have remote classes, but that is not every session.  I train, but with body weights inside (trust me, my coach is no less brutal for the lack of weights).  I simply cannot be at the rabbit shelter (I do miss them mightily).  My other activities all stay with me, of course - I can take those with me wherever I go. 

Maybe, as if my hand is being asked to release, instead of being forced.

It would be, of course, arrogant of me to assume that anything of the sort is happening.  But I do recall the quote of Corrie Ten Boom, "Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open."

Update And Mood

Update:

My father is still in the hospital.  Not much to report - or nothing great, anyway.  Refuses to take his medication.  Not eating well.  Speech is "garbled", although we are not clear if that means "unintelligible" or "mixing words".  They have reduced his blood thinner as they may order a lumbar puncture (tapping of the cerebrospinal fluids - warning that the picture on Wiki-everything article is not for the faint of heart) - not confirmed as ordered, but in the doctor's notes.

Also, still restrained.  Notes comment on his strength.  At 81 years old.  

I stopped by and saw my mother as well today.  It was not such a good visit.  She is ready to leave, but as I spoke with her I realized that I think she thought I was my father.  An odd feeling, one that is slightly uncomfortable  Told her she was still working on her memory, and we would be by to see her again soon.

Thoughts:

Glen asked me a question that I had to think about a bit before responding:  How am I doing?

That is an odd question, odd both because I do not know how to fully answer it and odd because it is something my sister and I were discussing yesterday.

In a very real way, times seems to have completely collapsed.  A little over a month ago, I had taken my father to the doctor and he had passed his general physical as well as his cognitive test.  Within that period of time we have gone through three versions of "The Plan":  a) Move both of my parents into a retirement home; b)  Move my mother into a memory care facility and my father staying at The Ranch; c) Move my mother into a memory care facility and my father into assisted living.  And now, d)  Move my mother into a memory care facility and my father into a "skilled nursing facility", yet another term I am learning.

Plans b through d have all been in the last two weeks.

My future planning has narrowed to very small windows of time:  get my mother moved in, get my father moved in, get my father out of the hospital, get my father moved to whatever the next stage is.  I (and my sister, I think) are no longer planning in bigger chunks than this.

As their mail comes in, we triage everything.  At this point, we are making a few choices about what stays and goes (the satellite TV, for example, goes) while the rest of it - home insurance, auto insurance, utilities - we are maintaining as is as much as possible for n ow.  That is an issue for another day.

Am I frustrated we cannot do more?  I do not fully know how to answer that question.  We have certainly gone back and looked at the last period of time: Did we miss anything?  Should we have moved sooner?  Was there some significant health issue we missed?  Should we doing more now?

The answer keeps coming back as "No".  Four months ago my father was as he had always been.  The decline accelerated within (literally) the last two weeks; everyone involved has noted it.  And currently, given The Plague, there is little we could do that we are not doing:  We cannot go to his room and even if we did, I have no idea what we would do if we were there.  We are not medical personnel.  Maybe I could convince him to eat or take his pills - but the comment this morning was that he was not always responding even to his name.

I do not think I could do any better than a trained nurse in this matter.

Everyone has been unfailingly kind and understanding in this, from people involved in the various facilities to the various nurses and doctors we have spoken with to the pharmacists and receptionists and everyone in between.  I would hope that they are responded to with the same sort of courtesy and kindness from those that they are serving, although the more cynical side of me doubts this to be so.

The events of Great World "Out There" - the national goings on, the Arctic Disaster currently inhabiting the Midwest and South - are things  I should care about.  I have family and friends impacted by the Arctic wasteland that is the South and Southeast right now.  I actually have thoughts and opinions on such things, and occasionally the rattle around in my head as postings as I drive back and forth or as I walk the dirt roads here to make myself get out of the house.  But they all have an unreal quality to me at this moment, even as I acknowledge that eventually - whenever the "New Normal" appears (yet another reason to hate this phrase) they will impact my life.  

Literally, my world has shrunk to my parents' house, a hospital, a window at a facility, and the roads that connect them.

I worry, perhaps a little of all things, that my writing has also shrunk to this narrow band of experience and reality.  On the one hand, it feels like I should at some point be writing on different things - on the other, the reality is that I do not know how many people write on this, or at least individuals that are not professionals.   One cannot endlessly natter on about one's emotional and personal experiences when there is so much else going on to write about.

Yet every time I sit down, this is the only place my words seem to run to.

I do not find myself particularly tired or emotionally exhausted or "out of sorts" the way I have read or heard from others.  There is a strange limbo-like quality to all of this, brought on perhaps by the fact that I am displaced from my normal surroundings and habits and schedule.  I work, but it almost feels like I am simply filling the time between when I get up and the time that I quit, waiting - and dreading - for the phone to ring or a message to present itself.

In a very real way, I am a nomad living in a prairie of shifting grass mounds; I have surrendered any hope of passing through the prairie at this time, and am only concerned with getting over the next mound.

Rain And Waiting

 Yesterday was a rainy day of waiting by the phone for a call, not wanting to be off somewhere in case I had to head back to the hospital.

The rain misted all day, a slight moving blur between the windows and trees, caught if you focused on it but otherwise creating a gentle, subvisible curtain.  It reminded me that, except for Christmases, I have not seen this sort of rain in almost 11 years, other than this past fall when I came out.  It strikes me that is a long time.

Rain here at The Ranch is (for the most part) different than rain in New Home.  Here, the rain can fall heavily or gently for days or a week, sometimes (like today) so faintly that it might be mistaken for snow.  In New Home, rain storms are much more violent and short lived, with the rain generally hurling itself at the ground, liquid skydivers trying to burst aside the soil structure.

It makes for a grey morning and afternoon.  The light is enough that you can mostly get things done without having to turn additional lighting, which makes for a rather pleasant experience.    The ambient light from the clouds also seems to highlight the slowly incipient green of the grass growing and the needles and leave of the pines, cedars, and madrones.

The daffodils that my mother loves so much are enjoying the rain as well, reminding me that Spring is right around the corner, even given today's weather conditions.

A short update on my parents:  TB the Elder had an MRI yesterday.  It revealed nothing definitive.  The doctor my sister spoke with today is baffled and is doing some more research.  My sister also stopped by to see my mother today.  She is able to get out of her room now and my sister said she is meeting people and doing activities and seems to be doing okay.

Setbacks

 My sister got a call yesterday around 0700.  My father was on his was to the hospital.

Apparently he had fallen - there was a scrape on his arm.  Additionally, he seemed very confused.  So back off to the hospital he went.

The scrape in his arm, it turns out, was not the concerning matter.

The Emergency Room doctor and the nurse were the same two that had helped my dad yesterday.  And they were concerned by the change in his mental state they saw over (literally) the last 24 hours.  Their concern was a stroke.  So he has been admitted to the hospital.

The CT scan did not reveal anything that appeared concerning.  His lab work is all within normal limits - even his glucose (he is diabetic) was in normal ranges in the evening.  He was scheduled for an MRI, which is not set to happen before today.

Of course, given the Plague, there is very little that we can do right now.  We cannot go there.  I did speak with the nurse (Who was so helpful.  Everyone we have dealt with has been universally kind and helpful).  He is confused, asking for me (which I suppose is a good thing as it means he still remembers I am in town).  When the nurse asked for any particular helpful hints, I suggested a warm room and sports, both of which will give him some level of familiarity.

We wait.  I told my sister I almost hope the MRI shows something - not that anything an MRI would show us would be a hopeful thing, but at least we would have some kind of cause - and we could formulate a plan.  Now, we are just operating in the dark based on symptoms, not causes.

Moving TB The Elder

Yesterday we moved TB The Elder.

The Universe, of course, refused to let things go without a fight.

The plan was a simple one:  get up, have a leisurely morning with my father, pack up his remaining things, go down to see my mother, meet my sister and brother-in-law for lunch, and then go to his new living quarters in the early afternoon and let him settle.

At 0700 (sleeping in), I got up.  His right hand was swollen, almost to twice the size of this left.  He could not use it at all and was in obvious pain.  Off to the Emergency Room we went.

Due to The Plague, of course, you cannot go in.  I wait.  And wait.  For two and a half hours.  Finally, I go in and get directed to the phone and spoke with a very nice ER doctor.  He thinks it may be gout - has my father had it?  (I think so, yes).  He will prescribe some steroids to help with the swelling and is glad my father has an appointment on Tuesday.

I call me sister and give her the update.  She notes a new medication means a new set of instructions (the place he is going in is very explicit in the information they need).  Back in I go to make another call.  Thankfully, this is something they have heard before and can accommodate.

I wait another 40 minutes.  Finally my father is allowed to come out, his right arm wrapped in a stiff bandage and in a sling.  The bandage has to stay on until his visit Tuesday.  He also has a brace for his left hand as well.

I call my sister again.  I am worried - and she is - that this will be too much for them to manage for the living level he is going into - it is not a big deal to bring him back home, we just need clarity.  She calls them again and then calls me.  It is not a problem.

We have lunch at a Panera.  He has a cinnamon bagel and coffee - not the best of lunches, but it seems to make him happy.  I have a really good grilled cheese and turkey chili.  The day is sunny but with a wind that bites a bit when the clouds come over.  It strikes me that this will be our last meal together for a while, but I refrain from mentioning it.  He seems in a good mood at the moment.

It is now 1300, the time we had anticipated getting him to his new home.

I pick up his medicine and we drive back home.  Packing the last few things (I thought to make a list), my father looks for a jacket with button sleeves that will accommodate his wrap and brace.  We are probably not there more than 20 minutes  - I am trying to keep things moving to keep him from dwelling too much on what is going on.

We pull out as it is snowing a bit though the sun shines through.  The cows watch us as we drive off - then as we drive back as I realized I had forgotten his room key.  This, I regret - I was trying to keep things moving forward, not coming back to dwell on them.

We get going again and get down to see my mother.  She is doing well.  She is still a little confused why she has to stay there, but she does not mention being ready to leave.  She had ice cream, she says, and shows me another book that she has found to read.  It is one that she has read before; I remind her that she liked it last time.

Then, back into the car.  During this whole time, there and now back, we have said very little.  I have commented on traffic, he makes a couple of suggestions for how to avoid snarls ahead.  Whether by choice or design, we both agree to say nothing about what is happening.  He does comment he worries about my mother, but she seems to look well.  I agree with him - she does.  That is about all I think I can manage for each of us without some kind of breakdown occurring.

Pulling into the new location, I happen to notice a rainbow - a large one - just ahead of us.  I point it out to my father.  I will take it as a benediction.

My sister and brother-in-law are there when we arrive.  It is now 1630, almost four hours after we intended to have all of this done.

The moving in process is much quicker: the fast unpacking of a handful of items, turning on the television and the heat and showing him how they work, helping him organize dinner and breakfast.  

And before you know it, it is time to leave.

He is sitting in his chair, one arm in a bandage and one in the wrist warp.  He still has his mask pulled down but on from when he came in.  "Let me take that off, Dad" I tell him.  "You will not be needing that now" - and he will not, after tonight, at least not inside the facility.  I give him a hug, tell him I will see him tomorrow, and off I go.

I say goodbye to my sister and brother-in-law and we separate, mostly by mutual unspoken consent; we are both, I suspect, more than exhausted. I run by the grocery store and pick up a few things to last me into the week - with my father gone, it will quiet meals here most of the time.

The house is quietly empty when I arrive home - like when my mother left, still full of stuff and their things, as if they were simply on a trip and would be returning soon.  I disconsolately poke around for one or two things I forgot - his cell phone charger, and his pajama bottoms.  I enter the expenses in the log book - why, I do not know.  There is no need for any of that to be tracked that way anymore.  Force of habit, I guess.

I struggle to make the evening fire - I do not have my father's skill with flame (but I will need to learn it) and after 35 minutes, multiple crumpled paper balls, and at least three sets of kindling, I finally get a fire going.  I overcompensate a little I suppose, and drive the temperature up to 78 F.  

My father, I think, would be pleased were he here.

The Pause That Depresses

One more day.  

That is how long I have to hold everything together.  

One more day.

We kept busy today:  moving my father's furniture down to his new domicile, driving down to visit my mother, attending the burial of his sister who passed away from The Plague in January, driving back to my sister's to get a table, then driving back to his new domicile to put a last piece of furniture in, and finally going out to dinner with my sister and brother in law and returning home.

He is on the couch, napping.  He is, I am sure, exhausted. After all, he is in his early eighties and has not been doing a lot of physical activity lately.

I am (perhaps self-evidently) here typing, also exhausted.  Physically, to some extent - my sleep pattern is always off a little bit here, and his wrists have been keeping my father up at night.

But mostly mentally.

I am not by nature or disposition an optimistic person (our resident optimist, Ed of Riverbend Journal, handles that for us here).  But for the past week, I have had to be not just an optimist, but The Optimist.  

About a thousand years ago - or really last Tuesday - we moved my mother into a situation where, in one location or another, she will spend the rest of her life.  My father, not surprisingly, is very concerned about her but does not necessarily understand all the protocols.  So I and my sister have to explain:  Yes, she is okay.  Yes, she will be able to leave the room soon after her test.  Yes, we are sure that people are visiting her and checking on her.  Yes, we are sure she is eating.

And when my father and I have seen her, we have to reassure her as well:  Yes, you have to stay in your room right now.  Yes, you will be able to get out of your room soon.  No, you have to stay there for a little way longer - knowing full well "longer" is a very long time indeed.

With my father it is somewhat the same:  Yes, I am sure it will be hard at first when you move in, but you will get to know people.  Yes, I am sure the TV will be set up.  Yes, the place will be okay.  Yes, Mom will be there soon.

We need them to believe that this will work out for the best.  We exude optimism as a methodology to make it so, trying hard to will something into existence.

But then something like tonight comes:  my father asleep, moving tomorrow, me having seen my mother today with all of her things packed into a bag and asking when she can come home.  I almost lose the belief myself, falling into consideration of the totality of all that has happened in the last month.

But I cannot.  Not yet.  I have one more day to see the world through the eyes my parents desperately need me to see them through.

One more day.

Packing TB The Elder

 Yesterday we packed up my father, TB the Elder.

Packing him up was easier and more difficult than packing for my mother.  Easier, because there is not a sense of secrecy as we go about looking at things, of having to have a ready answer for "why we are taking that".

Harder, in that my father is very clear what we are doing.

He is less concerned with some things.  The practical matters of things like towels and linens and dishes he is little concerned with, and I sincerely doubt he knows which clothes we have selected for him.  He seems surprised as we haul a bed frame and mattress past him (he has slept on the couch for years; the facility tells us the medical staff will not like that so down the the bed goes).  We debate which recliner to take; he finally shrugs and says "Whatever".  We take the one that he sits in next to the fireplace now.

His concern are the pictures.

My sister has done a good job, grabbing pictures that my father has mentioned as well as ones which she thinks he will want.  There are far more going than went for my mother, but then again my father remembers more.  They are mostly pictures of the grandchildren, both mine and my sister's, with a healthy grouping of pictures of he and my mother.  I assume there are one or two of us there as well; as children, we often rate somewhat below the grandchildren and slightly above remembered pets.

He just sits and watches as we trundle past, slowly transferring what seems essential to his life in a new location.  His grief and sadness are palpable as they are largely unspoken - when my sister asks him how he is doing, he just says how much he misses my mother.

He goes to bed at 7:00 PM tonight, the earliest he has gone since I have been here.  When I ask him if everything is okay, he just shrugs and says he misses my mother.  Sleep is a way to escape the reality of the pain, the memoryless hole where we find visions and confusion and occasionally, rest.

And so I sit here in the computer room off the side of the living room, working in the flickering light and darkness of the ;laptop screen.  If I look through the glass panes of the closed door, I can see the flickering of the television and beyond that the orange and blue flames of the fire in the stove, slowly burning away to keep out the cold of the rain that I hear pouring down outside in the darkness - the fire that has burned here all winter for over 20 years.  My father has gone to sleep, dreaming the dreams of old men who have had full lives and now find themselves in a place they had not imagined.

I look out the window into the darkness.  The rain only comes down harder, giving me no answers except for its fury.

Not Quite Spring

 

Two weeks past stood snow
where now ten thousand frogs sing 

hopefully of love.

Moving Mom

 I have been driving this road all my life.

This road is the great artery of the region, picking up smaller towns and hamlets like the tributaries of a river, all coming together to flow to the sea.

When I first traveled this road, I could not drive it but was driven on it - to the zoo,  to the seashore and camping, to the magical place called "The Mall", to the Bigger City where Aunt J lived.  It was the road we followed to go "places".

Later, I would drive this road myself - first as an escape from my hometown as freedom, then to college near and college far away.  Eventually I would come back the other way, bringing my own family up the way I had come down.  And then after we moved to New Home only occasionally as we became salmon, swimming upstream to find our roots.  But always, this road.

I have been driving this road all my life.  And now I am driving it to take my mother to her new home.

If I were to tell her this, she might very well believe me - she has been convinced for some time that the Ranch is not her home, although it has been for over 20 years.  She lives in a world now where "home" is a nebulous concept, a place that she knows exists but never seems to quite know where it is.

The skies are overcast but thin to sun as we drive, first into The Big City for another doctor's appointment, then back towards "home", the old and the new.  Traffic is light in both directions - it is the middle of the day, and those who have places to be are already there.  

My father decides that he is hungry for lunch - I agree, out of both a perceived hunger but just as much  a need to delay what is now the inevitable conclusion of this journey.  We stop at Denny's, one that I have never been in although it may be as old as I.  We go through the now-normal routine:  she picks up the menu while I pick up mine and try to beat her to the punch by suggesting what she will be able to finish, which is always much less than she thinks she can eat.

Lunch is delayed, longer than usual - a bit surprising for a restaurant so empty, but neither I nor my father comment; we are in no hurry.  We eat the way we always do now:  my mother picking at this and that, my father and I trying to balance out what she eats with suggestions.  The meal is good - surprisingly good, in my opinion.  My father decides he wants ice cream for dessert.  The server - the server who always seems to be the ever-present stock character of any server in any Denny's - brings him the equivalent of a sundae instead of the single scoop he asks for while charging him for the scoop.  I am happy, because I get to swipe the whipped cream on the top that neither my mother nor father care for.  We all eat some, even my mother having a spoonful or two.  I do not even smell like a Denny's when I leave, something which I cannot remember every occurring.

But lunch delayed is not destination denied.  And so we get back in the car for the short journey to where she will stay.

We pull up and I tell her we need to go inside here.  She seems a bit confused -she does not recognize this place - but complies the way she always does, with the acquiescence of someone who does not always know what is going on but is sure that someone does. I ask my father if he wants to come, but he says he would like to just sit in the sun in the car.  And so we go in.

We wait in the foyer, which is now covered with health notices the way high school bulletin boards used to be covered with fliers during the first week of school advertising clubs.  I comment on it to another patron waiting in the foyer.  We all laugh;  my mother introduces me as her brother - one last, gentle reminder of where we actually are in the scheme of things and why we are here.

The door opens; the moment of truth has arrived.

The intake operation is one smoothly choreographed flow which is as impressive as it is well rehearsed:  everyone from the facility is there to greet her.  They welcome her by name, commenting on her choice of colors on her shirt, reminding her of her interests (cats and reading), telling her that they have been expecting her.  We go into the office to get the now-obligatory scan of our temperature.  She asks our host why she is here.  "To work on your memory" comes the reply.  

"How long will I be here?" she responds.

"For a few weeks, until you get better" comes the response I am sure has been spoken a thousand times.

My mother turns and looks right at me.  "Does my family know about this?" she asks.

I am frozen in a moment.  I can pick out the individual forms on the desk near me, hear the copier as it drones on and draws down characters through an electronic well onto a blank sheet of paper, and discern 50 shades of grey and brown in the office furniture.  In that moment I am not sure of who she thinks her family is.  It may be me.  It may not.  And I do not know, now, that it matters.

"Yes Mom, they know" I respond, grateful for the ability to speak the truth in however garbled a form.

They whisk her back out to meet more people as I finish up a few questions and go out to the truck to get the last things that we had to bring because she was using them last night.  My father gets out and decides that he, too, would like to come in.  We go in together and go to her room; I unpack as our host walks around the room, telling her about the small snacks and rose on her table and asking her about the pictures on the wall.  Mom remembers them, even as she recognizes the things in the room.  She knows these things; I do not know if she is convinced but at least she seems unalarmed.

We finish unpacking and setting up; I am ready to leave not so much to end the experience as much as to make the transition easy for her.  We say a quick goodbye; our host has done this part as well and there is an unspoken agreement - at least between us - that keeping her half distracted as this happens is the best.  We wave goodbye and go out to the truck; we see her through the window getting settled as we begin to back out.

The drive back is silent, the silence that fathers and sons have shared since there were fathers and sons when events happen and they do not quite know what to say or how to say it:  I fearing to break the spell of my father who seems at least somewhat comfortable with the change, my father perhaps lost in the silence of memories or simply realizing in a way that I cannot the passing of an era.

While she is still with us, she is gone - gone in the way a child entering school for the first time or a young adult striking out on their own is gone; gone in the way that happens when a friend gets married or divorced or has the first child and you are neither married nor divorced nor with children  They have a life away from you now that in some way will always be separate from you and something that, no matter how close you are to them or how much you learn about it, you will never quite be able to ever really enter into.

The house, when we arrive, looks as it ever did; other than the missing bed we took and a few items that were in closets and cupboards and empty places where a few pictures sat, nothing has changed.  But her presence, while experientially around in things, is not here.  Which seems strangely reflective of the reality that while my mother was here, in some ways she has not been "here" in some time.

Perhaps even houses mourn.

The Wreckage of Men

 My sister had warned me.

At 1230 I wake to find living room light spilling in under the bedroom doorway.  I slowly roll out of bed - I fell asleep only three hours earlier and thus the edges of sleep cling to my mind, telling me in the way of a feeling that has very little sense of the world beyond it that this was only a momentary thing and we could return back to bed soon.

The living room and the dining room are ablaze with light, pushing out into the darkness where at this time only the deer and bears roam - as well as my father, going into the computer room looking for something.

"What are you looking for, Dad?"

His wrist was hurting.

I foolishly cheer inwardly; this was a known issue (at least known as of this weekend, when he was diagnosed with SLAC, or Schaphoid lunate advanced collapse, where a ligament has ruptured and is leading to osteoarthritis) and something that I feel competent to resolve, at least in the short term.

I find the cabinet and grab the Tylenol I had given him yesterday that he had not remembered we had.  He took it with a glass of water, then settled back on the couch.  I let him settle in, creating a trail of darkness behind me as the lights went dim, the house becoming one again with the darkness outside.

Suddenly, sound!  He has turned the television back on and it is on, at full volume.  I scramble to get it turned down, only to turn to find my mother in the hallway entrance, looking rumpled and confused.  "It is okay Mom"  I tell her, "it is not time to get up yet.  You can go back to bed."  She takes me at my word - thankfully - and turns, wandering back as I get the volume reduced to zero and then muted for good measure.

The television being on at night is no longer a surprise for me, as it has not been for years, nor is my father sleeping on the couch.  Originally it was "because your mother snores", then it became a habit.  His insomnia created a window for the television and now more nights than not it is on, bathing his face and the couch in its ghostly blue light.

But it is a routine and right now, what we need is routine.

I find a channel with sports and check the guide, as I want to makes sure that there are sports on throughout the night in case he awakens again.  It is lacrosse - given recent events I am unsure of how much he remembers or understands about it, but it is two teams chasing a ball across a field.  It should be enough.  I recheck the volume, then ask him one last time if he is good.

He starts to talk to me.  And I cannot understand a word of it.

Oh,  I understand the words. They are quite clear.  But they are strung together in such a way that they have no definite meaning: indefinite nouns and times, devoid of identifiers to tie them to anything.  They are meant to convey something important but travel by me, rail cars running empty and fast rather than fat and full with meaning.

This has been happening for a bit.  The hospital did a scan - no signs of a stroke.

He continues to talk, sharing something that apparently is of great concern. I wait for a bit, hoping that sense will come or that I will somehow, miraculously, figure out what he is talking about so I can respond - then begin to worry that my very presence may be causing him to continue to keep him engaged and up.  I tell him "Good Night", turn off the last remaining light, and go back to my room.

I lay there, all hope of immediate sleep gone.  I hear noise from the living room.  

My father is still speaking.

He has talked to himself before when I have been here, and I thought little of it - I often talk to myself: it is a standard method of communicating with myself, of hashing out ideas and thoughts. Frequently the genesis for entries in this blog are found walking in the darkness, speaking sotto voce as I piece together words and concepts.  It is a way of communicating with myself, or at least parts of myself, that just thinking will not accomplish.

But my father now seems to be telling stories and events from a past that is as full of holes as a Greek manuscript which is only partially preserved.  I pick out names - mine, my sister's, my brother in law's, the man that keeps the horses at the Ranch.  But it is all, again, without definitive nouns:  This thing was here, this period of time ago, with him or her or them.  He is intent, he is serious, he is determined to say these things.

What these things are, I cannot say.

Is it a conversation?  Is it reminiscing?  I struggle with going in and checking on him, worrying that to engage him will be to either keep him from the sleep he so desperately needs or agitate him because  he cannot remember (this has happened and he enters a cycle of getting down on himself which leads nowhere) and thus perpetuate a monologue only he can seem to understand.

0136:  The rumblings from the living room are gone now, except for the occasional clearing of a throat.  I wait:  do I go in and turn off the television only to have him wake and struggle with it again?  Or do I leave it, hoping it still has sports on and the routine of it will take him back to sleep if he awakens?  What seems like an eternity of me listening, wondering, and waiting occurs as I both listen intently and try not to listen at the same time.

This man, he that relates words in the darkness that have a self contained meaning, was a man that I loved and feared, somethings alternating between the two and sometimes at the same time.  He served his country honorably as a radar technician.  He married his high school sweet heart, mustered out, and then spent the next 34 years working - hard labor - to build a life and make sure that his children had the opportunities he never did.

He claimed he was never "good" at anything but built fences and chicken coops and re-roofed his house, then came here to the Ranch and restored a 90 acre paradise from overgrown pine and oak forests,  He could not "do" anything, yet did everything. He was dedicated to his wife, his children, his grandchildren, and the seemingly endless stream of people he met and befriended.

And now, shrunken and huddled under a quilt, slumped over in sleep, his mind seeming to have abandoned him - hopefully only for a space - or is at least toying with him, taking the specifics and leaving the generalities.

I lay in the darkness, hoping for enlightenment of what to do or an instinctive genetic comprehension of what  is being said beyond my ability to hear.  But the darkness outside the house and inside, it seems, is not only literal but metaphorical.

Outside the deer run, untroubled by memory or a lack thereof.

Packing Memories For Mom

 Today we packed things for Mom's move.

The list of furniture is straightforward:  a bed, a bedside table, a chair, something to put a television on.  Items easily placed into the back of the truck my father has driven for years. 

We swapped the bed that she has slept in for years - the frame that they have had literally as long as I can remember - for one that has been in another bedroom.  She asked us several times where the bed was going; we simply said we were taking it to have something fixed on it and would have it back to her soon.  She eventually decided that everything was okay, but still occasionally asked about the other empty bedroom until we closed the door, thus effectively making the issue disappear.

This, frankly, was the easy part.

My sister went about gathering the known things she would need:  clothing, sheets, towels, toiletries.  She also had the difficult task of choosing personal items.

The facility had certain suggestions:  not too many photographs, some memorabilia from her life, a few things that will remind her of home.

How do you decide?

How do you take the totality of items of a life long lived and boil it down, not just to items that might be essential, but to items which you think might actually having meaning to someone whose memory is failing?  How do you choose?  Is it based on familiarity, on things you think that they will remember, or something that you have heard them express delight in that you yourself have no memory or connection to?  I understand, of course, that this is not something that cannot easily be rectified - we can take something down within the day - but based on her memory,  who knows that this items are what we think they are or retain what we think they will?

My sister did a far better job than I could have, I think:  small things from her teaching career, a jewelry box adorned with the poppies she loves, pictures of her immediate family and parents (who, frankly, she often recognizes on sight more than us).  It all rests now, the furniture laden truck a sentry in a February that is strangely sunny now, the filled bins split between the Ranch and my sister's.  The packed up memories of a life, compressed to the equivalent of a small pick-up truckload of items.

We always say that creating memories is more important, more important than the things that fill our life.  But what happens when those memories fade, becoming ghosts in our mind which flit in and out at their own convenience, leaving us nothing but ash to grasp at?  

Rebuild

Of all the things that I want out of the unpleasantness that last year - and really the last series of years - it is this.

The reality is that defeat only sticks if one allows it to stick.  That does not mean it is not a tough slog, nor that it is something for which there are many milestones that go unrecognized except by those that are performing them.  

At the same time - and at some level, perhaps this indicates my continuing lack of maturity or enlightenment - I want to see this happen.

In a way - maybe in a way I had not thought of - this is some of what the silence that I wrote about earlier is caused by - people rolling up their sleeves and getting on with the business of rebuilding towards an actual better future, not the future as it is prescribed for them.

Most of all - tying back to the quote above - I want this to happen in the presence of those that feel that they have won a great victory, be it personal or professional or religious or political or economic.

Not violent, not vengeful, not angry.  Just solid work that results in real results and makes it very clear that the only thing that was "broken" was their understanding of the situation.

An Update on TB The Elder And Mom

 As you are reading this, I am on a plane back to Old Home for what unintentionally turned into a much longer stay.

My father, TB The Elder, as you might recall, has been in and out of the hospital a bit for feeling somewhat confused and out of it.  There was no definitive diagnosis made except for Syndrome of Inappropriate Anti-Diuretic Hormone (SIADH - essentially, the body sheds more Sodium Chloride than it should).  He was put on salt tablets and being monitored.

But something has not been quite right since then.  My father has, simply put, lost the ability to do tasks - driving, dialing the phone - that he could perform two months ago.

We do not know why.  He has been to numerous doctor's visits over the last two months.  He has had normal scans.  Nothing - not even brain activity - is out of the ordinary for a man of his age.  But it has all happened in a very short period of time.

My mother, you may recall, has suffered from a form of dementia (not Alzheimer's) for several years now.  My father has been the primary care giver.  And he expressed to my sister late last month that something there needed to change.

So the last two weeks have been a flurry of activity - mostly for my sister - of appointments and documentation and tours and trying to locate a memory care home for my mother.  My sister has also had to balance out my father's health as well, since with his current issues he can no longer drive (per doctor's orders) and, living where they do, this is not sustainable for the long term.

It became apparent from talking with my sister and all that will need to be done - or might need to be done - that me being there was a need, both to assist in general and give her a break as well (she is, of course, working through all of this) - so I am flying out for an extended stay.

I am fortunate, of course - my manager has been more than understanding and The Ravishing Mrs. TB has been very supportive (in an odd twist, this will be the longest we have been apart in 25 plus years).  All of which I am, of course, very thankful - I cannot imagine having to do this and explain to my manager I need to work from halfway across the country for an extended period of time and, oh yes, I will need time off on short notice.

We are not sure about what is wrong with my father - as mentioned above medically, there is nothing significant.  We are hopeful that if we can move my mother to a place that will be better able to care for her, the stress of having to do so will lessen (such as letting him sleep again all through the night) and some of the apparent memory loss and inability to do tasks will lessen - the symptoms displayed could be indicative of a combination of stress and lack of sleep.

But, of course, we do not know for sure.  So we need to be ready with options.

We are taking it one step at a time - first, to place my mother into a memory care center where she can both get care and better and stimulation and hopefully relieve the stress on my father.  And then, to move my father.

I will still be here posting away, of course.  I would beg your indulgence in advance if the postings seem oddly focused on this issue.  As much as anything, this blog is a online journal, a processing unit for me to work through the issues of not only the day, but of my life.

As always, thanks for your support.  Your prayers and good thoughts, both for my parents as well as for my sister and I and the decisions that we may have to make, would be appreciated.

Your Obedient Servant, Toirdhealbheach Beucail

Wealth And Wants

 

One of the items I find myself working through this years is wants and desires.

This has been a rather slow process.  Originally I tracked nothing that I wanted, merely got it when I "had the money".  This went on for a very, very long time - really until a few years ago.

Then, I began the practice of tracking what I bought personally, the same as if I would track things on a household budget.  First it was books, then it was other things.  Before long, I was putting everything that I wanted on to a list prior to purchase.

That helped, of course.  Now when the question came up "What was I going buy?", I could go look at my list and see what was on there.  If it was not on the list, it either got added to the list or fell off it.

But I am undergoing a sort of transition at this point.

Maybe it happens to all of us when we hit a certain age.  Maybe it happens at different ages.  I am not sure.  But at some point, one begins dialing back on what one wants.

Perhaps it is the approaching on-rush of mortality, and the realization that one can only read so many books or have so many clothes.  Perhaps it is the realization that no matter how many weapons one has, one can only train with them one at a time.  Or perhaps it is the realization and attempted application of the idea that wealth is something else entirely.

I am not against the concept of money or wealth - indeed, the phrase "I have been rich and I have been poor.  Rich is better." resonates with me if for no other reason that not having to worry how basic expenses are going to be paid is a great relief.  And without wealth, in a service economy, very few people actually have the chance to make a living.

At the same time, the focus on and earning of wealth can become an albatross.  One is always concerned about saving, making, conserving one particular item:  money.  And it can all too soon be swept away by accident or bad judgement - or, we reach that point where we can "enjoy" our wealth, only to realize that we have spent most of our useful life and health trying to get to the point of using it, only to find we have little time or energy left to do so.

This has resulted in a twofold consideration in my life:  the first is to go back and re-review everything on my "want" list and re-examine it.  Do I really want it?  Do I really need it?  What will I do when I have it?  Several things have fallen off the list this way, as well as coming to the conclusion that there are fields of study and practice I will never achieve because of the investment to start them (time for these as well of course, but that is another discussion).

One immediate implication of all this?  Suddenly, it seems, I have enough to do all that I wanted to do.  And the things that I get and what they help me to do is truly valued, instead of just being used a few times and put away up on a shelf or in a closet.

It is not that I acquired any more wealth than before.  It is that, by the paring of my wants and needs, it suddenly went much further.

10,000 Thanks

 So an unanticipated thing happened last month: somewhat magically, I got 10,000 views for the first time

On the one hand, of course, I do not suppose it matters a great deal - after all, it is not as if this is a money or fame creating endeavor (the returns I have generated through this 16 year practice are, precisely, $0.00) and there are plenty of people out there that have a great many more hits than this (and are, advisedly, far better and more thoughtful writers).

Still, I do take a very small bit of pride in the accomplishment.  A writer writes to have their works looked at by someone, and apparently that is happening.  So thank you one and all!

(Post Script:  Gratefully, my Russian and Ukraine audience (and hopefully, those Russian and Ukrainian intelligence agencies) are still up there.  Thanks for making feel important enough to be tracked!)

February Sky

 

Rippling sunlight

highlights scudding morning clouds,

Orange with Winter's frost.

On Isocrates And The Preserving Of Knowledge

 This week I received the third volume of the existing corpus of the Greek rhetorician Isocrates.

With this acquisition, I have the whole published set.

On the one hand, this may seem like a very obscure victory - which, to be fair, it is.  On the other, hand, at least to me, it represents something more critical.

If you have not heard of Isocrates, do not worry - up to about two years ago, when I found the first volume as a prize find in my local bookstore, I cannot say I had heard of him either, or at least remembered that I did.  Which is a shame, really.

Isocrates, an Athenian and considered one of the Ten Attic Orators lived from 436 B.C. to 338 B.C. which, if you remember your Greek history, was a time of massive upheavals and changes.  Just think of it:  during his life (98 years) he saw the end of Periclean Athens (480 B.C. to 404 B.C.), the Peloponnesian War (431 B.C. to 404 B.C.), the Spartan Hegemony (404 B.C. to 371 B.C.), the Theban Hegemony (371 B.C. to 362 B.C.), The Third Sacred War (356 B.C. to 346 B.C.), and another eight years of unrest which finally resulted in the Battle of Chaeronea (338 B.C.), where Philip of Macedon cemented the growing power of Macedon over the Greek City States, supported by his son Alexander (whom we later encounter as Alexander the Great, conqueror of the Persian Empire).  As if someone born in Germany in the 1840's lived to see the Rise of Prussia and German Empire, World War I, the Weimar Republic, and the Rise of Hitler into World War II.

Isocrates taught rhetoric, the art of speaking in the ancient world.  It is believed that he did not actually present most of his speeches, but wrote them as letters or in some cases for others to read.  

It is a shame, really that he has fallen out of fashion as he is a good speech writer, good enough that the first volume of his work convinced me to purchase the second and third volumes.  He is good enough, i would argue, that one could read his speeches today and put to shame most of the "public speakers" we currently have. Reading his speeches gives one a flavor of his times (in one speech he calls for the unification of Greece; in another letter he writes to Philip of Macedon - it strikes me as somewhat funny that two historical figures would have some kind of letter writing relationship, even so very long ago). 

That is great, you may say:  you found an obscure author that you like.  I am glad for you, but not really sure why this is a victory of any kind.  

For me, this is a victory because it means that in some small way, the foundation of Western Civilization is preserved.

The West is no longer a people of the past.  We can scarcely look beyond the last 10 years for references on how we got to where we are and how we live.  We dwell in the social media, instant-internet age of the Now (not even the present).  Anything that does not inform the Now is considered old, and out of date.

Be cautious lest you think that this applies to merely the old works of the Western World.  In the Now's need to continue to be relevant, it will destroy anything it considers irrelevant, old, and passé.  The works of today will not be seen as relevant in another ten years - they will be not "Now" enough.

This is how knowledge is lost.  This is how civilizations collapse.

In my own way, I view getting and keeping these books as a practice no less relevant than the monasteries of medieval Europe preserving the texts of the past in a world that neither appreciated them not thought that they needed them - until, it turns out, they did.  They probably did not think of it as anything more than the preservation of knowledge.  But then again, they did not have 2,000 years of history and a realization of what a Dark Age could look like.

We, on the other hand, know better.

Book Review: The Pond Lovers

 As my collection of Gene Logsdon books continues to grow, I am finding that they fall into three general styles.  The first is what I would call "The Information Download", where it is Logsdon directly passing practical information and his theories behind them.  The second is "The Collection", where it literally is a collection of writings which most likely were articles written for other publications (it is sometimes hard for me to remember he was a regular columnist for years and years as well).  The third is a hybrid - let us call it "Information And Others", where it is a combination:  some information and philosophy from Logsdon, and then a series of short chapters about how others have applied the theories.

The Pond Lovers falls into this third category.

The book is one part an ode to the ponds in Logdon's life, one part an instructions manual, and one part a discussion of how people apply ponds in their own lives.

The first part - the ode - bookends the text.  In the beginning Logsdon talks about the family pond on his family's property -how his father built it and it became a part of their family's life (It appears in other of his works, often referred to as "The Pond at The Center of The Universe").  The last chapter comes full circle, about the pond that he and his children came into and how, in the passing of the generations, it had now become a center of this new generation's life

The second part is how Logsdon applied his knowledge and desire to build his own pasture pond.  His detail is a little less than fully instructive (this is one of the complaints about the book in its reviews, a lack of applicable knowledge) but is more than made up for the fact of how he makes observations about what happened at the pond once it was built:

"I have not even tried to identify all the water plants that seem so mysteriously to find the pond.  My mind is not big enough to keep track of all of nature's ways on even this one small pond, let alone our small farm.  If a plant grows up and sports gold coins, I'll probably learn its name.  I'll even learn its Latin name." ("A Pasture Pond")

The third part is actually the bulk of the book, where Logsdon takes us to the places where other people have built ponds, use them, and love them. There are a total of 10 vignettes, small stories of small farms and individuals that have built them and use them in different ways.  A couple of the stories - Wyeth's Pond and Jandy's Pond - I know from other writings of his that have involved these places.  The others are mostly new to me - but in typical Logsdon fashion he tells us not only about the ponds, but the people who build them, supporting one of Logsdon underlying concepts, that nature and people's lives should integrate into each other instead of being separate, and that we really cannot know the land without the people that care for it and form it - and vice versa.

Would I say this is a "must own" Logsdon book?  I would probably put in the "Tier 2/Nice To Have" category.  It is Logsdon of course, and so worthy of reading, but it is less likely of book I might consult regularly (unless, of course, I was building or came into a pond).

I would be remiss if I ended this article without a Logsdon story - one of his which, having read in others books is a favorite:

"I think the peak year for Homo hockiatis on the Pond was 1957 (there was a second peak around 1980), when even in February we were all still eager for one more game.  Snow had fallen six inches deep on the ice, however, and a warm wind was melting it and the ice.  Uncle Lawrence decided the only way to remove the wet snow quickly was with our Allis Chalmers and its manure scoop.  Dad did not think much of the idea, but he went along with it.  After all, this probably would be the last game of the season.

Since the tractor had little traction on the ice, Lawrence would start out in the grass, careening along in road gear till he got to the Pond, then drop the blade and let the weight of the tractor slide it and a scoopful of snow to the other bank.  Luckily, he had decided to clear the shallow end of the Pond first.  Halfway through the job, halfway across the Pond, the thawing February ice gave way, and the tractor sank into four feet of water.   Lawrence sat astride the seat, whooping hysterically.   "You're still the craziest man I know," Dad yelled at him, shaking his head.

"Me crazy?"  Lawrence roared with hyenalike laughter.  "This is your tractor, not mine!""

("The Pond At The Center Of A Family's Universe")