Moving with Dementia…

Cookie and I have relocated!  We are now residents of “The Parks”, an assisted living facility in Odessa, Texas.  It was a wild couple of weeks, during which I contracted a rather nasty sinus infection, requiring the ingestion of the venerable “Z-Pack”.  Of course, in the midst of a move there’s no sick days allowed; I manned up and whined my way through it!

We had a couple of hard working guys with a truck move the big stuff, and the rest of it was ferried by car.  I don’t know how many trips I made from Midland to Odessa, so I’ll just say “a lot.”  We were blessed to have our good friend Mary show up, with her humongous vehicle, not to mention her maid, which made the cleaning side of things go much faster!

My having early onset dementia makes me the youngest guy in our new neighborhood.  And, as I’m the identified patient in the household, the staff wisely direct their business questions to Cookie.  They’ve all learned pretty quickly not to rely on my memory, foggy old guy that I am.

And, no rest for the weary in our household.  We drove over to Lewisville this past weekend, and picked up our two grand-kids, Ari & Will.  Their mom, Jenni, is working twelve hour shifts, at the Denton FEMA Command Center.   As they say, all trials and tribulations are relative, and our problems pale in connection to those who live on the coast.  It’s the very least we can do, to take care of the kids, so that Jen and the good folks at FEMA can help those who are suffering.

As the great blues singer, Elmore James sang, “When things go wrong, wrong with you, it hurts me too.”  We’re all interconnected in this time and place, and we all share in the same disasters.  The events unfolding in Houston, and all along the Gulf Coast, will affect everyone of us.  The great delusion of our age has been that things “over there” don’t matter.  When things go wrong with you, it hurts me too, and we ignore that at our peril.  And that’s my five cents worth of psychiatric advice!  Please, give generously!

Blessings,

Fr Dave