It’s about 7 AM, Sunday, among the squawking birds of Far North Queensland. I don’t know what bird is what, by their sound, but I’m sure my mother would know. She knows all the birds in the neighborhood, here.
Yesterday was slightly stressful – I got a call that Ann had had another fall in the hospital. Apparently she’d been to use the toilet and had jumped up, forgetting that she was disabled. This hadn’t gone well, as is to be expected – she’d hit her head somehow.
Although the hospital was following “head injury protocol” (with frequent vitals checks and such), she seemed unaffected by the incident, and didn’t even seem to remember it. By early afternoon everything was back to normal.
She had lots of visitors. Friends Bonnie and Gwen both came by. I took a picture of them, with Ann and many other neighbors and friends, in 2019 when I was here with Arthur (link). And later Tash came by too. Tash and Ann and I attempted to play Yahtzee. It went better than the solitaire I had Ann playing the other day.
I ended the day feeling pretty gloomy. Mostly, I keep thinking about the fact that this business of losing your cogent mind seems really, really common as you get old. I don’t look forward to it. And certainly I pray that I can somehow plan things better for when it does happen. I think it might be smart if you just assume it will happen, plan out your life-as-elderly-person accordingly, and then consider yourself lucky if it doesn’t. This business of “it’ll never happen to me, it’s something that happens to OTHER people” is way too common in my family.
Here is an insolent gang of wallabies lurking at the top of the driveway, lookin’ to make trouble.
Last year I stopped posting my “daily trees”. But here is a tree – call it an occasional tree instead of daily, I guess. I just like how it looked up against the sky.