"Never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you." - Joey Adams

A good friend.

I'm here at Ida Culver House, the independent living complex where mom lives. Each of the elevators has frames that hold a sheet of paper announcing various things residents need to know, including special activities for the days ahead. One of those says April is poetry month and lists some of the poetry related events the management has scheduled. The last week of April includes "an examination of women poets from Ireland." In parentheses underneath that line it says, "This will be a literary process, not medical!"
OK, points for a sense of humor.

She would try to KILL me if she knew I was posting this pic but at 95 I *think* I could hold her off.

At 95 mom has good days and bad days, and in this case "good" is relative. Since I arrived it's been mostly bad. She struggles with the effects of some meds she has to take for her congestive heart failure. Today she's spent most of the time in bed asleep and when she's up she's very weak, struggling to do the simplest of things. About 10 a.m. she had a little bit to eat and then went back to bed exhausted from the effort. Up at 2 p.m., a half cup of soup, and a shower. But she moves soooo slowly and with such difficulty.
Hard to witness and it makes me sad for her.

My sermon introduction last Sunday for the sermon on the healing of Naaman the leper in 2 Kings 5 was about stories that you sense have a meaning deeper than the narrative yourself.
Note: I used the same intro for my sermon in NY on the healing of the leper in Mark 1. Guess why.
I went to Jack In the Box for lunch while mom slept and read another two chapters in The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. It's an odd book (are all of his stories like this?) that is almost certainly about something else. I just haven't figured out what that is yet. I'm about 1/4 of the way through so I hope to have some idea soon.

Facebook tells me it was two years ago today that I flew out of Portland for Amsterdam and from there to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. Seems farther back than that.

I'll leave when I wake up tomorrow, which probably means about 3 a.m. That should put me in Eugene a little before noon with a stop for b'fast and a brief nap at a rest stop along the way. Pam flies out for Grand Rapids at 5:30 Tuesday morning. Certainly not an ideal schedule but what we need to do with parents at this stage in their lives.

Right now I'm just eager to be home.