Blessings come from strange things. Don’t you agree? Sometimes I find I am being blessed and had not even noticed it. That is not good.
I enjoy doing solitary things. Maybe because I grew us as an only child. James never looked forward to being at home. Home is where he was when he did not have other entertainments. We would go to the valley for a few weeks after Christmas to square dance. It was fine, okay; I enjoyed it. We would square dance and round dance from one to three times a day. And I enjoyed it; but it also meant that I was not at home working in my flower beds (and later my garden). When he would mention retiring and trailering full time, my heart would sink. No gardening, difficult oil painting – not a lot of room. Difficult sewing, also not enough room. I envisioned driving for miles and miles. Staying at campgrounds and having covered dish dinners with strangers. Just how many covered dishes was I going to enjoy cooking and cleaning up after? Oh, woe is me – or so I thought.
Well I am certainly not happy that he got sick – never that. But now he is most comfortable being at home. He is agreeable to my dragging him off places but he would prefer being at home. We eat lunch out everyday and at lunch he will ask two or three times where we are going from there. He is always relived when we are going home. If we go to the grocery store or somewhere else, he sits in the car and listens to the radio. (I always wonder if this is the time I will come back to find him and the car gone. So far that has not happened.) He takes a nap in the morning and a long nap in the afternoon. The Alzheimer’s specialists say that is usual; when they get those “tangles” in the brain, they require more sleep.
So I have done more painting in the last few months than I have since he worked and was gone out of town half the time and I did art shows. I can work in the yard whenever I want to. I have a place fixed up in the basement with grow lights and raise most of my own seedlings. I also sew. For a few years I made reenactment costumes and bonnets and sold them on ebay. When the economy took a downturn, I was not selling as much so I gave that up.
As I say, I am sorry he is sick but I am more free to do my own thing than I ever expected to be. It took me a long time to realize what a blessing this is. I am sure I have been blessed many times in life and never noticed it. Isn’t that a shame.
