Since I took a nap this afternoon and am wide awake, I will share another blog with you.  I find that I am still catching up on sleep.  I think I was not so physically exhausted, just emotionally exhausted.
I am trying to focus on all things positive.  I cannot let myself have a "pity party"!  Bob is still very happy and seems to be enjoying The Piper.  When I visit him and tell him I am leaving,  I always give him a kiss on the lips, but the other day another resident (female) beat me to it, and then I was a little hesitant to follow!  I just have so much to be thankful for.  I still remember the state hospital where we took our psychiatric affiliation in Sykesville MD (should have been spelled "Psychsville").  A few years after we were there, I guess due to lack of state funding, they just opened the doors and let everyone out on the street.  I cannot imagine where they went.  Homeless on the streets of Baltimore?  The only ones that remained were the criminally insane.  I also don't know what happened to whole multistory buildings of micro and macrocephalic children.  So to be able to see Bob in a beautiful facility where he is content is wonderful.  I take photo albums out and he is usually able to identify his brothers and grandmother in the albums.
 I still miss Bob the most, I think, when I am watching football.  We have a long history of football together.  In high school we went together with a teacher to the Baltimore airport at 6am to watch the victorious Baltimore Colts come home.  And he would write down all the plays from Sunday football games, and bring them to school Monday for me to type up.  That was fine, but I could barely read his writing!  We watched games together every Sunday before Superbowls were even thought of!  And in recent months, when he didn't even know which teams were playing, he was still there to watch the game with me.  Thanks to Gail and Harry Janke who invited me over for this Superbowl Sunday!
In this blog I am going to address caregiving of aging parents (I bet our children can't wait to read this!)  Not to negate the ones taking care of their parents, but I have done both parents and spouse now, and it is a whole different ball game with your spouse.  When you place parents in a facility, it doesn't turn your whole world upside down.  My father died of Alzheimer's and my mother was able to stay on her 8 acre homeplace where they retired in the hills of Tennessee for 8 years afterward.  She was still active as a nurse in the 13 bed hospital there, and set up a small surgery department to do minor surgeries.  And she worked in a clinic for an old country doctor.  When she was 85 years old, the doctor was away, and a patient came into the clinic in labor.  Mother told her to go to the hospital in the nearest town, but she refused saying they didn't have insurance.  She promised verbally she wouldn't sue if anything went wrong, and mother delivered the lady's 19th baby in the clinic.  The dad went and got milkshakes for everyone while mother was bathing the baby and the mother, and then off they went, promising to be back for their 20th!  Of course, the 19th baby is more dangerous than the 2nd baby, as the uterine muscles are weak, and may not clamp down to stop bleeding after delivery....A year later I had to move my mother here as she was having TIAs from high blood pressure than wasn't well controlled.  She was in Overland Park Place, a beautiful independent living facility near the hospital where I worked for 6 years.  But as I hear now from so many at the support group, she was not a happy camper, and as is so usual, took it out on her daughter.  Her favorite saying was that she always went to breakfast so she could see who wasn't there, and had died during the night!  She didn't need assistant living as I was her caretaker!  We took her with us on travels, she flew back to TN to visit, and she came to spend the day at our home at least once a week. But she still wasn't happy.  I tried to go every morning after I got off work and take her home cooked leftovers, and biscuits and gravy from the hospital (which she loved) as peace offerings, but it didn't help.  I "got it" then, and I "get it" even more now as I age, how difficult it was for her to leave her home, her flower gardens,  and her friends.  After a bout of pneumonia with complications she had to move next door to the Overland Park Manor, a nursing home which she hated even more.  She had a private room with all her furniture and pictures surrounding her, but she was still feisty!  But at both facilities, people that worked there would pull me aside and tell me "When you are not here, she is the life of the party.  She is just piling the guilt on you when you come."  She was alert until the day she died at age 91.  
I decided I needed another living thing in the house with me.  A cousin told me that when she married and moved from the farm where she was raised, and moved to an apartment in a city, that she bought guppies.  I decided I wanted to go up the scale a bit!  I had a dear friend who died suddenly in September 3 weeks after finding out she had cancer.  Her dying thoughts were about her two "fur babies", and what would happen to them.  I could not care for anything else in September as I was caring for Bob, and a mutual friend, Denise, told me the family (there were not many family) was going to take them.  Then the other day Denise texted me and said they had not been adopted as plans for the family to take them had fallen through.  She asked if I knew anyone who would want them?!  "They" are 2 gorgeous 8 year old kitties, Sadie, who is a tortoiseshell, and Smoky, who is a beautiful grey.  They are sisters.  They had been in Denise's basement for 3 months, as she is allergic to cats, and also has a dog.  Well, God's timing was perfect, so now I am their proud owner. I think their routine was to sleep during the day, and they still are shy and hide during the day.  But in the evening, they are ready to roll!  When I go to bed, they jump on the bed, and have hissing wars as to who is going to get near me.  Both will lay on their backs with every leg up and let me rub their tummies, and then they will do the "kneading" thing on my tummy.  I think they are saying "thank you"!  And I like to think that Ruth is smiling!
I will close with a quote by Gilda Radner.  I totally agree with the first two sentences.  The last sentence I am still working on believing! "Some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end.  Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity."
I have a cat rolling around on the keyboard...So goodnight!
Betty