May you experience peace, joy and love not only today, but every day of the year.

it is the little things.

CAREGIVER NOTE:

We listened carefully last evening while he “crooned” to one of the babies that was a little fussy. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the Army Anthem sung as a lullaby before! It was precious and a memory that will live long in our memories . He enjoyed being surrounded by family — once everyone had arrived and there was food ready to be eaten. We had an early Thanksgiving dinner with family and it was delightful.

CAREGIVER NOTE:

Another day of reflecting on family members who have passed on. We opened his book of genealogy to share some details with him after he asked for some specifics. Although he was sad to be reminded of their passing, he was filled with gratitude that we were willing to sit and listen while he tried to process things. Recent “dreams” have been pretty lucid and the confusion about who he was seeing and conversing with were very real to him and have made him uncomfortable at times when he realizes the moments were either long ago memories or had never happened… but to him they were very real and vivid.

For the first time ever, no anger was connected to this type of conversation — a brief moment of sadness and then ready to talk about other things and family memories from long ago.

CAREGIVER NOTES:

Tentative steps. He’s watched the progress of the deck build with great interest the last 2 weeks. Asking questions, offering advice from his huge bank of wisdom of his own building knowledge. However, yesterday, there was a lot of hesitation about taking that first step out onto the deck. There’s no step down on to the landing. It’s handicap accessible now and the deck flooring is level with the threshold of the door. He’ll be able to access using a walker or the wheel chair if that becomes necessary in the future. I wonder if it has to do with the memory of having something to hold onto when he stepped out previously and now there’s no railing for him to hang onto as he had to do previously with just the landing and steps down into the yard. Hmmmmm….