Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Coping mechanisms, Dealing with a grandparent, Home and hearth, solving personal problems
I am recovering from the trip. Grandmother is doing well. I think calling it Hospice Care is kind of alarmist, and the reason I got hand-flappy about it. It needs another name, like Palliative Care. Even though that is exactly what Hospice Care is, it would have a different implication. Hospice calls to mind terminal diseases as in “he’s got no more that 6 weeks, maybe less”. Palliative would, in my mind, mean “yes, she’s going to die but we don’t know when so we’re just keeping her comfortable”. But I’m not the one who makes these things up. The good news is that she’s doing ok. For someone who’s 100, she’s doing pretty well, actually.
The trip itself was good. Terry generously gave up a weeks vacation to accompany me and the time in the car with him was nice. There is something about riding in a car for long distances with someone. It is a gauge that should be used to determine a potential spouse, in my opinion. I’ve told the boys this. “Ask yourself, can you see spending 10 days in a car with this person. If the answer is no, then you need to think hard about it.” I enjoy spending time in the car with Terry. We talk about everything, and sometimes nothing. We don’t have that sort of time during the normal days, to talk like that. Stuff like politics and religion and so on.
We don’t see absolutely eye-to-eye on everything, but that is ok. As long as we recognize the differences in personality and upbringing and experience form the differences of opinion, we’re doing ok. As long as each one of us can express an opinion and not put the other one down for the difference, it’s ok and the relationship is fine. Taking a road trip is an excellent time to hash out these differences and…and…try to talk the other one into a Labradoodle puppy in a few years.
Which totally happened. The attempt, that is. Whether or not it results in a Labradoodle remains to be seen, but experience tells me that if I bat my eyelashes and have a nice mint julep waiting at the end of several hot days, I’d probably be able to talk him into it.
Not that I try to manipulate or anything.
But now, I am kind of tired, and so is Terry. I am happy about being home, with my own bed and own home smells and own cooking (sort of). The flower beds are a terrific mess of weeds, but the grass isn’t too tall.
