I’m starting to notice things I didn’t before, or at least recognizing patterns and interconnections.

Today was one of the days wherein my mind made some leaps and created a thought topic for me to have some “hmmmm” moments about.

It was a day with some tears, and not really all mine. Some of the tears took the form of frustration expressed with actually shedding dewdrops, but the wish to cry was at least close to the surface.

The new regimen my doctor put me on Thursday is having a good start towards the desired effect. I don’t know if it is because I haven’t been tested yet with people bringing up Snowy or my job loss; so far my own thoughts about these subjects are not triggering the “I’m so lost!” sobs that I’ve dealt with many times a day over the last 5 months. I’m still a bit cranky, though. I think that is from the swift undercurrent of fear as time is running out on me and yet the needs of our lives are still chugging along. I’ve definitely been long hooked into Scarlett O’Hara mode– putting so many unpleasant things off until “tomorrow”, when all problems will be ’solved’ and we’ll ‘never be hungry again.’

Ha, if ’twere only so simple. Don’t need to revisit all that at the moment as I’ve cooked the hash on this ad nauseam and am too fatigued to think about it just at this moment.

Yesterday Dex and I visited Snowy on our own. Chick had produced a bottle and packed up Dex’s darling bag that his Aunt NANny had given him, all monogrammed for him, so diapers, wipes, bottle, change of clothes, burp cloth (which we call Dex’s “accessory”), a couple of toys, bags to stow things that got dirty, etc. It was a huge moment for him to have an outing without her, but they’d both been up through the night and then ‘rose’ early that morning, and Chick needed to have some time alone to try to nap without having her big responsibility claiming her for a little while. Her lack of sleep was pushing her nerves close but not actually to tears.

Dex and I made the trip downtown with no mishaps or wails, despite being detoured all over East Hooha to be routed to a bridge that would get us across the river in a place that I wouldn’t get lost trying to find the nursing home. I get  a bit stressed out when such things happen, and the urge to cry gets strong — fear + frustration.

We found Snowy in her room fast asleep in her bed although it was a bit late for that. I pulled Dex from the carrier/car seat and into my arms and we perched on the end of Snowy’s bed, lowered as low as it could go to minimize impact of any falling out therefrom. I marveled once again over the phenomenon of how beauty finds her as she sleeps. ALL wrinkles on her face just disappear and her white skin has a soft, luminous glow to it. She looks like she is capable, able, ‘herself’, and at peace. Especially with her cute haircut, she just looks adorable — this time almost angelic wearing the white knit top I’d given her from my own small collection – I look terrible in white, but she looked as if it added to her glow; she was tucked around with bright white sheets; and her hair was gleaming white. She had a sweet look on her face with her downcast, closed eyes, and I wished I could preserve that moment forever.

I softly stroked her arm and murmured her name, but she didn’t stir, just breathed a little bit deeper. Dex finally started squirming and kicking his stocking feet with an insistence that broke through Snowy’s sleep (dream?). Slowly her eyes began to open, no comprehension warming them even when she looked at Dex and then at me. As I saw she was awake, I began to talk to her and to the baby, breaking the ice of our conversation. When I called Dex by name, her look sharpened with thought and she asked me if that was what we were calling him — the whole name rather than the diminutive.

He was a bit off-schedule because he didn’t nap in the car for the 30-minute ride, just staring and waving his still ‘controlled by aliens’ arms, but at least NOT crying. When he started fussing, I offered him his rare bottle, but he wasn’t wanting that at the moment. I changed his pants since he is very persnickety about such. But still he was sniffing in prelude to a good cry and I began my small bag of tricks that sometimes help cut the wails off at the pass. This time was holding him sitting ‘upright’ on one leg while I bounced him rhythmically. That plus blowing a few raspberries at him was enough to save the day for a moment. Still, the ‘grizzling’ was more expressed than not by the young lad.

Snowy was caught up by 2 questions that she asked over and over and over — how old was he now and how much did he weigh. I have, through our years of Alzheimering, learned to answer each question with the same answer and with calm grace as if hearing it for the first time. Before this absolute requirement in dealing with the dread disease, I was one who had it high on my pet peeve list — repeating myself mashed a temper button on me. Now I don’t have a concern about it. I’m much happier at being able to reassure Snowy.

Several times during this visit she told me, with tears, how glad she was to see Dex “one more time”. She claimed several times that she didn’t think she would make it to his next visit. I joshed her about that, telling her that of course she would see him a whole bunch of times and then we would all be moving “somewhere” for my “new job” … once I found one.  Her ‘certainty’ that her time is running out struck me deep in the heart and I would normally have been crying like a fool, but other than a tear that leaked out, I didn’t cry. I still hurt from the desire to.

Dex got whiney and then unhappy as he was unable to articulate what was bothering him – he got clean pants a few times (oy!), he drank up the bottle with devoted attention, he giggled and did his eye-flirts when he knew he had an ‘interesting’ diaper for me to deal with, he watched Snowy with great fascination, he was enthralled when one of the aides came in to bring Snowy’s supper and spent several minutes talking cartoon-baby-voice nonsense with him, he burped mightily… but he truly was ready for a sleep and he couldn’t settle down and give in to it. So, he was crying because whatever was bothering him, I wasn’t figuring it out — or he didn’t even know “what” but just was tossed about in the “NOT RIGHT= FIX IT” need to emote. After a few jokes about it, Snowy was at last understanding that the boy and I needed to exit before things turned into a full-voice crying opera.

She had started to cry a little earlier when I got up to leave when her supper was brought in, and she begged me not to take the baby away so soon. She started to ask us to spend the night with her (in her always forgotten roommate’s bed), but think she understood that that wasn’t going to be a good solution. She finally let us go without protest, just asking that I lower her head and her bed so she could sleep again. The boy wah-wahed about halfway down the hall and suddenly lost interest in crying, and happily took the ride in my arms and the ‘fun’ of going home.

I’m about halfway through signing the 505 cover letters that Chick is going to help me stuff with resumes and put into the prepared envelopes. I can’t believe how overwhelming this process is, and as I sign and sign until my wrist gives out and forces me to quit, I wonder if I’ll hear from ANY of these people I’ve spent a fortune for the opportunity to do this plus the cost of all those stamps. Thinking about the rapidly dwindling money makes me want to cry, but this time I don’t.

The little blue car, between one day and the next, went comatose – not even the remote key worked nor anything else. I assumed battery and knew I would have to figure out how to confirm this and then what to do about it. Today I went out and parked the white car near it and then began reading both cars’ owner’s manuals to sort out the proper way to jump start.

And of course BOTH cars have whacky battery locations that don’t make it easy. I concentrated first on the little blue car’s challenge — the battery is in the trunk under a floor cover, which was covered with all the things I haven’t cleaned out of my trunk in years: the stacks of to-be-put-together boxes I’d bought at the Office Depot to start packing with (denial = still in trunk), a bag of bungee cords of various sizes, about 5 various model cars of Thunderbirds, a straw hat that had gotten half wet, dirty socks from when I stored them there to go riding on Harley Horse when we were in Atlanta, along with that a beautiful leather girth for his Australian saddle that I used, and a leopard print pet rug… and a few other things, including the heavily soiled (oil?) canvas bag I kept the jumper cables in. No wonder I couldn’t get much in the trunk.

Then came the white car and trying to figure out how it would allow me to hook up to its battery to try the jump start. Well, its battery is under the rear seat, and the thought of clearing out all the debris in the backseat that has become baby central (the folded up ’stroller’, the car seat itself that required the specially trained police officer to install it, all the seat belts which would apparently come away from their required places — and then struggling to put all this back together… not wanting to do that. Instead, ITS manual said that preferable was the jump start using remote connections in the engine compartment. Ah, nice, BUT almost impossible to find. The tiny, ambiguous and unmarked snapshot in the manual didn’t even look like anyplace instead the engine.

I spent an ungodly amount of time on the internet googling, asking, dogpiling, yahooing for ANY clue as to what I needed to hook the jumper cables to. I had finally found the negative/ground connection, a piece of metal sticking up like a little flange. But nothing, NOTHING gave away the location of the positive remote terminal connection. I had Chick look since her eyes are far better than mine, and she was puzzled, too. She began pushing me to call a dealership and ask— but that is ALWAYS a last resort for me. I was determined that I could figure it out. Think we both felt like crying over each other (but we didn’t, just crabbed and jabbed and honked a bit) for not DOING what Chick wanted me to do about calling, and for not being left alone to focus on figuring things out.

Finally I went back outside (100* + heat under the shade of the front yard tree), and began studying the engine once again to decide what assumptions I could make. I decided one upright screw MIGHT be ‘it’, and I began to start clamping the negative cables as directed, then the positive. I figured it I had guessed wrongly, it would just be a bit of silence in the little blue car.

I cranked up the white car and let it run a little bit before I slid over into the little blue car and gave it a shot. It wouldn’t start, but my heart leapt in hope because it TRIED. It made some noise, dials flung themselves from one side of the dials to the other, it hiccuped! I went back to the white car and revved it up some more and kept it rowing with the charging. And eventually, the little blue car just cranked right up like ti never dreamed anything was wrong. I ran them together for several minutes, per the instructions before disconnecting the cables. I turned the little blue car off, and then turned it on AGAIN. Oh, glory day. I felt like crying with tears of relief. If I could get it cranked I could get it to the dealership to replace the battery; I couldn’t afford a tow. I made an appointment for Tuesday morning and was glad to have something work out even though it didn’t look probable at all.

While I was car charging, Chick took a call from the nursing home. Snowy’s edema seems to have spread suddenly to her arms (not there yesterday!), and it has caused a tear in her arm that the wound nurse was going to start treating. I sagged and felt my spirits sink. I need to go and check on her tomorrow once I have the car reliably working again. I don’t know what this means, why it’s happening, what’s going to come about because of it… and it scares me and makes me want to cry.

And of course I’m still just at a total bewilderment in losing my darling friend Celeste.We are all crying, inside and/or out because of the confusion, anger, grief that this happened to her, and at such a young age. She was changing the world for the better. She touched so many lives with her care and concern. Of course I will carry her spirit along in my heart and try to stifle the crying and channel that feeling into something positive for her in her name.

I’m running out of time to get my ‘homework’ done for the Guardian Ad Litem course scheduled for all day this Friday. I may have to defer it to the July session. I’m drowning in all the things I SHOULD be doing. I’m losing my ability to know how to do it all. It sometimes just paralyzes me.