I have had swirl brain and have not been able to settle on one topic to write about. It has been like a novel that jumps back and forth between character voices, and back and forth in time, and is just too hard to follow.  All the characters are voices within me.  My memories are taking me back in time, and my worries are focused on the future. I am juggling many story lines and I want to be the hero in all of them.

There’s the “How did I get to be so old?” story.  I am bewildered by the face in the mirror and by the jumble of feelings I have about turning 63 next month.   I know that age is so much more than a tally of years.  Chronological order is a way to tell a story and to record events, but the stories I carry are more like 2 steps forward, 1 step backward. My memory can distort the truth so that even I can’t follow the story line. Madlibs fill in the blank stories make more sense!

History, her story, my story and the “Why am I here story?”.  I want to be a hero, but I know I am a very small speck of humanity.  Lately I have been thinking that the better question might be “How am I here?”. If I am loving, kind and brave, then the why question gets answered by default. So what’s the storyline?  My life is a process and the jury is waiting for the conclusion to make a determination.

In the “Roger and Me Story” the villain is Lewy Body Dementia(LBD). Roger is declining and LBD is relentless. I am not a hero in this story either. I am scared, tired, and defeated.  Grief is the story line that I follow with my tears, and I know how this story ends. Sometimes the dialogue is so painful and beautiful that every cell in my body reacts.  Roger no longer understands death and he does not understand that he is dying.  Dementia has given him this one gift.  We talk about heaven as a place where he will go and he will be able to bike and hike again.  I tell him that he will get to order all his favorite foods, and watch all his favorite movies with lots of popcorn. Yesterday I asked him if he was ready to go to heaven soon and he shook his head no. I asked him why and he said “Because I know people here.”.

Is there ever really a “lived happily ever after”?