When I started this journal, I had two thoughts: 1) to have a place to natter about things the cat doesn't want to hear, and 2) if I made an entry every day, I'd feel safer.
Safer?
When Jay was blind and paralyzed, his greatest fear was that I would fall down the stairs, or get very sick, or whatever, and the two of us would lie there for days or weeks before someone found us. So we had to get one of those "life alert" services. After the first few days, after his fears were quieted, I moved the button out of his reach, because with his lack of short term memory, he'd have been calling for help every time I went to the kitchen to get his lunch. (For the last seven months, I had to be in constant voice contact with him, or he would get very frightened.)
Now I'm here alone. And now I'm the one worrying about falling down the stairs, or having a stroke, or food poisoning, or whatever. It would take at least five days of not picking up the mail for anyone to worry and come looking for me.
Daily telephone contact with Daughter is impractical for a variety of reasons.
One day last week I had what I think was a pinched nerve in my neck, which made me feel very lightheaded and unsteady, so I hung the cell phone around my neck all day. (With my luck, if I fell down the stairs, I'd have fallen ON it.)
So - I thought I could write something interesting to me (!) at some convenient time every day, Daughter could check at a time convenient to her, she would know I was ok and still making some sense, and I could be reassured that someone would know if I went missing or started "sounding weird".
Too bad I can't seem to stick to that. Intermittent is worse than nothing at all.
New commitment - I will write here every day, if only to say "I'm here." Daughter, you must commit to check every day. Otherwise, I'm gonna have to call you every day.
Yeah. That's a threat.
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