text
ending an era
the spark has gone from his eyes
to where does it fly?
notes
With the passing of my ex-father-in-law last night, my son now only has one grandparent: my mother.
My ex-father-in-law had developed dementia, something he always hoped wouldn't happen. My ex-husband and his live-in helper were discussing the possibility of putting "Scooby" in long-term care because his state of health had declined so sharply that they could no longer adequately provide for his needs by themselves.
My ex-father-in-law was a retired engineer and there was nothing he loved more than doing puzzles. Sorry, but those clickbait "articles" proclaiming that one can stave off dementia give false hope and make me angry. This man was probably smarter than all of us reading this post combined. He still wound up with dementia.
If you'd like to read more of my rant about awful clickbait proclaiming magical cures that don't exist plus ways to support real research that does exist, follow the link.
http://www.naughtynetherworldpress.com/2022/09/charity-sunday-fisher-center-for.html
I didn't have an especially close relationship with my ex-father-in-law but there was no bad blood between us. There is none between my ex-husband and me either. After our divorce in 1994, we repaired our friendship, which I think helped make my son's childhood a little more stable if sometimes chaotic because of bouncing from house to house during the week courtesy of my crazy work schedule.
So, yes, it's the end of an era. The death of my ex-father-in-law wasn't unexpected, and in many ways, it was a mercy. As Glen Campbell's widow said regarding dementia, it's better to die some other way. Still, one can't help but be a little sad. At least I can't.
I used the six-sentence story prompt to inspire this Haiga and wrote a three-sentence story followed by a lot of explanation.
https://girlieontheedge1.wordpress.com/2022/09/25/sundays-six-sentence-story-word-prompt-231/
Prompt word: Spark
I created the Haiga in Pixlr.com with a free-use image by Lê Nam on Pixabay.
https://pixabay.com/photos/light-streaks-spark-smoke-trails-6899357/
I selected this image because of its simplicity and because the light creates what looks like a face on the left side of the picture.
~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~
Succinctly beautiful and powerful. Sitting beside a loved one as he passed away, that was the question...where?
ReplyDeleteYou hit every nail on its head...and in my humble opinion fck dementia sums it better than any polite, yet inadequate, word-around-it.
ReplyDeleteSad thing for me is that 30 years ago when I treated people with dementia I was feeling optimistic of arriving at a cure soon ...here I am thirty years later, still nothing, and reading about the altered data points at a scientific research that was the basis of the effort to come up with a cure....