April 29 – “Unfinished”

Today we are going to make a quick trip to San Antonio.  The particular purpose for this one night excursion is to watch Zakary play in a game of t-ball.  Live.  We have seen a few pictures and even a video of his exploits.  But there is just nothing quite like watching a rousing game of t-ball with a bunch of four-year-olds who often see the exhilarating prospect of discovering an ant carrying a hundred times his body weight in a dead fly as much more exciting than waiting around for a ball to roll near them.  I can't wait.   I also revisited a book that I started several years ago about my Dad.  It's kind of a children's book about the effects of Alzheimer's.  It is loosely based on some true exploits my Dad had with me - and especially with Nathan - before he died (that would be my Dad who died, not Nathan).  It didn't take long for me to remember why I put it away the last time I worked on it.  I thought maybe I had become frustrated with the details of planning out chapters and choosing anecdotes to include.  Or maybe it was the daunting prospect of pulling everything together into some remotely cohesive plot.  It's not like it was going to be some mystery thriller.  It was just an opportunity to put on paper some of the things we went through as Dad fought with the disease.  But as I worked through another chapter I realized that it was the remembering that was bogging me down.  Oh, I recalled it well enough.  Perhaps too well.  It was the excess emotion that surrounded that entire period that came flooding back.  Not something enjoyable, to say the least.  But if I can ever get it all written down, maybe it will help out someone else who may be just entering that experience to be able to make it through.  Sometimes just knowing what to expect helps.  My hope is to work on a little bit each morning when I am at my "creative peak" – if there is such a thing.  Actually for me that just means I do better at anything in the morning.  Afternoons are when I start having arthritis flare-ups.  And by evening I have to focus a little harder to ignore the pain.  So mornings it is.  We'll see.   Zechariah 10:1 says, "Ask the Lord for rain in the springtime; it is the Lord who makes the storm clouds.  He gives showers of rain to men, and plants of the field to everyone."   Father, I never noticed that verse before.  Pray specifically (in season).  Acknowledge you as Creator.  Recognize you as Sustainer-Provider.  We do need some rain here in Galveston.  So does Southeast Texas.  Amen.