An emotional time

Dear readers,

We "arborists" have not been tending to our virtual garden lately. The week since the famous Democratic victory in the mid-terms has been a busy one for Tdec31 and I for personal reasons, and Old Chip is gallavanting around Italy. So the Arboretum has been untended for the past week, and for that, dear reader, I most sincerely apologize.

I am about to collect my soccer things and head out for an indoor game; this keeps me young. Tdec31 is with her family today, tending to a very sick grandmother. It is a hard thing to watch someone who was so recently strong descend into the twilight. It is even harder to watch the family who have known her their entire lives balance the need to hope against the weight of saying goodbye.

I won't go into the details here, in the interest of privacy, but these are difficult times for us. In the evanescence of another, we all confront our own ephemerality. Who would wish this experience upon another? Yet, it's an immutable part of the human condition, and the fragility of life imparts beauty to our existance. Watching my wife lift spoonfuls of water to her grandmother's parched lips, our bond takes on new meanings.

In these past few weeks, there has been much laughter through the tears as we all remember, as we touch, as we break bread. Amid the descending fog of dementia, there are moments of surprising clarity and immeasurable love. We would be so much poorer without this.

We don't know just when, but sometime soon we are going to lose one of us. The thought hits me with the force of the winter cold at odd moments, like when I'm buying milk at the gas station or feeding the dogs. And she knows it is coming, knows that her story here is ending, and I can't wrap my mind around that thought in its entirety.

Again, who would wish this on another? Yet the beauty of these days also needs to be remembered. We are drawn more tightly as a family through this, and we see each other in our full depth and breadth. We see the things that make us cry and what makes us smile, and we see the raw honesty of the familial love that runs through the generations.

We would be much poorer without this.