Death Be Not A Stranger

Death be thou not a stranger to thee
When to my pain the only repose
Your comforting arm the heart welcomes
Like and old friend too long absent from sight

Wrap your warm blanket around this heart
Keep away the harsh wind and tumultuous rain
The desert wind did parched it so
Leaving it weak, frail and beyond mending

Death a stranger be thou not
In this moment of my greatest need
You the only friend I see
Rock me gently with your lullaby

-Haribaldev Kaur
http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewPoetry.asp?id=253984

Mom is on a hunger and med strike; she has decided it is time.  We are still battling Dad, with APS supporting us (they received a new referral for mom from a recent ER visit).  New territory.  Scared, but committed to support Mom.  I understand her.  I love my mom.

APS: case closed

Because Dad is not caring for Mom as he should, the care facility, with our blessing, reported him to APS.

Having learned from his experience with them previously, this time he refused to sign the papers allowing them to help.

Since Mom is not being grossly neglected (seems to be a matter of interpretation), APS will be closing the case, and thus closing the door to them being able to help the situation. They did say that if we felt that mom is in danger, we can call the sheriff. Mom *is* in danger, since she is not getting nutrition and meds, but we are stuck, and heartbroken.

😦

‘Round and ‘Round

If I knew English literature better, or maybe the humanities, I perhaps could find an appropriate analogy.  But I’m at a loss.

I’ve been thinking about Dad and his circular thinking.  How he won’t let anyone help him with just about anything of importance because he insists he is working on a plan, yet his thought process is just going around and around, only occasionally taking twist or a turn, but still he seems to manage to land in the same spot where he started.

Going ’round and ’round…. (image: http://imgur.com/gallery/3LEZzyP)

Some seniors tell stories over and over, or ask the same questions, so this must be my dad’s version.  Seems like it should be a metaphor for something….

I tried googling, but got sidetracked, reading about whether or not people really walk in circles when they are lost (one could say that Dad is kinda lost):

…people circle when their internal sense of “straight ahead” becomes corrupted by random errors in their sense of touch, balance or spatial awareness. Small errors lead to random walks, while larger errors cause circling. And that has a massive impact on their ability to get, well, anywhere.

Despite walking [blindfolded] for 50 minutes, most of these people never made it very far. Within a few minutes, their average distance from the starting point levelled off so that they were usually around 100 metres of it.

http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/08/20/do-lost-people-really-go-round-in-circles/

When I think about this too much, all I get are strange geometric figures like Penrose Triangles or Mobius Strips, and this song that starts going through my mind, having grown up in the seventies 🙂