Infinite Quack

I feel halved. Maybe more so. I would frequently refer to Susan as my better half, so that suggests I've lost more than that. It's also my timeline that has been sliced in two. I went for a walk by myself today, and couldn't remember doing that for a while. I realized this is going to color all my experiences from now on -- doing things I've done before, but now I'm doing them as a widower. I had experiences before I met Susan, and some of those were nice, but the best ones happened during my time with her. Now that time is over. I'm 47, so my timeline hasn't been cut exactly in half either. I've most likely got less than half my life ahead of me. Just now, it's hard to imagine it being the better half, but I can hope it'll get better than this. It's like how 9/11 changed America, dividing everything into what happened before or after. It's different, though, because this event is not shared. As I walked around the neighborhood, I heard p...

Portable mind-reader gives voice to locked-in people Something unrelated to the election... I had the idea that devices like this were already available for consumer purchase. After all, we have those brainwave-activated cat ears and such toys. A device that can signal yes/no should not be a problem. But I searched Amazon and had some trouble finding one. Does anyone know? During my wife's final days, she could not talk to us. The nurses advised us to talk to her, though, saying she could likely still hear. If we wanted to know whether she was uncomfortable, we had to make educated guesses based on her breathing, facial expression, and other such cues. I really wanted to be able to communicate with her -- even to the minimal level of answering yes or no -- assuming she was conscious, which we also had no power to determine. If such devices are available, IMO, hospice nurses should all have them in their arsenal. Original Facebook post

I hope everyone reading this, who hasn't voted early, is planning to do so today. Susan and I voted. We filled out our ballots a few weeks back, though due to how things were going health-wise, we didn't get it done until past the point where the experts recommended mailing it. I made a point of driving both ballots to the nearest drop box -- in our case, about a 40 minute drive, each way -- while she was still hanging on. Her ballot envelope is the last thing she was able to legibly sign. When she later consented to care by hospice, she only managed to make some confused squiggles on the page. It's been just over a day since she left us. If she's able to witness the election's outcome, it will only be because she's managed to snag a window seat in Heaven, and a telescope. Whatever happened, I really wanted to be able to discuss it with her. She cared about the state of this country, every bit as much as I did. When Donald Trump was running in the 2016 GOP pri...

What does one say about a partner of 22 years? When I met Susan -- online initially -- I was only 24 myself, living in an apartment in Ohio. We met on a website, when she responded to a personal ad I had posted. As with much else in our time together, it was Susan who made things happen. She had decided she liked me, and within weeks of our initial email exchange, she had convinced me to fly out to the Seattle area, to stay with her at her house for a week. I have always been a naturally cautious person. I tend not to take risks. But after our happy first meeting, she pressed me to move in with her. The sooner, the better. In March of 1998, I packed up my more important belongings into my small car, mailed some others, sold a few items, and left the rest behind in my apartment. I drove from Ohio to Washington State, with a stop off in Colorado to visit my parents. Susan had a head start on me in life, an 18 year head start. I had only worked one job, for minimal pay, and had yet to lan...