Katie visited Ellen

I took Katie to visit Ellen in the hospice last night. I think it's great that they allow pets. Ellen lit up when she saw Katie, then I put Katie on her bed so that Ellen could hold her. Such a simple act made her so glad. She's on 20mg of morphine an hour now, which her friends tell me is alot. She also takes 60mg at night, so she can rest. Visiting with her, she was in and out of a daze, but when she was lucid, she was her old self again.

Ellen did this watercolor of Katie:



Ellen also did this oil painting:



I'm happy to have these prints to remember her by.

Ellen is getting worse

Ellen can't sleep. She's afraid. She thinks that if she falls asleep, then she'll never wake up. She got much worse today. Her friends tried to get her into a hospice, but there were no open beds. Instead a hospice nurse came out to stay with her. I'm taking care of Katie for the night.

I'm so frustrated. There's nothing that can be done for her. I'm an optimistic person, but Ellen is dying, and it's just a matter of time. I can only hope that she goes peacefully, perhaps in her sleep.

I talked to Tess today. She'll be 90 on October 31st. Tess told me that if she could lie down, fall asleep, and not wake up again, she'd take that in a second. She's ready to die, but Ellen isn't.

I'm so angry with Tina and Charles. They talk as if Ellen could recover. Charles is of the opinion that she's being over-medicated. Tina actually said "Ellen had her chest X-rayed. Her lungs are clear. If she could just get over this infection, she could beat the brain cancer." Christ Almighty, doesn't this woman have a clue? I can't talk to her anymore. She and Charles lie to each other to ease their pain. I can't do that. I yelled at Tina, telling her that she'd better come to grips with the idea that Ellen is going to die, and that she's just hurting herself by not acknowledging that fact. Then I'm angry with myself for being so callous, but their self-delusion drives me mad. As I walked away, I heard Tina ask Charles if Ellen was going to die, and Charles told her that he didn't think so. I think Ellen is going to die very soon, if not tonight.

I said a prayer for Ellen, and myself:

Dear God,

Please give me the wisdom to know what to say and do around Ellen to ease her pain. Please give me the patience to be helpful and comforting to Charles and Tina when I want to scream at them. I especially need that. Direct me with Katie, as I'm a brutish man and not one to pamper, though I love Katie, and she loves me. Please give Ellen courage to face her own death, as she's so very frightened of it. Please forgive Ellen her sins. She is a good person, despite her faults, most of which are endearing. Take her into your home and give her a peaceful passing. When Ellen dies, Karen, Charles, Tina, and Ellen's other friends whom I don't know as well will need your help. Please give them strength and understanding, and grace to accept her death.


Don't judge me by my hipocracy. I swear and I pray. That isn't the actual word-for-word prayer that I spoke, but it's better, and conveys my thoughts to God. I don't know why it helps me to post this, but it does.

Socrates said:

Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good; for one of two things, either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I will not say a private man, but the greatest king will not find many such days or nights, when compared to the others. Now if death be of such a nature, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead abide, what good, O my friends and judges, can be greater than this? If indeed when the pilgrim arrives in the world below, he is delivered from the professors of justice in this world, and finds the true judges who are said to give judgement there . . . that pilgrimage will be worth taking. What would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer? Nay, if this be true, let me die again and again! . . . Above all, I shall then be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in the next; and I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not. . . . In another world they do not put a man to death for asking questions: assuredly not. For besides being happier than we are, they will also be immortal, if what is said is true.

-- Translated by Benjamin Jowett in The Dialogues of Plato, Volume 2, translated by Benjamin Jowett, 3rd Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1892), pages 109-135.

Father's Day

We had a nice cookout. Funny how on Father's day, one father did the cooking (brother in law) while the other father (dad) couldn't stop piddling around the farm doing chores. The rest of us had no problem sitting around, chatting, and watching them work.




I'm hungry all of a sudden. There's got to be a midnight snack around here somewhere....


After lazing around for awhile, we played some volleyball.

We couldn't get my nephew and his friend to play, yet someone kept their attention all afternoon.



I'm going to go out on a limb here...think it could have been this attractive young lady?





I didn't stay too long. We didn't have enough people to have really fun v-ball, plus I had work to do on my house:


Eventually, a ceiling fan will go here. Let's see how long it takes me to get it done!