A long day...with visitors, and lots of TV tennis from Wimbledon.
Brian Martin and Peggy Lou paid us a visit, arriving by car at about 4-00pm. Brian--as usual--foppishly dressed, and she in a rather weird pants suit. Brian relating long stories and Peggy Lou talking nineteen to the dozen.
It was raining when they arrived--by car, and, of course, there was nowhere for them to park. Joan had to go with them and direct them to the public parking garage below the Library.
And so we had a couple of hours of chit chat, a glass or two of Prosecco, before they left at about 6.00pm. We had been eating much of the finger-food Joan had prepared, so we did without an evening meal.
So the evening dragged out a bit. We watched a couple of TV sitcoms that were mildly funny. I prepared a hot water bottle and kept it pressed against my lower back and the top of my thigh for about half an hour. Whether it does any good, I cannot say. It certainly feels good when I do it, but whether it has any lasting effect, who knows?
Joan has gone to bed..she falls asleep quite early, and I have come out into the main living room to kill a bit of time--I cannot get to sleep until closer to midnight.
I'm going to finish this tomorrow...
Wednesday...good night's sleep last night, but the general back/leg situation is still the same today. Joan had her Zoom call for an hour from 9 to 10, and I shut myself in the small bedroom and did Spelling Bee and Wordle. Strangely, I got to Genius without getting the pangram.
So I now face a long day until Joan gets back at about 5-00pm. God knows how I will fill it. There is Wimbledon tennis, but that doesn't start until 1.00 pm---heavy rain yesterday, and most matches postponed, and many from yesterday not yet finished.
3.30pm.
I think a lot about my mother's life. Married in 1928, first baby in 1929--John, and from then on a mother and a housekeeper, with additional children--Anne very shortly after John. Then, after a five year break, I was born in 1935, Rachel in 1937. So there we were, a family of six, which my mother had to feed each day, had to do the laundry by hand each week, hang it out on the clothesline to dry, make the beds, clean the house, feed the dog, do the grocery shopping, manage the housekeeping money that Father gave her each week And that went on with four children through the war to 1945, when John went off to do an apprenticeship at an engineering firm in Rugby. And so the workload for Mother decreased a little, but there were still five in the household until I left to go in the Navy in 1953. After that I am not sure of the timetable when Rachel went away to London with Alain, and Anne married Lawrie. But Mother's life was still mainly domestic. She and Father had no social life, took no holidays. They did travel to Germany for my marriage to Kinny, but I can think of no other travel or holidays away from home until Mother and Father came to the United States and spent time with me in Washington and Rachel in Dallas. And from then on, watching television, and looking after Father as he became increasingly sick, bedridden (with his bed brought downstairs), needing the nursing she provided, until he died.
Six months later, she had a stroke. In the hospital, Anne, Rachel, and I talked with the doctor, who told us something like, "We can keep her alive by extreme methods, but she will not recover in any meaningful way--she will be bedridden, unable to speak properly and she will probably not know anyone who visits her. Or we can let her quietly die now."
We agreed she should be allowed to quietly die now.
John arrived, and exploded at our decision--no way could we let her die, and he overruled us. She lived for six months longer, in exactly the condition the doctor had described.
A life mainly spent doing things for other people--her family.