Sunday, June 16, 2019

6/16/2019 Caring Bridge

Journal entry by Al Negstad — a minute ago
Travelling from The Little House on the Prairie to the downtown condo makes for interesting variety.  Sinai's 120 residents aren't very loud and the girls loved the freedom of riding their bikes to feed the camels, go around town and out to the cemetery.  Today I traded the tranquility of a small town for the energy of downtown city life.  Trygve takes it all in stride from, patient condo dweller, to fun play dates in Sinai with the 14 week old, lab, puppy next door.  Perhaps on my next trip I'll have time to take him carp fishing again.  Last week I pressed a bit to get my corn planted before company came.
    Joanne loved the transition settling into her recliner in either place.  There isn't much TV access at in The Little House, just what rabbit ears pull in, and that's only the public stations.  She couldn't watch CNN nor Rachel Maddow there, but, supplied with good books she didn't care. In her retirement she read three or four books a week.  If a book didn't engage her with he first chapter she would move on to a different one.  This was compensation for her working years when she never took time to read books...she was lucky to finish the newspaper.
    Perhaps I'm getting used to being alone. Maybe it's easier for an introvert who loses a spouse than it is for an extrovert.  With a daily people fix to fill my 'people bladder,' being alone is not a burden.  Joanne was so extroverted that on the personality profiles she would not have a single check on the introvert side.  When she was convalescing from one of her many surgeries I'd send an SOS, asking persons to call or visit because she was trapped at home with a monosyllabic introvert...a fate worse than...…….
   Yes, I've found a level of peace in the land of grief, but that is not to say that the presence of absence is not painful.

Takk for alt,

Al

Pictures: Planting corn and the girls with their bikes.

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