Here we are at the Weidner Center in Green Bay for the symphony concert.I have had the pleasure of having my son, Jim, visiting me for several weeks. It is so wonderful to have someone here with me and we have had a good time together. Though it is only temporary, I am enjoying it to the fullest. I fear I shall have a hard time going back to living alone when he goes.
When I was 23, my mom lay dying. She looked at me and told me that when I was born she was 45, and had said " I was her “olderdom’s truyst”. This was in Swedish and I think it means having someone to care for her when she would become old. As it turned out, I was the one who took care of her in her last days as she suffered a slow and painful end. I have never regretted it ever. At the time, taking care of her at home was the only option. As I had the summer off from teaching, I was the available child.
Jim is not my youngest but he is my bachelor son and is at present out of a job. He has been living in Denver for the last 15 years and has looked for a job there and is looking here. I surely would like for him to find something around here, but I guess it would be a miracle if he did. I don’t want him or any of my children to have to be my “olderdom’s truyst”.
I have betaken (how’s that for an ancient verb!)(probably not even a word) him many places. He even accompanied me to the symphony to hear Arnaldo Cohen perform Rachmaninoff‘s Piano Concerto No.2 in C Minor , one of my very favorites, and he even enjoyed it! I have been grateful to have him go to see his dad every day and so I have been given some respite from that. Bill is in a rest home 15 miles from here so I usually drive 30 miles every day.
But he needs to live his own life and that life is in Denver, I think. His publishing stuff is there (he published a hymnbook) and other musical things and he sings like an angel. So I shall enjoy him while I can and send him off when it is time.
