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I put Carolyn's youngest son on a plane today and by now he's tucked in, safe and snug, in his own bed in Napa, CA.  It's fun having family visit, and we are already missing him walking around the rooms and hallways of our joint.  Normally, there's not a whole bunch of walking around here, any motion activated camera would record tons of Carolyn lurching and me hobbling instead.

And Muffy?  He never walks anywhere.  The mutt always is running or bounding.  He has a sort of hopping leap that can cover three to four feet without touching the ground - and he can keep it up for the entire length of the house when he feels like it.  One of these days I'm gonna take the little guy to one of these traveling x-ray machines that are often seen in the parking lot of the local library.   I'll bribe who ever is running the thing and find out just how tightly coiled the steel springs inside his hind legs are.  I'm thinking if I could somehow manage to hook those springs to a clock, I'd never have to wind it again.  Ever.

The house has that sort of empty feel to it that happens whenever a source of energy is removed.  Eric added a lot more than great pancakes to start our days, and we feel the loss of his company.   Both of her sons have grown into men of whom she can be proud and she has watched as they have raised their families and grown her grandchildren into decent members of the human race.  If all children in this country were of the same quality as hers, there would not be trouble in this nation as that we are now experiencing. 

Eric's back home: Carolyn misses the comfort of having him near.  And me?  I miss the pleasure of being able to talk to a person, any person, who's mind has not been dulled and slowed by the terrible disease that is now ravishing the mind of my dear wife.  Someone who's tongue has not been thickened by a force beyond control and who's speech has not been slurred almost to the point of not being understood .  I can not imagine what it's like for her on the other end of all the conversations.  Just how does it feel, trying so hard to be understood, that by the end of the day all her energy has been drained?   I ache for her. 

And there's nothing I can do to help except keep her comfortable and warm while she's here with me, just the two of us back home, the way it was before her son was here.