ZZZZZzzzzzz

There is nothing like eight hours of sleep - not-turning-over or moving sleep - to help me reframe the world.  I read somewhere once that the brain remains pretty active even while we sleep - organizing, postulating, solving - so that when we awake we often see yesterday's problems in a new light.  There really is something to the old aphorism: "Sleep on it."

I also saw how discombobulating it was to try to deal with a semi-coherent man with no frame of reference.  For instance, when dad wanted to get out of bed I tried to get him some help to get out of bed, a thing he shouldn't be doing.  The nurse kindly explained that he was very restless, that he didn't know what he wanted, and that as soon as he got out of bed he wanted to get right back in - she ignored his requests.  My sister was kindly blunt: "Dad, you're not getting out of bed."  This seemed to help, too - I guess dad figured that was that.

There was a man in Vacation City - not terribly old - who died suddenly of a massive heart attack.  Shocking and sad, but also, in the moment, the flurry,  with no frame of reference.  I get to go home and talk to his wife about the circumstances of his passing - happy, spiritually fit, loved, at peace - as compared to my father's end days.  Quite a contrast.

I've spent my whole recovery preparing for stuff like this.