Dear Readers,

I thought I’d share snippets of thoughts that I’ve been able to hold onto—a handful of things not easily forgotten by Beau nor me. Memories that connect me back to a past with my dad but also lead me to a life without him in the future. Grief bridges.

• The wind rushing through the trees in our backyard is the same as the wind rushing through the trees on my dad’s old farm.
• A place on Lake Champlain where I can rent a canoe this summer.
• A collection of wind chimes from the Philippines, Cambodia and Malaysia. 
• Baseball and books.
• My mother coming to visit.
• Clos du Bois Chardonnay, Gatorade and Key Lime Pie.
• The AD families in Colombia. I will visit them.
• Writing thank-you letters on my new personalized Zebra note cards.
• The smell of Boxwood hedges.
• Beau’s Fellowship at UF.
• Uncle Pete. The last of the Bercaw brothers.
• Joe Dineen, Mike Dalton, Al Justice, John Eagle, Mike Lusk and Greg Collins. (Dad’s BFFs)
• Monticello.
• Ripe tomatoes.

I think what makes death by Alzheimer’s disease so strange is that you want the end to come, but still find a way to resent it when it does. Life with AD is not life. I didn’t want Beau to  suffer, but I didn’t want him to die either.

Always, always this middle place. Hence the need for bridges out of no man’s land, yet a desire to remain connected the man who inhabited that land for a while. Perhaps I should think of myself as a time traveler. I can go back to Beau and forward to Beau with the smell of a shrub,  the taste of a wine or the sight of a tree.

Love,

Me