Some happier news

Last Friday I wrote about my friend's daughter who was sick with dengue fever which took her father's godson's life. At last some good news that her blood platelet levels are what they should be and she has recovered and is going back to school. A frightening time if you are a parent.

Today I learned about the pain of Alzheimers, not for the person who has it but for the family. We talk about the sufferer as the patient but they have memory loss, cannot do things, lose language and lose all sense of place and time. But family has to live with the memories as they were, the things they did and said and know that the present time is nothing like the past. However even here there can be moments of grace a minute or two of recognition and memory.

Recently I started thinking again of M who died in February taking her own life. It's strange the depression and desolation has changed in my memory. It is almost a year since I met her for the first time on campus and she breezed into life at the college. She was not able to receive or accept the love and care offered by so many and although there is some heartache there is also a feeling of hope and new life, no paralysis but reaching for new life and new hope and new purpose. I remember her well and her memory drives me out there again.