Posted 2 months to the day from Christmas
Joshua said to them, “Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Be strong and courageous. This is what the Lord will do to all the enemies you are going to fight.” –Joshua 10:25
Preparing for my two-day, 70+ mile jog down and back the Frisco Highline Trail has already been an adventure, and I really haven’t even scratched the surface of how much I need to train. As most of you know, and for a quick catch-me-up on the many new readers I have been blessed with, in January of 2020, pre-pandemic, I weighed around 360 pounds. Enlightened and emboldened by the scads of research being done tying in heart health to brain health and with the help of Weight Watchers (WW), I took some action to fight the disease. I have lost over 100 pounds and went from a completely sedentary lifestyle to one that drags my carcass out of bed to run…and run often. In June 2021, with the help of friends and family, I ran/jogged/walked/skipped the Frisco Highline’s 37+ mile trail as part of the Alzheimer’s Association’s Longest Day program. Next year, as part of the same program, I will do it again on Day 1 and return the same trek Day 2. Here are some more of the details: LINK
I have spent many hours on this trail in the last year. As I ran last week, I noticed some ties from the days of old: railroad ties, that is. Here are some artifacts I noticed:
It got me wondering, yet again, of the artifacts that are left behind in dementia. I mean, are all of the memories, like buried railroad tracks/ties, still there and just without a path to access them? I see mom, out of the blue, even now, connect one point to another. That calls to mind, then, what ARE memories, physically? Do they ever disappear forever or are they just completely separated from our senses such that we cannot retrieve them in any meaningful fashion? Is mom “still in there?” And, if we can retrieve a lost memory, what shape will it be in? Is the path full of buried, but “full” memory ties, or is the path itself broken? I have a lot of questions and not a lot of solid answers at this point… Such an interesting topic, scientifically…and such a disheartening one emotionally. I wish I could have pulled the switch and changed her train’s path before we ended up on this path to nowhere…
Mom is still holding on, doing about the same. With the cold days we are now entering, we will either be doing fruitless window visits or potentially no visits at all. It is a frustrating way to navigate our last time with her, but the options are limited.
#EndALZ.
