Posted on what would have been my 30 year anniversary…keep reading 😉
Hi all. I have mentioned many times how much I am amazed by numbers. Today is the quintessential proof. The New England OCD Institute has this to say about people who dig numbers perhaps just a little more than I do:
“Compulsive counting is a common symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder. People with counting compulsions may count because they feel that certain numbers have a special significance, and therefore specific actions must be performed a certain number of times. For example many people with OCD feel that the number four is especially significant, and will therefore do things in sets of fours. For example if they smoke one cigarette, they may feel a sense of incompleteness unless they smoke three more. So they will count the number of cigarettes to be sure they have met the numerical goal.” (Note: substitute the cigarette for a cheesecake for me, but I digress)
https://www.ocdtypes.com/counting-ocd.php
Well, I do not compulsively work through numbers that way, but I certainly notice unique number issues and point them out. Perhaps the very best example of this for you at the Cornbread table is the title article I did for our little community, called “Alzheimer’s, Mom & the Sweet 17“. In many ways this needs to be article one for anyone reading this blog, so, if you have not read it, please do me a favor and read it now. It is a short read. 🙂 Here it is:
Alzheimer’s, Mom & the Sweet 17
Did you read it? Please do. If you didn’t, the next few paragraphs will make even less sense than they usually do. I will wait. Here is some background music for you:
Sweet. I trust you have finished. It was short and summarized a lot, eh?
Welcome to my 30th Anniversary! Sort of. Not. But yes… Anyway, 6/10/90 was to be such a sweet day and weekend until it wasn’t. Then, 10/10/90…at least there would be that, until we changed it to 11/2/90…and it worked out just fine, thank you. Today, we are still quite happy through the good and the bad of life. We aren’t a perfect couple, but we work it out… However, that 6/10 date was sprinkled all over papers, love notes, yearbooks and would have been on a tattoo had my mom not made clear that she would further “mark me” if I marked up my body that way. Destined to be an odd symbol of times gone by that one of my grandkids would someday ask about, it awaited…until this June 10th, to explain itself, if you will. Now I see how God used my neurosis(?) to show Himself Sovereign yet again. Here is how:
Today, on 6/10, the day that was supposed to be my 30th anniversary, it turns out that it is an anniversary of something else instead: Today marks 90 days of the Shawshank lock down at mom’s nursing home. COVID-19 has kept us from visiting for 90 days today! It is the actual 6/10/*90. Talk about a Vicissitude! (Note: If you don’t know that word, you lied to me and didn’t read the title article for me as I requested. I even gave you some nice pan flute and a soothing beach to chill to as you read. 🙁 Go back and read it now and re-read the up to where we are now. I will wait. Here is something to listen to:
🙂 OK…are we all on the same page now? Thank you to all who read it the first or the second time I asked. 😉
Things don’t always work out as they should. That is a simple fact of life. Mom should be fishing and gardening and babysitting and just hanging out at the park with her family, but, tragically, it wasn’t meant to be. I should have got married on 6/10/90. Then 10/10 would have worked fine and we had already graffiti’ed it everywhere…. until we changed it again. Now, instead of 6/10 being a family Trivial Pursuit answer forever, it is merely a OCD-inspired numerical path leading to the devastating date that we ran out of safe options and delivered my mom in the nursing home. Am I the only one that finds this interesting and/or weird? Probably…………
Need some silver lining? I love my wife even more today than back then…which says a lot because I loved her a lot back then too. 11/2/90 developed a life of its own and in a few months we will celebrate that 30th anniversary after all. And the silver lining for mom? Mom is in peace these days and will likely soon find her home in a place with no sadness, sin, so tears, and absolutely no stinkin’ dementia. There is serendipity to be found yet among the vicissitudes of this yarn…
#EndALZ
Update: I see mom in a couple of hours at the nursing home, on the outside of the window, for a quick picnic. I will post pictures after the fact… I miss the old mom, I love the new mom, and I yearn for both versions to be free. Come Lord Jesus…
Update to the Update 2 hours later 🙂 The picnic thing didn’t work out, but we got to hang out at the window. I am a little concerned about some face drooping, but she was happy and very glad to see us. 90 days is a long stinkin’ time.
Mark, Rebecca said you gave her the link to the interview we did with the lady from MSU. Do you still know it and could you share it with me please?
Here is the whole series:
https://www.ksmu.org/programs/sense-community#stream/0
Yours is about halfway down. Thank you Shirley. 🙂