I want to remember what I forget

Approaching my 61st birthday on July 8.

Feeling sure that in my DNA that Alzheimer's Disease is in my future.  Like Mom.  Like her mom, my Grandma Wilson.

My mind is slipping, distinctly slipping, although how much of this is natural aging and how much is something more?   Unclear.

I want to have an assessment at this point to determine whether this is Alzheimer's or not.  Why?  Well, in the worst case (I always start with the worst case), so that I have the control of my life to end my life if I wish.  Helium is the current preferred method in mind.   But also so that while I can still make plans, I can plan for things I CAN do, avoid the things that I cannot do -- avoid situations that could result in avoidable frustration, humiliation.  Humiliation.  Stuff like that.   And of course:  keep my eye on any progress towards "the cure".   Also the legal stuff:  making sure that finances and business are in order, that heirs are left without too much hassle, powers of attorney, trusts, ....whatever.


But hell, everybody dies.   What takes us down, does it make a difference?   I guess it does to me.   Somehow a massive sudden heart attack, even an unexpected auto accident, something fast and furious and ! painless?    All that sounds better than a long and lingering loss of self.

I want to remember what I forgot to document what symptoms I may discuss with a doctor.   Let's start with this:   In resurrecting this blog, this private blog of personal musings, I discover one I completely forget having written, about Charlie's return from a trip to Spain.  I have no recollection of the trip, no recollection of the events of his return, total blank.  

Maybe it's nothing.

Remorse and contrition

The NPR commenter describes Elliot Spitzer's resignation announcement, declaring that he sounds cold and officious, doesn't recount anything he has done wrong.

Following is the full text of Eliot Spitzer's resignation speech, as transcribed by The Times:

In the past few days I have begun to atone for my private failings with my wife, Silda, my children, and my entire family. The remorse I feel will always be with me. Words cannot describe how grateful I am for the love and compassion they have shown me. From those to whom much is given, much is expected. I have been given much: the love of my family, the faith and trust of the people of New York, and the chance to lead this state. I am deeply sorry that I did not live up to what was expected of me. To every New Yorker, and to all those who believed in what I tried to stand for, I sincerely apologize.

I look at my time as governor with a sense of what might have been, but I also know that as a public servant I, and the remarkable people with whom I worked, have accomplished a great deal. There is much more to be done, and I cannot allow my private failings to disrupt the people's work. Over the course of my public life, I have insisted, I believe correctly, that people, regardless of their position or power, take responsibility for their conduct. I can and will ask no less of myself. For this reason, I am resigning from the office of governor. At Lt. Gov. Paterson's request, the resignation will be effective Monday, March 17, a date that he believes will permit an orderly transition.

I go forward with the belief, as others have said, that as human beings, our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. As I leave public life, I will first do what I need to do to help and heal myself and my family. Then I will try once again, outside of politics, to serve the common good and to move toward the ideals and solutions which I believe can build a future of hope and opportunity for us and for our children. I hope all of New York will join my prayers for my friend, David Paterson, as he embarks on his new mission, and I thank the public once again for the privilege of service.

His speech does nothing to evoke sympathy from us, nothing to make us connect to a sense that he is ashamed, contrite, atoning, even as he feels remorse and has begun to atone. My sense is that his man needs more than ever to wrap himself in a cloak of nobility: "I will ask no more of myself.... " It just makes me angry that he should expect to leave the public stage raising his head high with a sense of mission and higher purpose. The bum. With his wife Silda looking a little more reduced with each day that she rises to stand at his side, this day with less makeup, eyes puffy from the ongoing ordeal for her. They say that she was encouraging him to the last not to relinquish office but to stay and ride it out -- who can know what goes on behind those closed doors, and it is not for us to know, but those swollen shadowed eyes say enough for me.

And of course it brings me back to my own time. And how there was never a sense of contrition that would have gone so far to make repair. And how he never could understand why I needed that. I wonder if he sees it in this speech by Spitzer, and could understand it now. I guess it shouldn't even matter now. So much water under the bridge.

And why did I not leave "the stage" in my own time?

Maybe that is why I still need the acknowledgement that never came. It is out of my own shame in staying, and how it diminished my own sense of myself, how I allowed that. And how I felt a need for some sort of recompense for that which never came.

The remorse I feel will always be with me.

Charlie came home from Madrid today

Shot out of bed about 2:00 am this morning, stirred by Charlie's dark apparition in the bedroom. He'd made it home without needing to call for a ride; I was still in my clothes just in case I had to wake up and drive. He'd returned from his spring break visit to buddy Jon in Madrid. The Delta ticket was Madrid to NY-JFK by 4:20, connecting to a 7:00pm flight to Logan. Seemed a shame to have all that time to just hang out, but when D and I talked about it, well, waiting for checked bag, clearing customs, any delays-- just as well to have plenty of time and reduce the anxiety.

We'd left him cell messages to call when he landed in the USA so we could work out the logistics of picking him up. By the time he checked in about 6pm, he was plenty fatigued and annoyed. They'd landed on schedule, but couldn't get out cuz another jet blocked their gate. Then the baggage compartment was blocked so they had to wait even longer for their luggage to come through. After he'd finally collected gear and checked in for his last lap home, learned that there were delaycs for the flight to Boston. Well, we'd all be patient, he'd call just before boarding for takeoff.

It was a little after 9:00 pm when he called in a complete frazzle -- after a number of delay announcements, they'd just announce cancellation of the flight, with no apparent prospects of a substitute til morning. Charlie was raving. He needed to get back to class on Monday, so he asked me to see if there was something else. Quick on-line search, no other flights open, nor Amtrak, but the bus! -- the notorious Fung Wah was sold out all day except for their last 11pm run to Boston -- so we booked the $15 ticket on line, and Charlie bolted for a cab to the Bowery for the station. He managed to hop the 10pm bus that was just leaving, so we expected he'd be in South Station by 2am.

But when he appeared in the bedroom, he was undone with distress. In his fatigued haze, in the frenzy to get home, he'd forgotten that he'd checked his duffel bag with all his necessary possessions and hadn't gotten it back. And he'd thrown away the folder with the ticket claim number on it. D assured him there would be no problem, that the bag would be shuttled on to Boston and we'd get it somehow, but Charlie was just a mess about it: "All my clothes! My school stuff! Everything."

I was awake so I came down to start the process. Threw in the clothes he was wearing, his only clothes, so he'd have something clean for the next day. Fed him spaghetti and meatballs with a sleeping pill chaser to get him to settle down for a snooze. Got the luggage department phone number, hung on until I got a human -- and the good news was that the bag was in the system and being sent to Logan first thing in the morning. But a call first thing when the office opened revealed more flight delays -- counseled to try again after 11am.

Well, lots of waiting around in phone hell line, but by 11:30 we got the word that the bag was there. Woke up Charlie still sleeping on the sofa, zoomed to Logan, and he was able to claim his bag no problem. By now he was pretty late for school though. Came back to Cambridge, he pulled out what he needed for the day, left the laundry that desperately needed doing. Reeked of sour sweat and cigarettes. But it will all get done, and delivered out to Worcester probably tomorrow.

And that pillow will feel awfully good tonight.