Dear Readers,

How the time flies when you're 83, and you're a live-in caregiver in cow country…

Yeah.

I had meant to crank out another chapter shortly after wrapping up Chapter 34 this past June, but life intervened.

Well, to be perfectly honest, there was some sloth in there, too. And lotsa naps. Also some wonderment about how things might turn out, around the world (The Big Picture). I am intensely curious, and I think my need to know will propel me to my 100th birthday (in 2038), at a place to be determined by events.

Chapter 34 was a pep talk for caregivers, pure and simple. I made the simple point that you caregivers make a difference — just by jumping in. You light up someone's life. And that someone is very, very grateful.

I know my sister is — when she isn't scolding me for leaving cupboard doors open in the kitchen, or for stepping out of the house — looking like a bum — to go grocery shopping!

I probably will never win that coveted “Best Caregiver” award, if there is one. Especially, if Robin, long known as “Rawbaw,” sits on the board that determines who gets one.

But I will still take great satisfaction from enabling her to live in her own home with her beloved bow-wow and to compete with me to see who outlives whom.

You might say this new chapter from my disorganized mind is about my ability to sometimes excel despite many imperfections. Old guy makes good. Something like that.

I have realized, after caring for my late wife, who lost her bout with cancer in late 2014, and now coping with a very fussy younger sister in a wheelchair, that I have a certain calling for this gig. (I tell Rawbaw that my shortcomings are part of my charm, and she may be buying into that.)

I wash a mean dish. I walk Rawbaw's funky dawg at the dog park. I cook a bit (when not ordering meals from Dong Po or Glass Nickel Pizza). I tell a good joke. Sometimes I am a good joke. And I am walking proof that laughter is the best medicine. Rawbaw says I am gross, but she so often cackles at my grossness, she encourages me to make no major changes.

What exactly is happening here, in this tiny socio-dynamic of two people and her/his/their dog?

Well, I think we are all cutting each other a lot of slack, and this allows us to move fairly smoothly — as a somewhat choreographed unit — down the often bumpy road of life.

Did you get all that?

It's pretty deep, and I just formulated it, myself:

Rawbaw forgives me for my simplicity.

I forgive her for her complexity.

And Doggie Brooke, a rescued dog (who was once surviving on a diet of rabbits in the northwest Kentucky countryside) is just happy to have a home — and also happens to be the most understanding — and funniest — canine in the world.

We all caught some breaks, and we all know it.

Rawbaw is doing a good job of dealing with my diamond-in-the-rough personality.

I am coping fairly well with her dementia (and I will probably devote all of Chapter 36 to that).

And Doggie Brooke will continue to serve her human family as court jester, chaplain, and morale officer.

See you out here again, sooner than later. I've got some really interesting stuff about dementia, including a theory (mine, of course) that it's contagious.

— Michael E. Hearons, Appleton, Wisconsin, U.S.A.