It’s been almost six months since I last wrote here on the website. I’d not intended to wait this long to get back to writing, but life intervened; old age got in the way. My husband, Bill, and I have both entered Late Old Age according to those who determine such things. We are both over eighty-five. Bill is now in his nineties; I still have a few years before I reach that milestone. We had both been remarkably healthy. Then in late September, Bill’s body became a problem. We suddenly had to learn how to be old. We became familiar with the emergency room at the hospital; we learned about Home Health; we made changes to our living situation here in the house. Bill is much better now. He is still Bill, still mentally active and working hard to be as physically active as possible. But the reality is that he is working with a very old body. That is a fact of life that has to be accepted. The culmination of this stage of life is death. That is our final challenge. We’ve accepted that.

Late Old Age is my reality now, but it is not the only thing–nor even the main thing that occupies my mind. There is still a world outside this house, a world that engages my attention, a world about which I am deeply concerned. I need to write about that world. I can’t just keep my thoughts confined to my private journal. My brain is still active, very active, and I want to keep it that way. I will not take up those concerns now. Those are for future posts. One post a month, that is my goal. This is enough for now.

Loretta