No, this is not my last blogpost (at least I think not.) It is just a poem I found touching and I am touched that my son found it touching. I am not afraid that any of my children will desert me when I am “sad and sick and lost.”

Do not ask me to remember,
Don’t try to make me understand,
Let me rest and know you’re with me,
Kiss my cheek and hold my hand.

I’m confused beyond your concept,
I am sad and sick and lost,
All I know is that I need you
To be with me at all cost.

Do not lose your patience with me,
Do not scold or curse or cry,
I can’t help the way I’m acting,
Can’t be different though I try.

Just remember that I need you,
That the best of me is gone,
Please don’t fail to stand beside me,
Love me till my life is done.

Author unknown
Alzheimer’s Associatio

A few years ago I wrote a post on the book IRIS telling about living with and caring for a brilliant woman as Alzheimer’s began and  progressed to helplessness.  More recently the movie STILL ALICE depicts another woman who actually told her unbelieving husband that she had developed early Alzheimer’s and beautifully shows the struggle to come to terms with the diagnosis.  Available on DVD; recommended.

In the olden days, before people were so busy being entertained that they had no time to think, there was a sin called “covetousness.” Covetousness? Who knows what that means anymore? It has nothing to do with need and everything to do with want. We seem no longer to have the concept of enough.

We have to have an iPad, a smart phone, and a computer, all online at lightning speed. A cashmere sweater will not suffice; we need one in every color, with shoes to match.

Covetousness is intimate with the other capital sins, like pride. For some strange reason we are proud to have the best and the most. We are envious of those who have more and never content with all we need. Our palate is always seeking new taste sensations because we are surfeited by the abundance at the table which does not satisfy because we never sit down really hungry.

We grab and grasp and buy and accumulate with nary a care that we have too much and the other guy has too little! Isn’t it time to look at some of those old sins and see if they are at home in us?

Lord, have mercy on us. Help us once again to look inward and learn the meaning of sin, to look outward and learn the meaning of love.