I asked Missy today, “What will you do when I am gone?” I asked her this while she was giving me my morning bath. I love my morning baths. She is so gentle with my brittle old body, rubbing lotion on and powdering me with my favorite smells when we are done, and a spray of my favorite perfume. I am so much a part of her life now, she is with me 24 hours a day. I can not imagine how she will handle my death. I was with my husband 24 hours a day before he died, but that was just for 6 weeks. Missy has been with me now for almost 2 years, with no break, every day she has taken care of me, she even sleeps with me now because I get up every hour during the night. “How will you spend all your free time?”

I asked her, “Will you know how to sleep all night anymore? Do you think Mike will let you sleep in his bed again? Just think you will probably be able to eat a meal without me interrupting you and asking you to take me to the restroom. Will you go on a lot of trips and go shopping everyday? Read more…

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In my day, we didn’t waste our money on electric blankets or heating pads, no sir. We used the hot water bottle for everything. My momma filled it with boiling water and wrapped it in a towel to put in the bed before she gave me a bath. When I got between the covers, the sheets were toasty warm. In those days, the hot water bottle eased aching muscles and tummy aches and my momma used it on our boils and abscesses to get them to pop. And you know what else she did? She wrapped it in a towel and put it on her head when we gave her a headache, which was just about everyday.

And she even used it for that most hateful, horrible procedure…the enema. Back then, everyone believed you must have a bowl movement everyday, but nice children didn’t call it that. They called it number two. My momma didn’t want us to advertise our functions to the whole world, so she told us to call it number four.  We foured, the dog foured and if we didn’t like someone, we’d say “He’s full of four!” Every morning we would report our condition to our mother and if our answer was no, the next thing we knew we were lying on our bellies in the bathroom floor and she was administering warm soapy water from the hot water bottle into our posteriors. Read more…