Passing Thoughts

As I awakened this morning, I was hit with the feeling of concern, “What do I write about today and what do I share with my friends?” Sometimes thoughts or recollections swiftly rise and flow into meaningful and entertaining articles. I’ve been writing and sharing since 2013. I began posting every day. That became too heavy a burden and shared on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It gave my brain a chance to remember something or an event to happen in my rather routine life. Always at the back of my mind was the thought of Alzheimer’s disease. My mother Sybil Miner Beck, her five sisters, and several cousins have fallen prey to this insidious malady. That is why I write. I want my family will be able to pass on those memories, even if I am unable.

I watched my grandfather Raymond Miner as gray a fog slowly assaulted him. His disease was dementia. He struggled all his life to provide for his wife Rebecca Rugg Miner and his eight children; laboring on his farm during the day and working in a coal mine at night. Even as dementia claimed his mind, his desire to care for his animals would often appear. Grandma would have to keep a close watch on his wanderings.

I think the history of their loss of remembrances causes me to struggle with trying to dredge as much as I can from my memories before the windows of my brain’s bank vault closes and says, “Insufficient funds.” There are times when so many things roll unimpeded through my brain as I decide whether to climb out of bed. Words flow like an Artesian well, bubbling out in a seeming unending flow, but it’s too early, I roll over for a bit more sleep. Sometimes it caps the well and the flow disappears.

Thoughts of smells and aromas pushed forward this morning, not that smells from my past are so important, but that they still exist as part of my memories full package. They just wait to be dragged to the surface. The reason may be that all evening as I tried to settle down to sleep, I smelled something. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was persistent. I wandered through my house sniffing here and there without finding the source. Now I face a dilemma. Is it a real odor or is it a phantom smell? Since my fall on the ice in 2015 causing bleeds in my brain, I have phantom smells. It’s strange. I want to keep the memories of past intact with their aromas attached, but I don’t want them corrupted with false smells. SIGH