My friends at the nursing home are having a bad time and of the two, only one truly knows it and she remains holding things together, hour after hour. I wonder if when you get so old, you somehow come to take things as they come, or if that is the way she has always been. I think I would be overwhelmed. The soon to be 96 -year-0ld gentleman is having a personality change – more confused, testy, not sleeping as much and getting somewhat hands-on in his frustration.

I was there yesterday, having been kept away on family business for a little over a week. I came with Planter’s Whole Cashews with sea salt, a new favorite of Kathryn’s and mine. In fact, I think I ate about a third of the last can she had. I sat beside her on the bed and she said, “I suppose you’ve heard about Iva . . ” Well, I hadn’t; I just don’t look at the local paper that much any more. Iva is her daughters mother-in-law and she died early this week. She was 91, a classy lady who dressed to the nines and just a few months ago was worrying about getting to the License Bureau in time to renew hers.

Well, that is the course of life, parents dying before children.

However, Kathryn’s daughter and her husband have another matter: Their daughter who was diagnosed with leukemia when she was nine – about three decades ago – and went through chemotherapy that left deficits, two bouts of breast cancer and a scare a couple of years ago with lumps in her salivary glands . . . found a new lump in some remaining breast tissue. The doctor came in and told them it was cancer again, They are worried that it has spread.

And Kathryn is there in the nursing home, dealing with all this alone – going about the minutes of the day. I don’t know how she does it. She has to shout into the ear of her husband and . . . he thinks it is his sister who has died. They have weathered so  much together, but now the storm is all around just her, rather than them.  He is part of the storm.

I told her I will try to come every other day, even  if I can manage at times only 15 minutes or so. She tells me: “Oh, that is so much driving for you.” Actually, it is a gift to me to be able to be in the presence of  her strength and grace. I am humbled by her bearing.