The Fourth

Such a depressing week. Nationally, locally, momishly. Gun policy has got to change. Americans are so pigheaded about their "rights." What about the right to life? I like the New Yorker reporter I heard on the radio who said, bring a gun into your home to protect your family, and the likelihood of someone in your family being shot rises dramatically. By that very same gun you bought to protect them.

Mom's friend Dar died Friday, and it is really sad. She was 75, chipper, lively, in pretty good health. To look at them, you would've thought she would outlive Mom. She and Mom were buddies in Cranberry, until Mom declined and couldn't keep up. Still, they exercised often together. Dar had a stroke a week ago, lingered in hospice, incoherent, for a few days, until it was over. Her obit is here.

So I went in yesterday and we worked out a card, and I'll send flowers to the church. Mom  understood it and was clear-eyed, but then last night she told Uncle M on the phone that somebody had died, maybe her daughter. I straightened it out.

At church today she just could not follow the liturgy or sing the songs. She repeatedly dropped her bulletin, and looked so tired I asked her if she wanted to leave. She said no, then immediately fell asleep, slumped over in her chair, and I took her out.

Up in her room, she said, "How do they make this movie?"

"What movie?"

"This movie."

I put in her bed and she slept.

From the room across the hall, I could hear the ear-splitting shrieks of B -- she has frequent episodes  -- but when I left she was at the corner sitting calmly in her chair, her hair freshly washed.

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We had a Black Lives Matter protest in Wauwatosa Friday. A guy sleeping in his car in a park -- he had a gun in his lap -- was shot dead by one of Wauwatosa's finest.

Here's a little taste of the protest: