The last of the shopping is done....so glad. What do you buy for someone who has everything he wants and doesn't want anything??? It's hard... It's for my father-in-law; I hope he likes it. He's the only one in the family who gets a present....and he rakes it in!!! It's so great to watch him! He's like a kid in a candy store! I say he doesn't 'want anything' because that's what he tells everyone....but he'd be crushed if we didn't all (35 of us) find something for him! LOL

Yesterday I went to visit the Convent I used to work in. I was really close to one of the 'younger' Sisters...she's probably late 70's now. We were so close; she's been to my home so many times, I'd take her out to eat and for ice cream, to swim, for drives, etc. and just spend time with her. Yesterday she didn't know me at all. Couldn't even remember me and looked right through me. She told me the same things over and over so many times about all of her brothers and sisters. Of course, I already knew it, because I know them. They didn't tell me that she'd been diagnosed with Alzheimer's earlier this fall. I just saw her in the summer and she didn't seem like this.

I didn't cry in front of her, but I was so totally shocked. I couldn't believe that she didn't remember me. She kept calling me "Sr. Hipchick".....and even told the Superior that I was "Sr. Hipchick" (she knows me, too, and played along)....I just sat in my car and cried for a long time because I never thought it would be her in a million years.

What an ugly beast this thing is. It really makes me angry; I was angry with my disease but Alzheimer's really stinks big time. And I wish that I still ran the Infirmary at the Convent so that I could be the one taking care of her. I know that they're impatient with the ones who get like that because so many of the 12 Sisters that I took care of had Alzheimer's and, oddly enough, I could relate to that. So what does that say about my brain??? Maybe I'm the one who has something wrong!

I guess I'm just a bit surprised by it all...saddened by it all. Maybe that will be my mission for next year.....to take her under my wing and spend as much time as I can with her.