Since Kate’s diagnosis 6 years and 4 months ago, I have contemplated the future and what life would be like. At that point, I never imagined that we would be able to do and enjoy life so much. Today I am beginning to see more clearly that time when we won’t be able to do so much. In fact, that time is really upon us.
The first time I can recollect feeling that way was on our Caribbean cruise in January 2016. I had signed up for that cruise as a test to see how Kate would do before committing to a longer Mediterranean cruise in May of that year. I discovered that Kate did not seem to enjoy the cruise. As I recall, she didn’t attend but one night of the entertainment after dinner. That is something she has always enjoyed in the past. I think she also found it challenging to be with different people at dinner each night. Fortunately, she continued to get along well once we were home. I cancelled the Mediterranean cruise reservations.
Over the past six months or so, I have noticed, and expressed in this journal, that she seems to be getting less pleasure from movies than she did in the past. There have been notable exceptions. For example, she loved Hidden Figures that was about the team of African American women mathematicians working in the US space program. More recently, she has been getting less out of other types of performances. I was really disappointed when we had to walk out of Der Rosenkavalier starring Rene Fleming this past Saturday and another local theater performance a day later.
We are in Asheville to celebrate our 54th anniversary. I have kept our schedule to a minimum. We’ve only had tickets to one event each of the three days we are here. As I mentioned earlier, we ended up not attending a concert yesterday. It turns out that we have spent our time mostly in the hotel and eating several nice meals. Even that has been rewarding for me. I think it is clearly less rewarding for Kate. I have the feeling that she would be happier at home where she could work in the yard in addition to her iPad.
At this moment, she seems contented. About 15 minutes ago, she was getting tired of sitting in the lobby after breakfast working on her iPad. I asked if she would like to go back to the room. She said she would. As we approached the room, we saw that the maids were about to go in and clean up. We told them to go ahead. We came back to the lobby where we are sitting on a sofa. It is rather comfortable. We have reservations for lunch at 11:30. Following lunch, we are attending a chamber concert. Then we will come back to the hotel to pass more time before dinner this evening at a restaurant that is very near the hotel.
We leave for home in the morning. I would like to have lunch first and then go home. We’ll see what happens. It probably depends on how early Kate is up as well as how eager she is to be home. The last time we were here (September), we ended up going home after breakfast and eating lunch in Knoxville. I suspect that is what we will do this time.
We leave for Texas on Saturday. I hope that the travel this week does not cause added confusion while we are there.
