Since discussions of ugly words like "metastases" and "radiation oncologists" had kept me a bit later at Mom and Dad's than I'd originally expected, I arrived at Colter's apartment late enough that it was pointless to consider attempting to go out for dinner.

Given that, we reverted back to the old college standbys: pizza and beer. Except that these days, our pocketbooks finally allow us to indulge our slightly esoteric tastes; the beer wasn't American and the pizza didn't have a drop of tomato sauce on it. We ate it, piled up on the couch in his living room, watching Robin Williams and talking about music.

In other words, normal life.

Haven't had much of that lately.

For days like these, victories get measured in the smallest of things. Today's victory was realizing that Dad could take an eight-dollar kitchen gadget and use it to make his life a bit more bearable. The random gadget: a digital timer.

Why, you ask?

I'm going to sit here quietly and just stare at the computer screen. Mom and Dad are…well, it might be an argument if Dad was capable of keeping a train of thought going for more than a couple of minutes.

Sometimes morphine is a bit of a blessing.

Dad has gotten a bit of a wild hair this morning, insisting that he and mom should go downstate today or tomorrow to visit his brother, who is a CPA and always does Mom and Dad's taxes for them. Mom is resisting—rightly, I think; Dad can't stay awake for more than a couple of hours at a time, and really doesn't have the strength to make such a trip.We've taken turns on things the past few days, Mom and I have. Fixing breakfast for Dad, bringing him drinks when he's thirsty, helping him get to the back porch so he can take in a bit of sunshine and fresh air.

Those are the easy ones.

Yet another recipe from Heather that's been sitting in my inbox for ages and ages, waiting to see the light of day from a post.

I wonder if I just come out and say it, will it make it any easier? My sister called me this evening, not ten minutes before we were supposed to leave for Sean's birthday party.

(Recent lesson, well learned: no call whose caller ID number starts with "501" is a call that brings good news. If a family member has something to say that can't wait until one of my regular calls, it can't be good news.)Today's was the news that Dad did not recognize my sister or my nephew—his grandchild.

My father adores that red-headed grandson of his, and has since the moment he was born. Today he asked my mother who the boy was.

When my sister told me, I cried. Then dried my eyes and went to Sean's birthday party. Because some things have to be done, and friends cannot be walked away from, birthdays left uncelebrated. I cried on the way home. I went to the bathroom and shook out two aspirins for my rapidly-worsening tension headache and just…squalled.

It is a matter of time, they say—yours and mine, and someone else's who doesn't even realize it at the moment.

I have been in Arkansas since early Sunday morning. How early, exactly? I don't remember; I don't remember when I crossed the Mississippi River, but I do remember that I was sobbing when I did.

We spent Saturday in Nashville with Dan, who was in from Michigan to help the UMich lacrosse team out (he videotapes their games). We spent an absolutely wonderful day there with him, and drove back in the early evening.

Jeff, Dan, Amy
by domesticat.
Flickr Flickr Flickr Flickr

Visitation is over, at last. Call me selfish, but I'm glad it's over.

We've had a houseful of visitors today, and—in the great Southern tradition—they all brought food. The fridge is full to bursting, and we have drinks and paper plates and sandwiches to spare.

To quote my brother-in-law: "Don't eat that cherry pie."

"Not good?"

"Nah. I'll eat it. Wouldn't want y'all to get sick or anything."

Last I checked, Carl had eaten about three generous slices of pie so far. There's one piece left, and I fully expect that Carl will come over and polish it off with lunch.

We had a bit of a fracas today when we learned that at least one of the local florists told their customers that Dad's visitation was from 6-8 p.m. today instead of the 7-9 p.m. that it actually was. In order to prevent any hurt feelings, Jeff and I were at the funeral home just before 6 so that the people arriving early would see at least one member of Dad's family.

They knew me as the night shift for my family; the nocturnal daughter who stayed up at night in order to force her mother to get a few hours of sleep.

This was the tenth floor, the top floor, the no-man's-land. The cancer ward. Oncology, for those who knew the term. Well-hidden above such popular destinations such as the maternity and intensive-care floors, it was not a floor one journeyed to randomly.Even during the daytime, it was quiet. On most of the floors of the hospital, rooms marked "Oxygen In Use" were the exception. Here, they were the rule.

Those people journeying up to the tenth floor were more likely to talk to each other, more likely to be carrying suitcases. One, a careworn blond woman toting an overnight bag, gave me a compassionate look and asked, "Who are you here for?"

"My father. You?"

"My mother. Will he go home?" she asked quietly.

"No. Will your mother?"

"I don't think so." She looked down.

While we were at the hospital, Mom asked me why I volunteered to turn my days and nights around so that I could stay up with Dad during the night. It was hard to explain why, exactly, but it had something to do with contrary nature and my need for solitude. When I tried to explain this to Mom, I think it all came out wrong, but I eventually managed to maneuver my words into the direction they needed to go: "It's not that I don't want to see the friends and family that come to see Dad during the day. It's that I just do better when it's just Dad and me."

Her "I don't understand but I'll take that weird answer and run with it" shrug told me all I needed to know. I've never claimed to be anything but the oddball of the family. Not a black sheep, but perhaps a grey sheep. Or a paisley sheep. Not rebellious; just different.

This one's pretty simple, actually; much simpler than most restaurants would like you to think that it is. The key element for this recipe is, yes, time. Plenty of it. From my point of view, there's simply no way around it. This recipe won't thicken properly if the beans haven't had time to cook down and release starch molecules in the water, and cooking down beans just takes time.