You haven't lived until...

Friends, you haven't lived until you've wiped your Mother's ass.

Yes, I'm being profane and reaching for dramatic effect to a point, but I also mean it. There are depths of great joy in one's life -- falling in love, the day your children are born, publishing your first article in the New York Times -- and depths of great sadness, and I'm in the latter.  And perhaps one needs to experience both to really live.  I thought, guiltily, about when Mom and Dad leave next week, if they are well enough to travel, that "Life can get back to normal."  But this is life. It's just my turn to get the whole Magilla.

I will post further when Mom and Dad have left, but right now am busy looking at nursing homes and taking Dad from one doctor to another.  His digestive problem has gotten far, far worse and we fear something serious.  When it rains...