Uncle Al's Trip to the Supermarket

Yesterday was a cold winter day up here in Massachusetts. It was a sunny day so I went to the home and picked up Uncle Al. I had told him that he can spend every nice day here at my house.

It's good for my mother to be able to take care of her brother. It's actually giving my mom a purpose in life, to help her brother.

My mom knows that if I take care of Uncle Al he will feel better and may regain some of his independence. Seriously, showering my Uncle was a trip and if I can help him to take his own shower and wipe his own duppa then AMEN, my work is done.

I know how I helped my mother when she was in a similar state that Uncle Al is in.

We moved. She couldn't drive her car any longer because she couldn't find her way home, not even with a navigation system. In the middle of the night she'd scream about people outside and in the trees. She saw little kids running through her room and worried about someone stealing her purse.

The deterioration of the mind is so sad.

Fortunately, I learned from Marilyn Diamond and Dr. Donald Schnell that the key to good health, regardless of your age is through proper nutrition, exercise and meditation. This is how I helped my mom, but that's a story in itself, now I am going to document Uncle Al's health progress.

I have been feeding Uncle Al bright colored foods for the last few days, all colors of the rainbow in order to bring life into his tired body. He's been eating baked haddock Parmesan and my chicken soup. Salad wraps too. I have been feeding him 2 meals a day, lunch and dinner and sending him home with healthy snacks for the days that I can't be there to bring him home with me.

He seems to be getting better. He was pretty depressed when I found him a couple of months ago, tired and beaten in so many ways. He gave up hope.

Uncle Al prayed to Mother Mary, he loves the Blessed Virgin with all of his heart. He thought she wasn't listening. Then, we all showed up.

My mother had a bad feeling, she kept telling me that she had to go see her brother.

Way to go Ma.

I had to fight a bit to get permission to take Uncle Al out of the nursing home for the day. Instead, I had to visit him at the home if I wanted to see him. During my visits, I started to re-teach him about meditation. After all, he was the guy who was into TM back when I was at an impressionable age of 8ish. Thanks to Uncle Al and my dad, I got into meditation when I was a little kid.

My idea is to have him use meditation to strengthen his brain and be able to find peace when everything around him is chaos. I also know that because he meditated 40+ years ago, it's an old memory that he can easily recall.

Every day that Uncle Al comes to visit, we practice some form of meditation.

Yesterday, thanks again to my mother, we ventured to the supermarket with Uncle Al in tow. My mother thought it would be a good place for him to walk around since that's what I used to do with her when she wasn't feeling the greatest.

We had Uncle Al push the cart and we walked up and down the aisles for a half hour. We did stop and rest, Uncle Al and I stopped... my mom? She had her little running shoes on and was zipping up and down the aisles finding the items that I told her we were there to buy.

Uncle Al was exhausted when I brought him back to the nursing home. I left him off with a nice hot bowl of my chicken soup and a bag of healthy snacks for today when I wouldn't be seeing him.

Uncle Al stood tall walking and pushing the cart. He felt human. It was so touching, especially when he said, "You know, I almost feel good enough to buy another car!"