I’ll count it as a blessing that one gift of caregiving is seeing life with clearer perspective.

“It’s easy to stay in denial,” I admitted to him with quivering voice when he gave us the test results that day. And it’s still easy. Even easier, I’m deciding, to be in denial about being in denial.

Not only do most Americans worship success, but they are also haunted by failure. What does this mean for the caregiver when his world is reduced to helping someone survive?

If a picture can be worth a thousand words, maybe several pictures can take the place of the 750 or so I write here every Wednesday. Snapshots from a summer visit here . . .

Along with the tears have come several smiles. Even living with Alzheimer’s, I’m learning to nurture a sense of humor.

I never would have imagined the unparalleled rugged splendor comprising this corner of the Canadian Rockies. And I never would have planned to see it without Evelyn.

For the sake of memory, I want to share here a couple of the unbidden tributes to Evelyn that have come from readers of this blog.

“There’s no future in going down the ‘if-only’ rabbit hole,” she told me. And now, years later, I’m coming to understand what good advice that was.

Amid all the hubbub about abortion in the national conversation today, I’ve made a decision about myself and several others I know. Caregivers are pro-life.

As I’ve taken up the duties my wife handled without fanfare, I’m almost overwhelmed with how much I took for granted.

“I want to go see my parents,” she says, and I grieve a little, because the home she’s seeking just is not there.

How do you pray when you’re caring for someone with a progressive, debilitating disease? How do you pray for someone else facing a diagnosis that offers little hope? And, really, why pray at all?

No one wants to be less-than. No one wants to need help. But I’m learning that’s a mindset I just need to put behind me.

Report on a wonderful weekend: I’m learning to celebrate the glad while not denying the sad.

For many dozens of weeks, I’ve been forming new habits, taking over new responsibilities, and adding more and more items to my subconscious “don’t forget” list. And today I don’t completely remember what it was like before my current state of constant on-call.

I need slowly (or maybe not so slowly) to come to terms with the realization that caregiving is now my primary duty, not something added on or just accommodated.

When I wrote that “How’s your wife doing?” may not be the most helpful question to ask, I evidently touched a nerve.

Happy birthday? I’m not unhappy, but as I celebrate today I’ll focus on a more substantive emotion.

We want to associate “joy” with “happiness,” but anyone coping with loss longs for something deeper. And this joy, when we find it, sometimes comes with pain.

Any of us might seek a calling to something grand and important. But I’ve decided my calling today is the person right in front of me.