Talking with Friends

Earlier this week, friends of ours from Virginia stayed with me for several days.  It was wonderful spending time with them—lovely, easy and stimulating.  We talked about everything, as friends do, including Ed.  We reminisced about the time Ed made his fourth hole-in-one and how I held a surprise party for him and gave everyone a baseball cap with FOA embroidered on the back.  FOA stood for Friend of Ace; Ed had first been called Ace when he was a young pilot in the Naval Air Force.  Our friends still have, and wear, their caps.   

We looked through their copy of I Still Do together—laughing at some images and choking up over others.

I dropped Ed’s name into conversations; we talked about him as he was then and we talked about him as he is now.  We talked about Alzheimer’s.  And we talked about their recent travels,  their family and mine, our mutual friends, food, world affairs—the usual range of subjects.

I’m grateful for good friends—and I’m glad that Alzheimer’s no longer lives in our closet.   Alzheimer’s should be part of our conversations and something we can discuss freely with friends.  I remember the dark old days when I couldn’t talk about it;  it wasn’t very long ago.