When I was young, we used to visit my mom's grandparents several times a year. They lived right across town, then later within a mile of us, but life was busy and they became shut ins and . . .

One thing we three kids thought was cool was how Great Grandma would bring out cookies for us, then bring them out later, then bring them out later again. We did not realize at the time that there was a reason she did that. That reason was called dementia. We just knew we liked cookies and that we got a lot of them at her house!

My great grandparents had four children. My grandfather was showing signs of dementia when he died of cancer; his sister lived within half a mile of us and she advanced pretty far into dementia before she died. That was during my Navy days.

My mom had two siblings. Her brother died early of kidney failure; both my mom and her sister had dementia (the sister more mildly because a heart attack took her life in her 60's).

Needless to say, I pray for a cure for dementia and watch myself closely for signs of it.

Everyone has a passion in life that can be a job, a hobby, or both. God has made us all different so those passions can be fascinating to discover in each other.

Mine is words (no surprise there, nor that I love to write as well as talk). I read incessantly and have seriously studied four other languages. What if I were to lose the ability to use words? Would that be the worst thing ever?

Even then God's hand would hold me. As my best friend says, "You might forget God, but He will not forget you."

I was thinking about our neighbor's cat, who hangs out on our porch in the afternoon because we have a western exposure to the sun (and because I give him cheese!). He does not have words at all except his name and "cheese" and a few others, yet he lies contentedly in God's good sunlight and takes a nap. He rubs happily against the porch railing as I pet him or if I have cheese in my hand. He sits in the twilight looking regally off into the distance as though all the wisdom of the world accumulated inside his head. And he doesn't even have words.

I cannot really relate to lilies of the field, but I think I can relate to cats of the field. God takes good care of Oliver. His world is filled with love, from his own family and from Noel, Joey, and me, whose porch he has adopted. If God so clothes this magnificent little fur ball with his lovely (shedding) coat and the best personality I have ever seen in a cat, He will likewise take care of me. Even if I get dementia.