Back to the Schmidts

Nineteen days ago—at least, as measured by blog time (the dates printed on these entries)—I wrapped up my visit to the Schmidts by writing, "we agreed that we would touch base with each other to see if it made sense for me to come back again. It's still going to be a lot of work for Schmidt."

Well yeah, no shit. "A lot of work" is putting it mildly. And Schmidt still had a job he was trying to get out, for a client who was mad that it was so long overdue. But he couldn't very well be up in the barn (er, … "shop") hand-crafting an elegant chandelier when he was also down in Ma's house looking after her. So once I had submitted my taxes and paid my bills, he agreed that he could really use some more help. On April 3, I drove back to their farm.

I ended up staying just over two weeks. I will report how the days went and what things I thought about, day by day as if they were happening in real time. Some of this is based on emails I sent to Marie, and some on notes I kept at the time. But if I wrote an email on April 4 (for example), or made a note on that day, I'll post it under April 4. This is the same way I posted about my trips to Scotland or Paris, back in 2023. In any event, the listed date represents when the events in question actually happened, and not the day my fingers tapped them out on the keyboard.

(For example, I am typing these words on the evening of Saturday, April 26, more than three weeks after the date I'm giving them here.)

Anyway, "today"—by which I mean April 3—I drove back to their farm. It's an all-day drive from my place. When I arrived, I asked Schmidt how Ma had changed in the last few weeks. He said she was frailer, and I guess so but it's only incremental. She now needs his help to wipe herself after going to the bathroom, for example. 

And we pick up the story from there.