2/22/2026

Sunday, February 22, 2026

D+107 

1300 Pope Boniface VIII issued a papal bull (decree) instating a Jubilee Year, granting forgiveness of sins and debts for those who fulfill various conditions

2014 Viktor Yanukovych was ousted as President of Ukraine by the parliament following the Euromaidan revolution

2021 US death toll from COVID-19 passed 500,000, higher than US deaths in World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War combined. 

In bed at 8:45, up at 5:50.  22/4/26/19.

Morning meds and  First day of half-dose Bisoprolol heart med at 10 a.m.

Last year on this date, I wrote:

The Habit of Writing.  While reading an old (2.26.2017) New Yorker article about Elizabeth Bishop's life, actually a then-new biography by Megan Marshall, “Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast,” I thought about how long I've been in the habit of writing.  For years after I reconciled with my father in 1995, I wrote him a letter every day.  I suppose I was trying to make up for lost time, but in any case, I didn't call him every day, or even frequently, but rather I wrote to him.  That practice stopped at some point before he came to live with us outside of Saukville in 2003 (?), but it continued for a long time.  Perhaps it was part of what made it possible for him to accept our invitation to live with us; the letters gave him a pretty good idea of our lives, what we did and didn't do, who our friends were, etc.  I don't remember when Kitty and I started having our daily early morning conversations by text messages (2013? 2014?) but those exchanges also involved daily writing down my experiences, thoughts, fears, concerns, etc,, ofter at some length, and we never missed starting each day with those written conversations every morning.  I even continued texting her after she died on March 3, 2022, knowing she was gone but being so habituated to starting each day by writing her that I continued.  I suppose it was that experience of starting each day tapping on the keyboard of my laptop that led me on July 29th or 30th of that year to pull up my old Blogspot blog and type "Am I still here?" and to discover that my blog still existed and provided a place write some thoughts each morning.  Two and a half years later, I'm still writing every morning, sometimes sensibly, sometimes not.

One Art by Elizabeth Bishop  1911 –1979

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident

the art of losing’s not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

 

I concluded the thoughts about my writing habit by copying Elizabeth Bishop's great poem, which reminded me of how bereft I was after Kitty's death.  On reflection, I also felt some of that when my Dad died.  The two of them were my connection with my origin, my connection with my mother, with our lives on Emerald Avenue, our lives after the Big War, where I came from and who I became, who I was and am.  I needed connection with each of them , with both of them, and was graced to have it with my Dad for the last 11 years of his life,  and with Kitty until she died three years ago, on March 3, 2026.  We were each other's best friend and  daily communicant, not in the Catholic sacramental sense, but perhaps in that sense too, sharing deep and abiding love and imparting Grace of that love to each other.  Deo gratias. 

Bits and snatches of The Last Sweet Mile:

Gathering: . . .  everyone seemed conscious of the gift it was to be with those people in that place at that moment. 

Song:  Somewhere he learned a saying that he often quoted:  "One does not learn of Christ or read the Bible for information but for transformation.

The latter bit reminded me of the lunch I had with my dear and saintly friend Vicki Conti, when she was working at the Medical College of Wisconsin.  In the course of the lunch, I got to grousing about the irrationality of some bit of Christianity, which Vicki listened to patiently, wisely, and to which she responded: "It's not a head thing, Chuck, it's a heart thing." 

What I'm learning from congestive heart failure:  how much salt adds to the taste of so many foods, and what the word "bland" means.

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