Handing Over the Reigns of Responsibility

"Oh, no!" called out my cousin, Julian.

"You're supposed to buy 12 pounds of half smokes," they called in unison.

"Twelve pounds? I don't remember that," I said. And so, we pulled out the committee report notes and there it was - 6 pounds hot dogs, 12 pounds half smokes. And so I bought 12 pounds of half smokes that day. Boy, I never knew buying hot dogs and half smokes could be so hard!

The last thing I had to do was to write the opening ceremonies. It took me hours and hours to write this small speech which would take me less than a half hour to deliver. The first problem I encountered was that I could not remember the entire Pledge of Allegiance, something that I had said every school day for at least 46 years.

Once at the picnic, I went over the opening ceremony papers with my daughter who was supposed to emcee for me this year. Unfortunately, her cough kept her from that job this year, so I had to do it once again. I went over the papers with her anyway, as I wanted her to get her feet wet. I must have gone over these opening ceremony papers three or four times before I realized I had brought only the first draft copy - not the final copy! Once again, my wonderfully understanding husband came to my rescue. I called him while he was still back at our house picking up the hotdogs, and he found my final copy sitting on my desk near my computer.

Whew!

Having dementia has sure added a different dimension to working on my family reunion! I can see that the time has come to let others take up more of the responsibility. Being somewhat of a control freak, this is hard. I feel like a failure. I feel like I am too young to be handing over the reigns this quickly. I feel like I still have too a lot to offer.

And, so, it is at this time that I need to do some deep soul searching. I am praying about it. I need to come to some decisions in the future. Decisions that I can be at peace with - which is not easy.