Thanks for sharing this, Stanley!

Speaking of optimism, in the late 1940s we had a monthly magazine called "Optimist" ("a magazine for happy people"):



I believe this magazine ran out of readers after a few months. Dutch people have never been great optimists.

I am happy, because I am now going through, what I consider, to be a very fine Beethoven cycle by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Lovely. Also, my son, Carl, who mis 21, showed me how to operate my new ipod!! Nice!!

That's what external hard-drives are for...
I had to buy a second one so that I could have one purely dedicated to my iTunes files.

In one sense this is not very happy, but it makes me glad.

There was a woman at my church who was very supportive about ten years ago, when I was having an operation.  I went round to see her the morning of going into hospital, and I remember us embracing so warmly when I left.  She was born and brought up in the East End and had no higher eduction. 

In the last few years, her memory has completely gone.

I went round to see her today.  She smiled when she saw me, but did not seem to know my name.  Her son and I took her for a walk and a cup of tea in the park.  Her son held one hand and she put out her other hand and held mine.

I must go and see her again.  There is nothing to talk to her about, but perhaps just being there will help.  I hope I supported her son today.

You did a wonderful thing DB. Ive nursed a lot of people like that woman. U nfortunately, now I can see that happening to one of my aunts, who is in the early stages. She may recognise you but not your name. The best bet is to go when her son does. Might be easier for all concerned. Giving you support, her son and that woman as well. Well done DB.

Thank you.  I am not that saintly. I used to visit her about once a year - and she only lives about 15 minutes away.  About a three years I went and although we could talk, she kept asking the same questions.  She said nobody came to see her from the church, which I now know is not true.  Her short term memory was going.  As a result I was reluctant to visit her again.

It would have been good if I had visited her more often when she was compos.

As  a result of a Lent group in which we were asked to do something for someone else, I plucked up my courage and overcame my pride and laziness and went to see her.  Her mind had quite gone.  I meant to go every week or so since, and have always put it off.  I phoned up on spec yesterday and got her son, and went round.

He told me that in a recent parish magazine there had been a special article about her.  She was a pillar of that church not through being bossy - she was always very modest and self-effacing - but through her faithfulness and prayer.

hh - no I am not feeling guilty.  But I should have visited her more often.  It is not unhealthy guilt on my part to recognise that.


But I have done something positive which makes me feel happy.  Hetty's dementia could be profoundly depressing, and it probably is for her children at times.  But somehow I felt glad that I had done something loving.

I am not sure about Acts (which concentrates depressingly on missionary work) but I'd like to think that by God's grace I have been on holy ground.

I hope your encouragement will make me sure to visit her again soon.

I put her name in Google and I only got two replies (isn't there a game in which you try to get as few hits as possible.)

One of them was for the parish magazine article I mentioned.  She never told me that she was in church one day, and a gentleman came in and asked to be shown round.  She obliged and afterwards learnt it was John Betjeman.  She's the sort who would never tell about that.

What the article doesn't mention is her passion for prayer.  It was almost certainly her influence that lead to that parish having two silent retreats every year, and she was always there.