TIME’S WITNESS – continued

More about time and JoAnne..

Above is one of the information boards that was part of the memorial. The upper left photo shows Jo holding Phaedra and Gabrielle waving back at me in the first months we lived at Magnolia House in 1972. JoAnne used to take the kids out to the International House of Pancakes for breakfast on some Saturday mornings giving Bob and me some private time together, very rare in those days and a gift to us.

Other glimpses left to right – Jo with Ward unknown Thanksgiving, JoAnne toasting something or someone in 2003, and a family photo in the back garden at Magnolia House, also know as “226” used as a Christmas card. The lower row from the left shows JoAnne and Gabrielle in Ireland, Jo as part of the family photo taken in Kauai in 2008, Jo at the Christmas tree farm in Petaluma in 2012, and the far right taken in 2014 on her birthday after lunch at Cavallo Point. The final two photos show her increasing difficulty walking. What it does not show is her problems with cognition.

Time was not kind to Jo. Diagnosed with cognitive impairment in 2001 after a work up by the Memory Institute at UCSF, she also suffered with physical difficulties with heart, had her thyroid removed because of ill effects of her atrial fibrillation medication, liver (possible related to recurring jaundice when she was a girl), kidney, and severe arthritis. Her medications for depression and anxiety were increased, changed and near the end of her life reduced – but in all she was taking 16 medications each day with added antibiotics caused by frequent bladder infections. In her last hospitalization she had one of the super-bugs she had had in her last two hospitalizations.

Shown here with her younger brother Joe and her older sister Dorothy in 1990 her sensational smile is in evidence. She was a genuine gift to me especially in the final year of Bob’s life when I sometimes didn’t know if he was dying or I was. The truth is that we were both dying, but I was on a different timeline. JoAnne, I miss you.