The Everglades and Smiles!

Thursday we head for the Everglades National Park. We will camp in the wilderness for the rest of the week. I will include some of the photos we get there on one of the next postings
We will visit with a friend there who happens to be in Miami for the day and had a hankering to see the Everglades with his teen/college age daughter before they head home to the cold of Western Mass.
We are very excited to get to do this part of our trip. We hope to leave the RV there for a few more days after that time spent specifically for the Glades and head on over to Key West during the day and continue to sleep in the national park at night.
One of my paternal grandmothers sisters has just passed away last Tuesday in my old home town of Jupiter, FL where she lived for the past few years. She died from the complications of Alzheimer's. I suppose it is better in many respects that she has passed.
For me it offers a unique opportunity to meet up with one of her daughters, then only surviving family member and my second cousin who I so enjoyed being with when I was in the single digit age bracket of my life. I haven;t seen her since and very much look forward to seeing her again.
My Mom and Dad will be passing thru where we are here in Florida and we will have a short visit tomorrow night and Thursday morn before we head to the deep south of FLA.
This ST Lucy visit has been very great, educational and strange. Sometimes simultaneously and sometimes independent of one another and sometimes those affects even occur on different days (not very often).
I got a smile for the first time today from Megan's grandfather. As I came in this AM to the house, he was stuck sitting on the toilet. I was the only one in the house at the time. As a result of his own Alzheimer's, even though I have been here for the past three days he really doesn't know who I am. I am certain that if you are stuck on the toilet, not able to get up, that it just doesn't matter who is there to help. So he called for me, or whomever to get him up. I did and I think the momentary intimacy created a bond that may last for however long it does. The smile may not have had anything to do with that event and honestly it doesn't matter to me one bit. For the first time since being here, I felt as though it was OK for me to be in his house and that just maybe he remembered my face for a moment. His smile for that two seconds, it felt good to me. And for that instant, I did not feel like a stranger to the man I have know for 15 years.
Thanks POP