I visited my brother, Jim, in Oklahoma City this week. I have mentioned here that he has myotonic dystrophy, a slow degenerative disease of the muscles. He fell a few months ago and has been recovering. He is now in a nursing center and will not be able to return to his home where he lived alone. Because the lungs are muscles too, his are weak and failing. So he is on oxygen now around the clock. He wears one of those small tubes inserted in his nostrils that wrap around his ears. You don’t notice it after a while. I hope he doesn’t either, though at times, his breathing is labored. He does notice that, as I do, and my heart wilts momentarily for him until the air returns smoothly again. We had a good visit. We of course talked politics, how does anyone avoid that after the national shame we’ve all endured? He did not vote. He was struggling with his injury and simply was not able to absentee vote. But we talked about how he would have voted and how I voted. It was a good disc...
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