Changes In My Life

My wife, Sue Hart, is now a resident of an assisted living facility three blocks from our Livingston home. I go to see her two or three times a day, usually before meals. Several times, I've been able to bring her here for a little while. Recently I wheelchaired her the whole distance, and she got some fresh air.

She was an English professor for over half a century, and the Montana board of regents is awarding her an emeritus professorship at commencement next May. She taught a celebrated course on Montana authors, many of whom she knew personally.

She has short-term memory loss, which makes it hard for her to read, so I am reading to her. There was a piece on an early Montana novelist and screenwriter, B. M. Bower, in a recent Montana Quarterly, which I read and she enjoyed. I also read a moving piece about our treasured friend Ben Bullington, singer and composer, who died of pancreatic cancer.

Sue and I are closer than we've ever been, and often we sit watching the evening news and holding hands.