Notes From A Bear's Journey

Some of the beautiful flowers near my borther's site      There's a song by the late Olivia Newton John which went: Don't worry about my recovery... you won't recover me.  As many of you likely already know, even with documents and such in place (trusts, wills, lists at home, joint ownership, etc.), the actual job of getting a person "removed" from data storage of any sort can be overwhelming once you dive into the waters.  A sibling such as my brother made the task much easier for me back when my mother passed away, he being that second set of eyes, that second person to help with decisions about what to keep and what to discard, and the order in which to do so: notify Social Security, government retirements, bank accounts, credit cards, and on and on.  In today's world of DocuSign-ing documents and authorizations, scammers and identity thieves have started to use artificial intelligence to mimic voices and alter photos, making navigating through the proc

Graphic of pancreas: National Cancer Institute      My brother passed away.  Shocking, yes.  Blunt, yes.  But just five weeks ago he was given a clean bill of health and told that his lab results "looked great" for someone 75 years old,. Perhaps the slight pain on his right side was just a strained muscle or a slightly bruised rib from his gym work out, said his primary doc.  No worries.  Then came his lack of desire to eat, his fatigue, his noticeably diminished strength.  Within a week, he couldn't get out of bed.  A quick scan showed what almost everyone dreads to hear...he had cancer.  It was that sneaky pancreatic one, the type of cancer that gives you only a 12% chance of living another 3 years IF caught early, and generally only a 3% chance of living a few  months if caught late.  Hidden around the back of the stomach, and surrounded by the gall bladder, liver and spleen, the pancreas generally becomes visible only when it is heavily laden with cancerous cells and

     There is much in the world to distract us, from our phones, earbuds and televisions, to our families, neighbors and pets.  None of this is really viewed as a negative for most of us, depending on your perspective; admittedly the teen (or adult) who doesn't look up at you when you speak, the guest who answers the phone in the middle of your dinner, or the person nearly walking in front of your car because their  wireless ear "things" drowned out white (odd name) noise...well, those sort of things do bother me a bit. for what was once rude behavior is now well, still rude behavior; somehow displaying a lack of respect for where you are or whom you're with is somewhat acceptable in some peoples' minds.  But then we come to the subject of prayer...how distracted are we with that, in both directions?  Now wait, this isn't heading to some sort of sermon or philosophical debate, but rather is a question that popped into my head after I had read about monks and t