@parus @lilgrizz @danybegood1 - I kind of abandoned Connect for the past week. I've had a cold, and depression seems to have taken a dive, so I haven't felt like writing, and now I have a huge backlog in my inbox.

I visit a woman each week who has told me about her fears of dying. She's not afraid of what follows, because she's looking forward to Heaven. But it's the act of dying that bothers her. She's 103, so she's had a long time to think about it. I try to be a thoughtful friend to her, and I've let her know that if I know her death is near, I will be with her to pray and sit with her. Of course, I've tried to reassure her that death often is not a painful thing, and I think that has calmed some of her fears. In the meantime, I enjoy having conversation with a woman who has lived that long, and remembers details of times and places and events both current and what might be called ancient. She loves my smartphone because I can look up her childhood homes and talk about who lives there now, and find the landmarks. Really interesting. I think I feel less depressed during the hours I spend with her.

I tapered off a medication a few weeks ago, and I know that part of my deeper depression is connected with that. It was Cymbalta, which I had been taking for peripheral neuropathy pain, along with morphine, and Cymbalta is also an antidepressant. The interesting thing is that I felt no improvement in my mood when I started taking it a year or two ago.

A separate issue I've been having is waking up in the night with a panic attack. If you've had one, you know how not fun they are. It sometimes makes me afraid or anxious about going to sleep. So far, I've been able to deal with them by sitting up in bed, focusing on my breathing and just giving it some time to pass. I pray and sometimes read, but I don't like to wake up my wife, though I told her that if she does wake up, it helps to ground me if she will rest her hand on my arm or my back.

Well, it's that time again. It's after midnight and I can't put it off forever. Hopefully this will be a night without any issues.

Y'all have a good weekend.

Jim