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Sunday, 1 February 2026

WHICH?
Veronica now lives in a nursing home. Yesterday I visited her there for the first time. I do not intend to write directly about this matter again.

Not because the subject is too raw, too difficult or too personal. I’ve written for a living and I’ve tackled those adjectives before. Rather, because it would be pointless.

At the present core of our 65-year-old marriage is a dilemma, a word that’s often misused. Too casually. It is much more than a sticky how’s-your-father. Google puts it rather pungently:

A challenging situation requiring a choice between two or more equally undesirable, unfavourable, or mutually exclusive  alternatives… often… a  ‘no-win’.”

Occasionally, at three o’clock of a morning, I reckon I’ve cracked it. But it’s fool’s gold. One cannot do anything about the passage of time, whatever H. G. Wells postulated. To explain the dilemma would be easy enough, if wordy. But, as I say, pointless. And that’s what Brits call a full stop and North Americans a period.
By at

2 comments:

  1. Sabine16 February 2026 at 08:48

    I am sorry to read this and yet I imagine this new scenario is providing some relief and support for all involved. I am currently with my daughter in NZ and talk regularly centers on options for all regarding old(er) age and feeble parents - various impossible hairbrained but also some more feasable schemes are discussed ad nauseam. Time will tell.
    I hope you can adjust, keep her and your spirits up and take on this new chapter in your marriage the way you have faced whatever else life has offered you to date.

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  2. Roderick Robinson17 February 2026 at 02:54

    Sabine: Thanks for your sympathy. You're right about a degree of relief but, alas, it is paid for in an inescapable sense of guilt. And yes, I'm well aware most would tell me such guilt has no true foundation but I am here and VR is there and there can never be any satisfactory resolution.

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