My mother continues to get better, but this is a long, slow road. I am going home to Minnesota tomorrow, so I won’t see the next steps.

My brother Raven, his wife Anne, and their sons Patrick and Ian took me to dinner tonight at a local Mexican restaurant. Anne works for a local restaurant chain and I asked her if this was one of hers. She answered: “Don’t I wish!” It is a neighborhood family place. It reminded me of the kind of Mexican restaurant we used to visit in Chicago. We have not found the equivalent in the Twin Cities. I am sure it exists, but it is a long way from Roseville, which is close to being a culinary dead zone.

This was a good visit. I feel I have made a difference in my mother’s life, and in the lives of my brother and his family, who would otherwise have been alone on the front line in this crisis.