It's hard to believe, but not everything is about television. Here's a story I wrote for the Miami Herald's Wishbook project, which tries to match donors to people who need help.
The night before Magdalena Bravo had brain surgery, she prayed long and hard -- not for success but, in case of failure, for death. ``Because,'' she says softly, ``I knew the girls could never take care of both of us.''
In the autumn of their lives, nature has dished out a cruel double whammy to Magdalena and her husband, Edgar. Their own brains have been turned against them. Hers was harboring a tumor that her doctors estimated, with grim good humor, as about the size of New Jersey.
And Edgar's is retreating into the fog of Alzheimer's disease, a harsh parody of human development in which every day he knows a little less than before. The English he spoke perfectly for 50 years has gone. So has the ability to shave, tie his shoes or bathe himself.
``It's like having a 7-year-old,'' Magdalena says. ``Except that he's 71, and he's my husband.'' Read the rest of the story in Thursday's Miami Herald.
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