Things you can't prepare for...

It's been a long while since I have written anything, at all.  It has been even longer since I have posted anything for this blog.

No matter how prepared you are, when family falls ill, you find you are not prepared for everything.  

Early last year one of my sons fell ill to a very rare strain of meningitis and I was in the 'silently screaming at God" mode.  He was in a coma and even though he is 100% back in his own life, we all know he is not 100% himself.  There are moments when the genius just doesn't click or there is a light missing that was there before.  It's difficult to prepare oneself to see a change like that from a high fever that could have just as easily killed him.  We are grateful he is back to living and the beautiful little girl he and his wife gave us just before Christmas was almost enough to wipe away a mother's fear for her child.

Since then, I knew my mother is old.  I knew she was sick and I knew she would not live forever.  However, no one can prepare for a lengthy painful demise of a parent.  My mother is dying and I have barely been able to grip my soul and keep it inside my body.  

There is no way to prepare for family members acting on their petty desires while you are trying to focus on making the decisions and signing the papers to assist your parents passing.  No matter how close you are to your parent, there will always be some detail that wasn't addressed or a question you forgot to ask, leaving you to make a decision and now instead of screaming at God, you find yourself second guessing and screaming, why didn't I know that?  

Preparing for hard times has helped me to cope with this difficult time.  Thinking ahead about possible survival scenarios has helped me to train my mind to accept Nature.  I believe I am coping better now with this passing than I would have even a few short years ago because I have spent time in the garden watching things sprout and grow and fruit and die.  Think it strange if you like, but I have always believed farm families, pioneer families, people who live close to the Earth cope better with death since they deal with it frequently.

So, with these thoughts finally stated, I believe I will be back at the keyboard soon.  I have a few stories to share.  Between those horrendous phone calls from hospitals and doctors, the tag phone calls to family to keep them up to date, There have been peacocks, armadillos, observations on human dysfunction and some good deals I have come across, worthy of sharing.