Sorry I have been silent for so long.  Had to spend with Nan, my terminally ill sister.  She is no longer with us.  Cancer is a tough enemy to battle.  It was a day-to-day thing.   Now we are in the battle with one of our sons. Doesn’t seem to end.

Gotta clean out the gutters. Those are things at the edge of NW roofs that catch millions of needles from the firs so that they can’t handle water. Problem is that at the age of 88, I am not allowed on ladders any longer.

The whole process of dying is a complicated one. That is especially true when there are kids, grandkids, great-grandkids, siblings, nieces, nephews, close friends and all the care people. We had to set up a visitation schedule. At least everyone but me. I went when I wanted to go, which was often.

After one of our visits, my wife said that I was avoiding eye contact with my sister.  I hadn’t realized I was doing that. I guess I was having trouble facing what I was seeing in her eyes.   My wife said she needed that eye contact, that connection.

She was right. Hard as it was, I kept strong eye contact with her. Even through her tears. Mine, too.

The doctors gave her until the next January.  Guess that’s why they call it ‘practicing medicine.’ We brought her to the California desert that month and took her all around. Spent a week on the coast. She moved to Seattle from Upstate New York and had never been there.  Had a wonderful luncheon at the Ritz Carlton at a window open to the ocean.

We watched the movie, ‘The Bucket List’ and she put one together and we spent a week doing all of the things we could.  

She told me she wanted to ‘hang on’ until her birthday in April. I asked her why everything always had to be about her.  I told her that just once in a while she should think about what I wanted and if she wasn’t so selfish, she would ‘hang on’ until my birthday in November.  She was tough.. I should have said Christmas.

I really appreciated the people from Hospice. Never met one I didn’t like.  Soft hearts.  Real sweethearts. I don’t think they ever get used to losing the people they care for and grow close to.  But they come back for more.  Gotta be a special place in heaven for these people. They deserve crowns of glory. 

My sister has the same Hospice nurse that took care of our mom a few years back, on her way to heaven. Whenever she gives her care givers trouble about something they tell her this nurse said for her to do ‘it.’  She snaps to it immediately. She is not going to mess around with mom’s nurse.

We took a trip to Tulsa last week. I spent 6 days with my wife and her three sisters. Amazing how four grown women can carry on four separate conversations at once, for hours and all be involved in them all and understand everything that is said. I won’t even mention the mealtimes.

We had Navajo code speakers in WW2. No one could break their codes.  If the need ever comes up again and we run out of Navajos, I’d like to volunteer my wife and her sisters.

Ed

PS: John Wesley probably was wishing he had some alone time with his immediate family