It has been a minute..

 So much has happened in the last six months and so much more in the last six days... at some point I really need to get off of the merry go round that I have been spinning on. In the past I would have said "where am I going and why am I in this handbasket?" Although I am tempted to say it right now, I won't. Only because I am beginning to realize where it is that I am going. I would try to update this blog, but it would take way too long to even begin.

It has been cold enough to turn on the heat at night since returning from Montana. I have not started the heat in the chicken house yet and I hope to not have to until February at the earliest. I truly would like to pack up my family, all of them, and move. I do not know where to is the problem. I have a strong urge to move where my parents are and try to take care of them. But it is cold there and I don't like cold. Would I do it if they needed me? Yes, I would. They say they do not need me. It might be true; my sister and my brother live there.

I miss my SIL quite terribly. At night it is the hardest. I truly thought she would outlive both DH and me.  To update that part of the blog, is not hard. Painful yes, hard no. She fell and shattered her right humerus head on a Friday evening.  I have been the caregiver for my sister-in-law for the past 3 years and I have had to rely on facilities at times for respite. The last two weeks started as a common fall with her having Parkinson's, it became a hospice journey, I came home that night thinking I would rush back up to the hospice inpatient center where she was staying while they tried to stabilize her pain meds. I took a moment to read an email after tucking my kiddos into bed and fixing her brother something to eat. I needed to read that email as tears fell down my cheeks, I realized with all the folks that are mad at me for protecting her privacy and not giving every gory detail of the last two weeks, I had let the reality of my pending loss surface. I will likely lose the friend that has been my companion, followed me like a lost puppy at times, brought me more joy than I can even describe and through the sleepless nights when I doubted my strength she showed me how to laugh at dementia and find peace in the journey. As I read the email about the death of a feisty chicken, I thought about how she loved our chickens and our dogs with the same passion as the child who had lost her pet chicken, she is missed by the dogs as they pass her room. She mourned every chicken loss with the passion and innocence of a child. I will mourn her no less.

As I had typed that reply to the author of the email, my sister-in-law slipped into the arms of her Savior and left a gap in my world. I cried as I typed my reply not knowing that she had left. When the hospice nurse called and let me know the good news for Kim and the most devastating for me at the same time, I was shocked back to sobriety and auto-pilot. The somberness of the moment could be only that, a moment, I had others who depended on my response and my support. This was not the time to lose control. When is the time that I can mourn? I do not know when it will come. I know it will and likely it will be at the wrong moment. I will end up crying in front of others who do not know why I am crying.

Everything that could go off track did. It was Fall break for the kids and that would have been perfect for a planned service. No school missed, no babysitter issues, no dog issues or other animal needs. It was not to be. Legal things with transporting a person who is not alive has rules. Too many rules! Almost 14 days from her expiration until her burial. Alas, it is done, and we must go on and live our lives while taking care of all the other things that come with death of a loved one. So many things! With that I will close for now. Plenty of more things to talk about later! Cat fights, travelers, owls, and all sorts of other things.