Still Standing

I haven't posted in quite awhile. After two+ years of social isolation my urge to write sort of evaporated. I have some of those underlying conditions that dictated staying inside. Our weekly family dinners went on hiatus and I began having my groceries delivered. Now things have loosened up. My whole family from elders to baby (and all vaccinated but one) caught Covid. I've escaped it so far but my daughter-in-law's younger brother, the unvaxxed one, died from it. On Christmas Eve. Only 43 and left a young family behind. He was a great young man, loving family guy and an artist. It will be a long time before Christmas will be quite what it was before.

I'm lining up an appointment for my fifth booster, the combo shot along with the usual flu shot.

I celebrated my 80th birthday on St. Paddy's Day dining out with my son and his wife at a new fancy steak house here. It was delicious and I was thrilled. And, I'm a Great-grandmother now. This little sweetie was born last November and just turned 10 months old. He's pulling himself up and trying to walk.  Hard to believe my youngest son David is now a Grandfather. I was there the first time he held this little guy and he had tears in his eyes. Things are not well with baby's Mom though and our baby is being adopted by my Dave's eldest daughter. He so surrounded by people who love him.

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During this long period on my own I've been reading a lot, especially about aging. I've been lucky, I have some health things that may do me in but that's hardly novel. The sad part is seeing friends and family off into the great beyond. My Dad used to refer to himself as "the last man standing" after our Mom and most of his friends had died. Now I see what he meant. His doctor told him he was depressed and tried to give him an RX for that. He refused, he told the doctor he was depressed his whole life and had managed fine with it. And he had, he had a PHD in Biology, a good career, a loving family, pretty much everyone liked him. He wasn't fibbing about the depressed part, the family all knew. He was a good guy, loving and overly responsible.

Dad grew up very poor, as did our mother. She spent a lot of time trying to get him to not be so grim. When she died he was really lost. For the next 8 years. Then he had a heart attack.  He, who lived in Portland, OR, called me who lived 300 miles away not my sisters who all lived in town. I've never really figured out what he was thinking but I had two phones at the time, landline and cell, and I called for help and called the desk in the place he lived to get their nurse in there. Then I called my sisters. I did speed racer to the hospital and I got see him. What he had could be surgically repaired but he refused. He asked the staff to send us home. At 3AM my sister woke me to tell me the hospital had called and he was gone. I know there are those who would not agree with this, but we are Dad's kids and all feel that what little control you have over dying should be your own. I went home and rewrote my medical instructions. My mother felt the same. She died of emphysema and had a DNR over her bed and said maybe she should put it on her chest with permanent marker. But why did he call us, because he'd been in pain for four days (OMG) and couldn't take it anymore. He needed pain control, comfort. 

This is longer than I intended and went somewhere I hadn't expected. I'm thinking about old age; a brand new Great-grandson, most of my grands launching themselves into new lives, and the burden of seeing friends and family die. Can I live to see baby out of high school?  Probably not, but  maybe the 10-year olds. And I've seen three really beautiful weddings this year. My Grandgirl Mya got married New Years Eve in the Pavilion at the Fairgrounds and it snowed. 

Blessing everyone. 💓