Life Viewed Through an Amber Focus

Thank you to everyone who offered prayers, thoughts and condolences on the death of my father. It has been a rough couple of days and I have spent most of it talking with my mother or when I can't bear it anymore with my nose buried in The Hunger Games trilogy. It provided a good distraction from real life for me when it just got to be too much to think about. I imagine the ending is considered to be quite controversial but I liked it. It fit.

My emotions are all over the place. I kind of resent the fact that my father didn't want to have a funeral or a memorial service. Those sorts of things are not for the dead, they are for the living, as a way of finding solace against grief. My mother doesn't want one either, but since I'll be in charge as her power of attorney in her later days, she may just get one anyway.

I have whole hours where I am okay and then I get hit by the loss and I leak tears and I wallow for a bit and then I get on with things. And then I realize I've gone a few hours without thinking about it at all, and then I get mad at myself for that.

The kids are doing all right. Rose is the one I expected to break down and she's being very strong. Tobias fell apart twice. Otherwise he seems like he is handling it okay. I need to call my MIL. I had Chris tell her on the day, but I couldn't bear to talk to anyone other than him on the phone so I haven't touched base in person. I couldn't handle the sympathy.

I had a hard time at physical therapy today. Not with the exercises, just, I had to keep swallowing back my emotions. I had an evaluation today and I've increased strength levels in all categories, my gait has improved (no trending to one side) and the speed at which I walk is faster. I get one more pool session and then I'm on dry land again. Most of the pain is gone, so that is a good step forward. I'm sitting at around a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10. When I started I was at an 8 so that's a pretty good improvement there.

It's ironic how life just goes on even when someone else is no longer living it anymore, isn't it?

Merry Christmas Eve and Christmas to those of you who celebrate and lovely days to those of you who don't.

We're heading out to spend Christmas Eve with Chris's parents, sister, and two neices. Possibly sister's boyfriend, too (I forgot to check). I'll pretty much be flat on my back in the recliner with an icepack the whole time (massive back pain during the last PT session and my legs collapsed right under me. I've been told either flat in bed or as reclined as possible for the next 72 hours) and not to do anything. I spent all day yesterday in bed with my laptop. I think I just pinched a nerve (I hope, I hope), but ouch, it hurts. I'm on a muscle relaxant and painkiller which is offering minimal relief and lots of nausea. Called the specialist at one yesterday and waited all day to hear back and of course did not so likely won't until Monday now. On the bright side my knee feels just fine. *sighs* My life.

I didn't get to make my Christmas lasagna this year. Feels like breaking a tradition. But I don't have to stand at the stove cooking, either, which is always nice.

36 laps in 55 minutes.  And it wasn't even hard today.  What is up with that? *laughs*

Amy, Victoria, expect the first chapter of my smut-a-thon fic in your inboxes first thing in the morning.  Amy, sorry I didn't go on chat yesterday.  My head was killing me for most of the day.  Hopefully tomorrow some time.

Freshman orientation went good for Rose.  Parent orientation went good for me.  Today is too busy for it's own good.

I am off to drive to Sea Tac for the first time to pick up my husband.  *gulps*  It's a straight shot down I-5 but it's also Seattle traffic.  Least my MIL is coming with me to keep me company and offer navigational support.

It has been such a trying weekend.  The second funeral today was lovely, short and sweet.  Which was a Godsend considering it was 95 degrees outside.  Duane's cemetery plot was under the shade of a gorgeous, huge old maple tree, so thank heavens it was in the shade.  I was one of the few people who got a chair, seeing as I still have pneumonia and shouldn't even be up out of bed.  Felt like I was going to faint a couple of times.  I want this illness to be over.  Pneumonia twice in one year is two times too many, even if it is only the walking kind this time.  Makes me think I can do more than I can.

I came home after the funeral and the kids and Chris went to the reception.  I finally talked Chris into getting an air conditioner for the house yesterday.  It's making a huge difference, but it's still hot in all the bedrooms.  I think we need one small one in the master bedroom and then one in one of the other three bedrooms.  I am moving the air through the house with turbo fans, but it's not enough.

I'm not writing right now.  I'm just taking some time off for a few days to try to really sleep and heal.  The kids go to my mother's tomorrow for four days and I think it is much needed for everyone.  They are driving me and Chris insane and I think we are pretty much returning the favor.  I have to be careful not to try to do too much while they are gone.  I will want to, because there is so much to do around here that is easier to do kidless.  And I know me.  I'll try to do it.

I wanted to say thank you to everyone who sent condolences on the deaths of my aunt and grandfather-in-law.  They are greatly appreciated.  I don't have the energy to answer them individually, but know that I am very grateful for all your kindnesses.

Off now to waste time in bed on Facebook.  The evil of which I finally caved into last week to keep in touch with family over funeral arrangements.  And now I have two farms, a restaurant, and a pirate ship.  Facebook is an evil timewaster, but the games are fun.

My aunt finally died a week and a half later after being giving two days to live.  She died yesterday morning.  The funeral is scheduled for Saturday.

Duane's funeral was postponed from today until Monday because two of his great grandchildren are away on vacation with their dad right now and couldn't be reached.  It'll be a closed casket because of that.  The best if buried by date is being pushed to the max there.  On the bright side I didn't have to go to a funeral today.  But I get to go to two over the course of 3 days.  Sighs.  People in my family can stop dying now, please?  Okay, thanks.

Also my summer cold is walking pneumonia.  This is the second time I've had that blasted thing this year. *grumbles*

I am writing, just not with any sort of consistency.

My mind is very scattered so I'm not really able to focus on any one thing for very long, but this is how I've spent my writing week. 
I have written:

  693 words on the next chapter of A Sky Without Zeppelins
1003 words on the next chapter of You're What?
1627 words on The Boundaries of Temptation in the Crossing Boundaries series
2000 words on the Hearts in Time Summer Adventure ficathon fic - prompt:  Elephant in the TARDIS
Nothing yet on the Time in Flux ficathon fic, but I'm thinking about it - rewrite of Aliens of London with sexxin
beta'd ch. 4 of Victoria's Eight and Rose story:  http://jeprdyfrndly.livejournal.com/3487.html  It's so good and adventury.  Go read and give her all your lovely comments.  She's had a hell of a week with the bridal salon losing her wedding gown for 2 days.  They did find it though.

...but I knew it was coming.  Chris' grandfather died at 2:30 this morning.  We were out late last night at his parent's house and then when we got home there was a message on the machine saying that Duane had the death rattle going on and when that happens they expect death within 24 hours.  So we put the kids to bed and then Chris headed over to the nursing home to meet up with his dad, aunt and cousin.  He died a couple hours later.  Chris is doing fairly well.  I think being able to say good-bye was good.  I'm not sure if it's hit him yet or if we were just so prepared for this moment that he's already done his grieving.

The funeral is tentatively planned for Thursday.  Chris' sister is in Texas right now for a work convention and comes home on Wednesday and her children are off with their father at Disneyland.  The decision was made not to tell SIL until she gets home.  I think she's going to be mightily ticked off when she finds out no one told her.  I know that they think it's better because she can't do anything anyway and she'd just fall to pieces (because she does) with no one there to support her.  I know coming home early would be detrimental to her career and I get all their logical, rational reasons for waiting, but I still think, as close as she was to her grandfather that they should tell her.  As usual, I don't get any say in these matters.

We are telling the kids tonight.  Tobias had a birthday party to go to for his best friend and we didn't want to wreck the day for him.  They had it at a bowling alley and he played 112 game.  It had bumpers but Jake's mom said that T never even touched the bumpers.  We don't play with bumpers when we go.  Pretty good for a nine year old.  He got two strikes and one spare.  And life goes on, that I can be proud of my kid like that on the day his great grandfather dies.  Grief is weird.

My father-in-law went into the hospital last night, had an x-ray taken and was rushed immediately into emergency heart surgery for a torn thoracic artery.  He was bleeding quite badly, could have easily bled out if my MIL and SIL hadn't been so quick to take him in when things went wonky.  It affected his kidney somehow, which caused numbness and partial paralysis for a bit, which are the symptoms that they took him in for.  I have no idea how the heart thing affected the kidney thing, no one has been really clear on that point.  But if it weren't for the kidney thing, he'd be dead now, so I guess it's a good thing.

Been on the phone off and on all night with MIL and  SIL and DH who is up in Alaska at the moment.  And praying more in one night than I've probably done all year.  Of course with two very sick kids I can't go anywhere near the hospital until my mother gets back from her trip, which is supposed to be today or late last night, so I can leave them with her and go see him.

It's been such a rough night.  FIL is only in his early sixties.  I have been prepared for my father to die.  He's 73, has Alzheimer's, is in failing health, but there is no way I even thought about my in-laws being anywhere near death.  I mean, FIL's parents are both still alive and kicking.  Longevity runs in his family.  This is just a complete and total shock.  I don't know what I would do if my MIL or FIL died.  They are so much younger than my parents I have expected them to be here long after mine pass and this incident is telling me that maybe they won't.  I love my in-laws so much.  We have always had a wonderful and warm relationship and this is just really knocking me for a loop.

I know he's made it through surgery, I know he's safely in intensive care now.  But I think I'm going to worry until he's safely home again.