Sad news

I just got an email from my mother-in-law. Her sister Irene, who has been in poor health for years, is now hospitalized with what seems like a final illness. Since we have just returned from Louisiana, my husband doubts he can turn right around and go back, but he does want to be there for Irene's funeral. I don't want to rush the poor woman into her grave, but they found her unresponsive. She now has a feeding tube. She's been barely "in the world" for a while now, getting frailer and weaker and eating less and less. She talks even less often than she eats. It's like she's gone someplace in her head to wait for the inevitable.

We were discussing Irene and her caretaker daughter Carolyn while we were at Mimi's. Carolyn, who is an amputee, has cared diligently and carefully for her mom for years, with almost no help from her older sister Ethel. Ethel is, IMHO, lazy and self-centered, but I've always been fond of Carolyn. She lived with us for a summer when the boys were small, and we had a great time. Losing her mother will devastate Carolyn, but it may be a blessing, nevertheless, since she has sacrificed attention to her own health to care for her mother. In addition to missing half a leg, she has life-threatening asthma and other health problems.



Speaking of health problems, the picture today is of Amber, my sixteen-year-old niece who has cerebral palsy. She goes through phases of looking really strange, but she appears to be in a cute phase at present. She's been having to wear a heart monitor, so she's on my mind pretty much every day. It's not likely she'll live to be an old woman, but she gets 100 percent out of life daily. We should all enjoy each moment the way she does.