When Life Throws You A Curve

When I wrote my last post on August 31st, I had no idea what was in store for me in only a few short hours. I was looking forward to choosing a winner for my little giveaway celebrating my 100th post at 10 pm that evening and I was eagerly looking forward to getting back to a normal schedule following our return from our jaunts to Louisville, KY and Colorado Springs CO.

That afternoon, I went to Beth's house to be there when the kids got off the school bus. She had a doctor's appointment that all of us were excited about.

Shortly after arriving home, my brother called and said that the nursing home had called and that our dad had taken a very sudden and very definite turn for the worse. I checked my messages and, sure enough, they had called me too. Mr. Right and I jumped in the car and headed over there right away. I was pretty confident that I would get my dad to respond to me because he always did. When we got there, we found him in a very deep sleep. No one said "coma" but I wonder now if it was.

They said that they had wheeled him into the dining room for lunch but that he'd fallen asleep in his wheel chair which was not real uncommon. What was uncommon, was that when they tried to wake him to eat, he wouldn't wake up. They took his blood pressure which was 70/40 and his oxygen saturation levels were real low too. They put him into bed and administered small doses of morphine to "ease his journey" and called the family. It was shocking to see him like that but they told us he had 24 to 48 hours and we figured a lot could happen in that time - maybe even something good. But then my brother, my sister, and I made a decision to get dinner and while we were gone, Dad left too. He was 95 and I've heard lots of people say that death can't be unexpected when someone is that old, but his was.

Friday evening I stopped in to see him and he was wonderful. He smiled, joked, responded in every way and when I left I felt happy and optimistic that he was getting stronger and better. So to me, I had lots more time to spend with him and lots of time to be a better daughter to him. His death was, to me, unexpected. Shocking. And mostly just so disappointing. I just thought, maybe unrealistically, that we had more time.

My dad was a good man and a good father to me for 63 years. I'll always miss him just like I'll always miss my mom. And I'll always wish I would have and feel like I could have done more. Is there ever 'enough' when it comes to repaying our parents for all they've done for us? Probably not. But I know that in their eyes we weren't lacking. In their eyes we were their children and that's all they asked from us. I hope.

Now back to that little giveaway. I apologize for taking so long to get my act together. For several days, we had 20 people living in our house and the logistics of that are enormous especially when it's unexpected and unplanned for. That's my excuse. One night though, one of my daughters cut out the names that I had written and put them in a bowl. Another daughter drew a name and the winner was Kiki.

So Kiki, I hope you'll visit my site soon to check for the winner and when you do that you'll send me your email address so I can get all the information I need to get your prizes to you. If I haven't been able to contact you within 10 days, I'll draw again from the same pool of names to pick another winner. Bear with me, folks, I'll get this right yet.