No one ever said that Life was fair.

Yesterday, October 8, we learned that the health of Fred's mother Nancy has been rapidly declining over the past week. Previously, we had heard that there were periods when she was unresponsive. Now, she is having trouble swallowing and breathing. Nancy had been very specific with her health care wishes and has an Advance Directive with a DNR. After speaking with all of his brothers last night, today Fred started the process to place Nancy under hospice care. This is her wish and maintains her control over how she leaves this world, in peace and dignity. Needless to say, it's hard to accept, but as I have learned these past few years, part of the deal with Life is that the pain is proportional to the love. This, too, is going to hurt a lot. Nancy has been a part of my life for almost twenty-eight years now -- we are family. These past fifteen or so years have been difficult, to see the slow decline of a once vibrant woman, full of so much life. But it is the memory of that woman that will continue to live on within me, her sons, their spouses, and her grandchildren. It is somehow cyclic that the day that she is placed in hospice care that it is her 82nd birthday, November 9. I hope that her final days are comfortable and peaceful and that she knows the emense amount of love that surrounds her as she prepares for the next journey..