Monday, June 3, 2013

Several goodbyes



Our gerbil Lily came to the end of her long life (over 3 years) on May 22. We buried her next to Stacy. All of us are still in the habit of looking for her and wanting to save paper towel tubes for her. We will miss her!

I realize I haven't posted anything for a long time. It's been a strange year so far. The biggest change has been that my mother is no longer staying with us. She was here for only five months and when she first came, she could go downstairs to the basement easily. Over time she lost that ability until she was scared and unsteady every time we would help her down the stairs. After a few near-falls, along with other concerns, we felt it was best for her to move to a place where she doesn't have to worry about stairs and can receive more specialized care. She is doing very well there and we see her often.

It has been an emotionally-laden struggle to make this change and to try to redefine normal life afterward. I feel like we're just about there, but now we have another change coming. M. has just finished high school and will start college classes in the fall. She's planning to live at home for the next year, so it's not really a goodbye yet, but the reality of soon having an ADULT child has started to sink in. And now that young women can serve church missions at age 19, there's a possibility of a serious goodbye before too long! I definitely don't feel old enough for all this to be happening yet.

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