When the Other Shoe Drops by Robin Janney

In the six years my husband and I have been together, we have lost a lot of loved ones.  In what feels like rapid succession.

Even though Mr. Janney is an only child, he really does come from a family as large as my own.  And as I was telling my mother, when you have a family as large as ours, there are going to be times when they seem to die in droves.

And that doesn't make it any easier.

In fact, it seems to multiply and prolong the grief.

A quick tallying tells me that he and I have easily lost a dozen or more loved ones.  In six years.  It is no wonder we've battled so much depression.

And we lost another one just last night.  We lost Uncle Chuck last March, a brother to my father-in-law.  Last night we lost his remaining brother, Uncle Jeff.

We knew at Christmas that Uncle Jeff wasn't feeling well, he didn't even come to Christmas dinner.  He was hospitalized shortly after the new year came into being.  He didn't have a good heart, and he had leukemia as well.  He was also mentally challenged and had the mentality of maybe a five or six year old, which sometimes caused complications with his medication because he just didn't understand he was only supposed to take one chemo pill a day!  That wasn't the issue this time around thankfully, but this time didn't turn out well, obviously.

Early in his hospitalization he had a heart attack.  It was so bad that his heart actually stopped beating for about two minutes.   They were able to bring him back, but he didn't bounce back.  He just kept becoming weaker and weaker.  He wouldn't eat, and something had caused an infection.  And ever since, my husband and I have been waiting for the news to come that came last night.

And just because you know that other shoe is going to drop, doesn't make it any easier when it does.

Unfortunately, my work place does not give grievance days for uncles (unless things have changed since my Uncle Eddie died a few years back and no one's told me) so I was a little weepy as I drove in this morning.  I probably will be for a few days.  So forgive me for keeping this short this week, and I apologize for it being late.  I had another post started, but decided to save until another time.

In my final words today, I just want to say: life is too short - live, love, forgive the petty crap.

Until next time, peace.