I look forward to receiving signs and hope they'll come. I'd find the idea of signs emotionally comforting even if the intellectual part of me will need to categorize them as simple coindicences. Amazing how events like these put us on such a different spiritual plane. For some reason, my intuition tells me to look for signs in either birds or flowers.

Yeah, my parents are wiped out. They looked about 95 years old when we left their house earlier after everyone got home from the airport tonight. In reality, they're 73 and quite active and youthful, normally. This is the worst thing they've ever been through, and that's true for me, too. I think they can survive it with time. I wish our son could stay home from school longer than just till Monday, when he goes back, because he's a great comfort to them. Funnny how a grandchild, even a grown one, helps switch the focus back to life and the future. He'll be back in a couple of weeks for Thanksgiving.

Everyone seems overly worried about me, to be honest, but I think that's just because the caregiving there at the end was so rough. I am tired, but Dave had it rough, too. He and I were taking turns sleeping on the daybed in her room for the last couple of weeks, switching duty at 2 or 3 a.m. The hospice aides were here during the day, but we covered deep nights ourselves. My internist called in a script for something to help me get to sleep, and I'm trying to make a conscious effort to eat. One of the neighbors brought over a huge pot of vegetable beef soup, and of all the tons of food people have been bringing for the last two days (really the last couple of weeks), that's been the best stuff. I'm going to remember that next time someone dies in a friend's family and either do your chicken soup or vegetable like this. I'm about to go have some more of that. I haven't gotten the nerve up to tell my husband yet that I'm 100% certain my heart rhythm (I have a history of atrial fibrillation) is out of whack again because he'll hit the roof and possibly also threaten to insist my doc hospitalize me, which is unnecessary, but I'm going to go see my own cardiologist on Monday after school and get that officially confirmed. I went ahead and put myself back on the necessary blood thinner I have to take during spells of a-fib.

So that's the story of how things stand right now with me. Sorry it's so long. I'm about to go have some soup and then go to bed. Later, Toots!