I wish I were me

But right now I'm not. I miss me.

Shock and Awe

Yeah, I started May with good intentions. But sadly as soon as we returned, we had one family drama and then tragedy after another. I thought the year my father died in 1992 was the worst year of my life was bad, but this year has left me, at this point, in complete shock.

I'll go into the other details at another time, but after 4 horrible incidents I will only detail the 5th one since it didn't begin until Friday, September 2nd.

My mom has been the strongest women I have ever known. In early August, she was still cutting her own grass which was not a small yard. She has never been sick. Sure a cold now and then, but she has never been seriously ill, ever.

May 24th she turned 84. Her mother was always sickly and she lived to be 93. I called her on her birthday, which was the day we were flying back from Italy. I felt badly missing it, but I knew my mom would understand.

On Monday, August 29th, I got a text from my brother-in-law saying Mom had been getting seriously out of breath and the week prior they had taken her to have her heart checked. The results: Normal. But by then she was becoming very very weak. So they took her to the ER. Later they said her blood sugar was in the 400's so the ER said she was diabetic. I wasn't really buying that, because except for the high blood sugar, there were no symptoms that would indicate diabetes.

I was planning on coming down Labor Day weekend on Saturday. Thursday night, my brother spent the night with her and we was worried about her. He left mid-Friday and by the time my sister checked on her later that afternoon and she could barely move.

My brother-in-law sent me a text about 3:30 saying they were taking mom to the ER again. I packed a quick suitcase and headed out for what would normally be a 2 1/2 hour drive.

Except they are expanding I-69 and there was some 8 car pile up on I37 and the normal 20 minute drive from Martinsville to Bloomington turned into a 2 hour horrible delay. I suddenly found myself in the middle of Indiana University and trying to ignore my GPS because it wanted to direct me to more delay. My nephew called me at that time and was able to guide me to a road I recognized. Probably an hour still away from Jasper, Indiana where the hospital was.

I saw my niece sitting outside the hospital waiting for me and I had a pretty good inkling she was there for a reason. I gave her a hug, she said her brother and my sister was in the ER with her and she would text her brother to come out so I could go in.

In the meantime, it didn't go unnoticed that she was walking past the ER to a more deserted hallway in the opposite direction. Then she told me the news that I realized they had received only a few minutes earlier but knew it was best to wait to tell me until I was there.

My healthy as an ox, never complaining mother had cancer. Not just A cancer, but it was in her pancreas, liver and lungs.

That was Friday, Sept 2nd. Mom passed peacefully at her own home surrounding by all her kids and my sister's daughter and son, the next Thursday, September 8th.

There are many amazing stories I could tell you about those few precious last days we had her. She was amazing and funny and accepting of her fate. One day I will get to those. She passed away six weeks almost to the hour after Bob's sweet father passed. I was there at the end for both of them. Something I will never regret.

But at this time, I am just stunned. I know everything will hit me later, I'm really good at denial, I learned that when my dad died 24 years ago.

So, for those who were wondering, I'm still around. Except I'm not me, just a shell of myself until all of this year hits me. I'm not looking forward for those days.

Until them, call your parents, your kids and everyone else you know and tell them how much you love them. Those were words my mother always said to us and we said to her. My dad waited until he was dying before he could say them.

In the meantime, I'm praying for 2017 to be better.

Peace and love to you and yours.

I'll leave you with this. She wiped away my very first tear, I wiped away her very last one. I'll go to grave remembering wiping away that tear.

If I Can Make it There.

I realize now, how ignorant this observation will be having visited both cities.  Up until I visited Rome some seven years ago, Chicago or LA were the biggest cities I had ever been in.

When we first got off the train in Rome, I kept forgetting I was in Italy, we hadn't yet spotted any of the classic sights, but we're just strolling through the crowded streets with hearing all kinds of different languages and I simply kept thinking I was in NY. At least as I imagined what NY would be like. 

And up until May 8th of this year, I didn't realize how wrong I was. 

In my second to last post I told you I sneaked a quick overnight trip on our anniversary in NY on our way to Venice and then eventually our cruise. 

First, let me warn you if you fly SW, they assume you have no knowledge of NY airports, so they include Long Island ISLIP as a NYC destination. Since the one way flight into ISLIP was about $100 each and JFK or Newark was at least $300 to $400 each. I grabbed into them. Then when I went looking into getting from Long Island to NYC, we were stayhing at the Belvedere.  I found we would have to lug our luggage over about 20 types of public transport or I could try to arrange our own transfer. 

Thankfully, my traveler nephew found a site called Book A Limo who is apparently a limo broker. For the bargain price of $100 we got a 45 minute ride with a sweet driver in a great car. He had been in NY 26 years, originally an Indian who had raised two daughters who were becoming doctors. He proudly wore the American Dream in his sleeve. 

We decended the escalators to find this sharp dressed man holding a sign with my name on it. It was the first in many great surprises. 

He helped us with our luggage and while it was dreary and drizzling, he made our long ride into NYC

.  It was if the seas suddenly parted as just as we were getting within view of NYC, the skies parted and the sun shined on the New Workd Trade center. 

It was nothing like I imagined. And certainly in no comparison to Rome. While Rome is interesting with all its ancient history, it has none of the unexpected charm of NY. 

We never felt unsafe, even when entering the subway for our first ride. 

The only disappointment was although the Belevedere was a great hotel, we discovered we could have saved $110 a night if I hadn't booked in advance. They did discount our rate $50. We decided to just move on. 

We managed our way down to the 9/11 memorial on the subway. I have been in subways on DC and Rome, but Bob was a bit nervous since he is one who has to know what to do 45 days before he has to do it. 

But we were fine. 

Getting late and more family drama going on. More to come. Stay tuned. 

Just pics.

At the 9/11 memorial

The new World Trade Center. 

Nearly all towers lean in Italy. This is Burano, an island next to Venice. 

Our favorite was Santorini. 

Second favorite was Montenegro.  The pics don't do it justice. 

Mykonos. Our third favorite. But only in the afternoon. 

So I made it to the Acropolis in Athens. Been there, don't that kind of place. City feels safe, but is ugly, dirty and crowded. 

Back to Venice. The Bridge of Sighs is in the right and St Marks is center. 

This time tomorrow.

I'm sure I will be feeling quite a bit of raw emotion even though we will have started out to our trip to Venice for our 25th anniversary.

I decided (I say I because I didn't consult Bob first because I didn't want him flipping out about how many days we would be gone) decided since we would need to fly through NYC, that I would finally spend at least one night there.  I've only flown through and I was determined to see Ground Zero.

It may seem like a morbid idea to start off our trip remembering the worst event in American history, but this was our opportunity and I wanted, no I needed to see Ground Zero. I can not and will not ever forget that horrible day and the months following.

I expect we will both be a bit sick to our stomachs afterward, but the next morning we'll take a ferry ride past the Statute of Liberty and we will be fully aware of what a great country we are blessed to live in.

Then Monday night it's off to Venice where we will stay 3 nights before heading out on our cruise hitting the Greek Isles and Montengro.  I've only seen picture, but I've wanted to see them for years now.

Wish us a farewell and a Bon Voyage.

Happy Mother's Day.

How can I blog if I can't sign in?

Yes, I realize it's been THAT long. 

Ugh. 

Let's catch up, shall we?

Since we last talked, well, I typed, and a couple of you read. 

Here's what I've been up to. 

Bought a gun and took a gun class. Been to the shooting range once and I'm not half bad. Been wanting to feel like I could handle an gun and not act like I was part of a demolition team by just picking it up. The circumstances that finally pushed us over the edge was a young pregnant mother murdered in her own home in a nice neighborhood of town. They caught the bastards, but it still scared a lot of women in Indy. Half of the people in the class were women. 

Took some sorely needed dance lessons and we still look incredibly stupid, but we have fun and that's all that matters, right?

Made our winter transition down here in Fort Myers right after Christmas. And sadly, we are counting the days to go back to reality. The community down here is amazing, we have so many friends it's very hard to leave, but nearly all of them go home too, so it gets really quiet here. 

Planned an amazing trip to celebrate our 25th, which is May 11th. Hard to imagine it's been 25 years. Some good, some bad, but definitely wouldn't change it. 

I started "lobbying" for a nice trip for our 25th this time last year. I was thinking Hawaii. Bob kept hem hawing around. His suggestion was to take a cruise. Nice idea, but I knew he was talking the Caribbean where we have been 6 times. 

I told him that and said unless you mean an Italian cruise. So he casually asked me which I would rather do, take an Italian cruise or go to Hawaii. I couldn't spit the words our fast enough. Italian cruise. To my utter disbelief he told me to book it. 

Well I certainly didn't waste any time doing that. 

So we leave May 8th and spend one night in NYC. I know that's not enough, but I want to see Ground Zero since we have never been there before. 

Then we fly to Venice to stay 3 nights and hop on the cruise ship which goes to Ravenna, Italy, Kotor Montengro, Corfu, Santorini, Mykanos, and Athens. 10 days in all. Sail back to Venice and stay one night and then head home. 

I still can't believe I'm finally getting Bob to Italy. Now here's hoping he catches the bug. The travel bug that is. 

Maybe I'll have some pics to share. If I ever blog again. ;)