(THIS WAS WRITTEN 6/30. MY INTERNET WENT DOWN SO I HAD TO SAVE TO MY COMPUTER AND THEN COPY AND PASTE IT HERE THE NEXT DAY) Well its after midnight and here I sit. I've found out that writing my thoughts come easier at night then during the day. :) Its quieter and a lot more peaceful. So even to the person reading this it might seem like I get distracted when I'm not. I do tend to start talking about one thing and my mind tends to wonder off to something else. I would call it 'old timers' but at just 45 (almost) I flatly refuse to accept the fact that I'm getting older. My father loved getting older since he said it put him that much closer to seeing the Lord. Though I look forward to seeing the Lord myself I'm just not that thrilled with the getting old thing. From what I have seen through family members and people out in public, getting old just makes you a walking needle cushion and one big walking 'test' for our friends the doctors. Poor folks walk around with big purple and black bruises on their arms and wrists all the time. So do I look forward to getting there myself? Nope not at all. My father never made it to that point though. He passed at 61 of a heart attack. He left here so quick I don't think he even knew he was going. When its my turn to go I hope I go as quick as he did. I've always been thankful of the fact that we were so close. Though I didn't grow up with my real parents I did start a close bond with my dad when I was around 20. When my parents moved here on the coast so I could see them anytime I wanted my father and I got really close. He became my best friend actually. My parents lived 45 minutes up the road from where I stay but I made as many trips up there as possible. Sometimes coming home well after dark. I just loved their company. My dad studying the Bible like he did made for interesting conversation when my mother went to the auction house on fri, sat, and sun nights. The day I was called by a neighbor and she said daddy was taken to the hospital but she could'nt tell me much more I knew things were bad. I don't think I'll ever forget it. My husband was in the shower and I told him he had to get out 'cause something was wrong with daddy. On our way to the hospital I knew I would'nt see daddy alive again. I can't say how I knew (maybe the Lord was preparing me) but I just knew. I had lost a major person in my world. Heaven is only lucky place 'cause they got a good man. I think of him often. Seems things changed so much. The same laughter isn't there and our get-to-gethers aren't nearly as much fun. He was always cracking a joke on somebody and he was always laughing. If a party was dragging you could always count on daddy to liven it up! :) My mother has told me lots of times that I remind her a lot of him. She said I'll talk to anybody and so would he. I don't think I realized just how much we were alike till she made me think of things. I miss him something terrible somedays. For a long time after he passed I would catch myself picking up the phone to give him a call. Since daddy has died and mama has moved in with us we have forged a tight bond. We always got along anyways but I was tight with daddy like my younger brother was tight with mama. Funny how it goes that way. I don't think you even think about it till the person or people pass and you look back on things. After my younger brother passed at 37 and then my father passes six months after him, both my mother and I lost our best friends. Thats not to say that we weren't close to our spouses, but theres a different bond between parents and children then husband and wife. My brother and I only lived maybe 15 minutes from each other for a long time before I realized it. One day he just shows up and we started to get tight. By then he was sick. With loosing his job because of it he was in need of financial help to survive. I know that had to be so embarrassing to him to have to show up on my job to ask for money. That was the best money I ever gave away. And I'll always be glad that though he was embarrassed, he showed up to ask 'cause that re-started a relationship that if not for that I might have missed out on the end of his life. I had always been taught that the Lord works in mysterious ways and I'll always believe that the Lord was at work when he sent him to me. Of all the times mama had talked about him coming to her house I never thought about us getting together. But when a person is 37 you never give any thought to that person dieing. My mother has sure had a hard road to travel with losing both her son and husband in a six month period. Her depression has gotten so bad at times I've often wondered if she didn't will herself away at some point. Mama has lost a lot of her happiness (to be expected) since they have left. They both left in 2005 and I have learned to live with another mother. I don't think my mother from years back will come back at this point. Shes often said she will never be the same person she was and I understand. I don't think I would be either. Though I still get sad at times I found peace with the fact that I will see them again when my life is over. I'm now in the 'parenting my parent' stage of life. Like getting married and having kids it seems everything in my life has always come early. I've always felt ahead of my time for my age. Though I have another brother I've always known I would take care of my parents when they grew old. My mother isn't old by no means. Shes just 62. My mother was once an out going person who has become closed within herself at times. Once a person who was always doing something to a person who is content to have me take care of everything. I'm lucky to be able to take care of mama but I wonder sometimes when she can do something and just doesn't want to if thats her way of shutting down. I worry about her a lot. She has had more stress then a person deserves. Her father, after taking care of him for years upon years decides to kick her to the curb when his other daughter (I wont call her mamas sister because I don't think shes worth the title) decides he's worth (he had money) her time. Her mother didn't even call her when her father died!! The preacher 'found' our numbers in his room at hospice and called her to let her know he had passed. You have to wonder.....how does one person get such a terrible, heartless, family? So as of now 'the other daughter' (might as well call her by her name...Patsy) and hope my computer don't catch fire, has done everything in her power to cause mama pain. Sometimes I wonder how mamas heart can take it all. Though she knows she has her two living children, my husband and her grandchildren I can understand how it would hurt so bad to have the people that you grew up with to be out to hurt you so bad. Her mother has always been sadistic but I would have never thought years back that Patsy and her father would turn out to be such evil people. I have known people who have had familys like these but to have it in our own....well I don't know what to say. My grandfather passed away leaving some money and with Patsy needing it to pay for trying to live beyond her means just proves that point I've heard from other people through out the years..... that when it comes to money people will do anything. I think of the times when my grandfather made me promise that he would die at home. I think of when we went to see him when Patsy had moved him into her house and him saying he wanted to go home. Since she had changed everything into her name what could we do? He let her put everything in her name thinking she would do right by him I think. When he changed his bank accounts and will and etc. I doubt he knew just whos hands he was putting it in. Since he did my mother wrong.....was that why he was done wrong in the end? When he had enough money to have somebody live with him in his own home but was moved away from him home, his life, friends, personal belongings and ended up giving up......was that how he made it for himself? I wonder about that. The person he put his faith in was the wrong person. I think he realized that when he decided he was 'stuck' and wasn't going back home again and he gave up. He was in good spirits just a couple of days before he died. The nurses in hospice said he didn't even belong there...but two days later he dies? I think he lost his will to live. After you spend your entire life working and saving for your old age, isn't it only right to spend their money making them as comfortable as possible in their old age? Sure it might have taken everything he had to pay a person to stay with him but wasn't that what it was for? I think so. I don't think when he was working and saving it was to pay for an over large house for three people. And expensive vehicles that would do him any good. Has money become more important then a life? To some people it has. Its sad. I think if he could have stayed in his own home with his little dog I think he would be alive today. The one thing he was closest too was his little dog. Then he's moved into a home where his little dog has to sleep in a cage in the garage. Was he comfortable? Doubtful. I have seven dogs (three chihuahuas which sleep with me and hubby), and if I was moved into a home and my dogs was just 'tolerated' I doubt I would be comfortable. Just knowing my dogs was locked in a cage in the garage instead of in the bed with me, like they were used too, would be misreable for me. So....what was there to leave hospice for? A room in a house that my dog wasn't allowed to sleep in? A room that held none of my belongings other then a few clothes? The only things familiar being things that maybe was worth some money to somebody when I died? I can imagine if felt more like a dieing animal watching vultures circle in the sky above waiting for you to draw your last breath!! So with all that spinning in my mothers head can I blame her for not being the same 'ole mama' I always knew? No I can't. Just making it from one day to the next has got to be tough. But I do think that threw it all the good Lord keeps mama going. I put my faith in him that no matter what people throw at you and no matter what comes around you always have him. Money can't change him, buy him, or run him away. Only the devil works in that fashion. Well as usual my battery calls this blogging to an end. Typos and all are being published. :)