A lot of life has happened in the past six weeks and was getting to the point where it felt like too much to write about.
Every time I would think about writing after not writing for so long, it seemed like a herculean task, so I did not write. It was getting to unwieldy to consider how to write about everything that is going on.
So I came up with a more workable solution. I will write short dispatches from my life.
Here is a brief recap of what is going on in case you are wondering:
On Father’s Day evening, my husband’s aunt called him to tell him that his father told her that he was ready to stop cancer treatment and was ready to go. The next day, Mr. Katie took off work to visit his father and confirm what he was told by his aunt. Mr. Katie’s father indeed was ready to enter hospice and Mr. Katie arranged for his father to be picked up by the hospice and admitted to the facility.
Since the day after Father’s Day, my father-in-law has been living in a hospice facility. At first death seemed imminent. My husband, his sister, and my father-in-law’s sisters took turns to cover all of the visiting hours available. Goodbyes were said by all. Friends and family traveled to visit one last time.
40 days have passed now. My father-in-law is alive and in hospice.
We are now all a little threadbare. My husband has returned to work full-time but visits when possible. I have returned to my work for the first time in four months because the library has re-opened with new Covid protection measures . I was supposed to be two nights a week but I have made it to week three of this schedule and have decided that is too much work for right now. So for the time being, I will only work on as-needed basis until things have settled down. It started to feel to me like it was more important for me to have time than anything else.
We are hanging on. We still have jokey moments. I had a nice, low-key birthday celebration with my family last week. Also, we have been utilizing our community pool membership more than we have since we first joined four years ago. We are at the swimming pool four or five days a week and that has been a real-life saver. Some nights we like a pack a dinner of sandwiches and chips and have dinner at the pool since it is open until 8pm.
As you can see, I am still writing and putting on a weekly online trivia contest on Tuesday nights and I will continue to do that for the foreseeable future.
There will be more dispatches in the future. Today is the last day of July. I hope to write more often in August.
See you soon,
Katie
