Heaviness
May 07, 2012 4:35pm

It has been a long week. Aunt Ethel passed away Wednesday night. April 25th, three days after my parents turned 66. I was able to attend her service, as it was held last Tuesday morning. She had an open casket service. I went up to her before we left for the cemetary. I stroked her hair, her bangs in wispy curls on her forehead. I leaned over and kissed her forehead and whispered, "Thanks for coming for coffee." But I'm getting ahead of myself.

A couple of nights before she died, I had a dream that I was sitting at the kitchen table and Aunt Ethel walked in. Mind you, she had never been to my house. Anyway, she was dressed in her pearls and her Sunday dress, laughing. "Well, I guess it's time to put the coffee on!" she laughed. So I put on a fresh pot of coffee, went to pour her a cup, and she was gone. On the night she died, I had been in bed for all of ten minutes  when I felt someone touching my face. That was when Ira came in to tell me she was gone.

At the cemetary, everyone gathered beneath the canopy while Pastor Turner read the Scripture. Mom and I watched her casket being lowered into the earth. I don't know how to explain it. Twenty some years ago I would have walked away. But I watched and I felt a strange sense of peace wash over me.

We no sooner got home from the service and I took Ira into ER. He had been having abdominal pain since Sunday and wasn't keeping anything down and it got progressively worse. They thought that maybe it was bile leakage from him having his gall bladder out. It turns out his blood pressure, which was through the roof, was the cause of his problems. Or so they say. I never know what to think with this hospital anymore. About all I know is, every trip in is a roller coaster ride because I never know for sure what's going to be. I carry more on my shoulders than what is realized. And I know the day will come when the next trip in will be the last trip. Somehow I can't shake the feeling that it's going to come sooner rather than later.

Such a heavy heavy heart....