Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed on an equal or greater benefit.

Napoleon Hill

The last time I posted to this blog was June 25, 2013.  It seems like a lifetime ago.

I need to back up a bit.  I retired in 2011 after being a UPS guy for thirty-seven years.  When I left work my younger brother was dying of colon cancer.  Since I was the only one not working I became the one to take him for doctor appointments and chemotherapy.  Very quickly I had to spend more and more time until it consumed a large part of it.  In May of the next year he died.  It took a great deal out of me.

A few weeks after he died my mother suffered an odd attack that seemed like dementia and put her in the hospital for a few days.  Due to her panic attacks and agoraphobia someone had to stay with her twenty-four hours a day.  I was retired so did what I could.

We found that she had lung cancer and that was causing the symptoms.  Immediately she began chemotherapy.  On the way there she would smoke a cigarette and say that it didn’t make sense because she had smoked for seventy years and it had never bothered her.

As time went on I spent more and more time going from chemotherapy to pain specialists, to physical therapists, to radiation treatments and so on.  Each time I would take her to lunch and she would tell me her marvelous stories.  I made a point of recording many of them.  Here is one.

As time went on she became frail and we had to move her into my sister’s house where I would come at six in the morning and stay with her all day.

It was so hard watching her fade away.  She was the funniest and smartest person I have ever met.

Mom died September 6, 2013.  It truly knocked the wind out of me.

I’m finally coming back to my own.  The transition to retirement, my brother’s death, in between my two aunts’ deaths and then mom.

I’ll be rebooting the blog soon.  I’ve gained some of the weight back but I’m optimistic.  Stay tuned.  The future is bright.