In seventeen days Christmas will be here. What a year it has been since last Christmas. The year began with a heavy heart since just two months before, October 21st, I lost my dear mother, Edith, to the ravages of lung cancer. She lived in a three-roomed "mother's suite" attached to my home so I could easily take care of her when her illness overtook her physcially. I had hospice care for her so she was very comfortable during the worst part of her illness. When she passed away she took part of my heart with her. It was a sad time. Christmas that year was somber to say the least, but we all did the best we could to keep the celebration of Christmas alive. My daughter and son-in-law were more than hospitable; they were marvelous. So were my son and his wife.

My younger sister, Barbara, was also very ill with Lou Gerhrig disease and was quickly fading away. I tried to visit her as often as I could. She was always so grateful when I visited and never failed to thank me for coming. The look in her sunken eyes always broke my heart. It was as if she was trying to absorb my face in her minds eye. Her terrible disease stole all the vitality from her body but it could not touch her sharp mind. When I hugged her and told her that I loved her, her emaciated body was so fragile that I could feel her slipping away even as I held her in my arms. Oh, the pain of remembering those last two days she was alive. I miss her so much. The tears still flow and probably will for a long time.

The difference in my family is that we three girls were very close in age and in love. Losing mother was devastating to me, but losing my younger sister was like losing a spoke in a wheel of life. Mother was our hub, the center of our lives. Barbara was the first spoke now missing. How much longer can our "wheel" hold out before the other spokes break? It is only a matter of time.

On to other things. My daughter makes everything better for us all the time. She has been there for me through both my losses, giving me strength when I am feeling low. She made a wonderful dinner at Easter, inviting all our immediate family. I got a chance to visit with my son and his wife again.

It was painful to learn that our daughter-in-law, Betty, is getting dementia. We could tell she was already courting it because she often asked Chuck about names and places they had visited. She even forgot momentarily, the name of one of her sons. Chuck gently reminded her and she went on with her story. My heart seemed to tighten with the realization that each of us are at that time in our lives when "old age" maladies visit us and stay until our demise. That new revelation put a damper on the Easter celebration of Christ's victory over death. But, it was a victory which we will all have a share in some day. Thanks be to God!

Summer this year was unbearably HOT! My dear husband and I spent a lot of time in the house, going out only when it was necessary. We didn't even get our canopy up over the patio table and chairs this year. The mornings began hot and the day got hotter as time passed. We didn't use the deck much for sitting in the evening air and relaxing. Too many bugs. Ugh! So, our air conditioner ran night and day over the summer. I found many things to keep me busy in our little mansion on the mountain (road).

We did manage to go camping FIVE TIMES this summer. I was glad our camper has air conditioning too. I couldn't have stood it if we didn't have it. We really enjoyed our night time campfires. Even our dog, Krickette, enjoyed sitting with us around the fire. Oh, the skies up on that mountain were just beautiful, dotted with a million twinkling stars like diamonds in the sky. It was so much fun to camp since we hadn't done it for five years! That was our enjoyment for the summer.

It was too hot for a good garden this year. Only the crab grass and weeds prospered. What few vegetables we got we ate. Not much to share with family this year. Nothing tastes as good as a homegrown tomato and some really fresh cucumbers. I did get a nice amount of blueberries before the birds got to them. Just two quarts for the freezer, but it was better than nothing at all. When we lived at our first house, I had planted six blueberry bushes and I often think of the forty quarts of those luscious berries that I put in the freezer that are almost gone now. Of course, the bushes were thirty five years old when we moved. Too bad, I couldn't bring them with us but they were very, very large. Someday these two bushes I have may grow into large bushes too and produce with the others. This soil is not nearly as rich as the other place was, but I'm working on it.

Summer passed to sudden fall and the trees were beautiful this year, all yellows, oranges, reds and browns. The leaves were deep as they covered the ground and were harder to pick up with the mowers. I couldn't help Charlie get them up this year like I have always done. Reason? I had my left hand operated on in late September and it has been very slow in healing. I've had therapy on it three times a week since the first of October. Therapy has been no fun but I am now seeing progress in the movement of my thumb and fingers. My wrist still feels like it has a tight band around it but I'm told that it will go away gradually as I keep using my hand and fingers.

To top off this years "living," I'll just run down the activities quickly. I had two spots of skin cancer on my upper right arm and the inside calf of my left leg. They were removed and are fine now. I have to have a full body check for melonomas every six months now. I've also had to have two crowns on my back molars. I've heard it said that diabetes destroys your teeth, your heart, your kidneys and liver. Well, two of my teeth have started down the alley of no return. I just hope that's all. I do take the best of care of my teeth. Ask my dentist.

My hubby had to have vein surgery on his left leg a few months ago. His leg has healed very well. He still has back pain and right hip pain. Arthritis is a very painful "old age" disease. It will hit everyone sooner or later. Too bad it couldn't be later. Charlie has always been very active and so have I, but we can't outrun old age. We're giving it a good try though.

Bad news still this year. I found out that I have carodid artery disease with stenosis---narrowing of the arteries. In both sides of my neck the arteries are 90% narrowed. I've just had three in depth tests and when I go back this Thurday, I will learn the "bad" news and what is going to be done about them. I pray that God is with me, as He has always been. "If God is for me, who could be against me?" It's all in God's hands.

Well, I guess that is all I will write for this time. Christmas is on our doorstep and we want to wish everyone the best, healthiest, most merriest Christmas ever. God bless you all.
Evelyn

Death Comes in Three's
I've heard the saying, "Death comes in three's." I've never been superstitious but
sometimes things happen in strange ways. My dear mother has been gone for four
and a half months. About six weeks ago we got a call from our niece, Jane. She
told us that her older half-brother, Carl, had died of a heart attack in his
bathroom. I couldn't believe it. Carl is just one year younger than our oldest
son, Pat. Carl is my husband's brother's boy. Carl had lost his wife, Sherry
about six years ago and now he is gone, leaving two young sons, Carl, Jr., and
Adam. At this writing, both boys are fully grown, but it doesn't seem so long
ago when Carl was a young boy running around playing cowboys and Indians with
his friends. My first thought on his passing was that he grieved himself to
death over the loss of his wife. But, scuttlebutt rumored that he drank a lot
and did some drugs too. Oh, what a waste of a young life, leaving two young men
without either parent now. How sad. My husband and I attended Carl'sfuneral. There were many people there that we didn't know, probably Carl's friends and co-workers.

We did get a chance to see and talk to his mother, Barbara. It had been many years since we had seen her. Of course Carl's dad, Bill, was there with Jean, his present wife of 30 years or more. Carl's other siblings were there also. It was good to see everyone again, but not under these sad circumstances.

I viewed the still, cold body of our nephew lying in the coffin and thought to myself, this could be our son, Pat. Thank God, it wasn't. The pain of seeing someone so young lying in a coffin hurts almost asmuch though. I hurt inside for his dear mother, Barbara. I was not over losing my own mother, and now to feel the loss of our nephew was almost too much to bear right now. I could only console myself with prayer for Carl and his family.Two deaths of loved ones was enough to bear. But we knew someone else would eventually be gone also.

My dear, younger sister, Barbara Ann, was suffering for two years from Lou Gehrigs disease (ALS). Each time we visited her, she was weaker than the time before. It nearly broke my heart to see her so quickly fadeing away. She had lost down to 60-65 pounds. There was no fat on her at all, just skin stretched over bone. I could almost see through her hand when she held it up to the light. In just a little over a year her hands had gotten gnarled and bent from the severe arthritus that settled in them. Her feet had also gotten bent in the toes. She could no longer walk and just lay half-sitting in her lounge chair, covered with one or two blankets to keep herself warm. Her skin was cold to the touch. I had never seen my sister so weak and wan before. I prayed every day and night for her. I knew she would not survive this deadly disease. She knew it too. In fact, when she found out what she had, she told everyone that she would not survive. She also did not want people feeling sorry for her, but she did request prayer. My thoughts were, if God healed her of this disease, she would be the first to survive it. I prayed for her recovery, but I also knew that if she survived, she would be the first to ever do it. She would be a miracle walking.

Weeks, and then months went by. Then on March 1st Charles, my sister Gene, and I went to visit her. She was so weak she could not communicate with us verbally. She shook her head for "yes" or "no." Her daughter Kim was there to help her with water. She had stopped eating several days before. Barbara was breathing heavilly, gaping every other breath. Gene looked at me and I, her. I knew she was thinking, it's just like mother did before she died. I nodded. We kissed Barbara and told her we loved her and that we'd be back tomorrow. It was the last time we saw her alive. Daryl, her son, called us the next morning at 8:30 and told us his mother passed away quietly at 8:20 that morning, two days before her 70th birthday on March 4th. She could celebrate her birthday with Jesus and mother this year.

Our prayers for Barbara's easy passing had been answered once again. God is so good and kind and merciful. Death was not a struggle for Barbara or Mother. The angels took both of them quietly and led them to Jesus' waiting arms. With each one there must have been great rejoicing in heaven for they were welcomed also by our grandmothers, grandfathers, sisters, brothers, and aunts and uncles. It must have been wonderful. It was party-time in heaven for my family who had gone before.

I have to think these positive thoughts or I would be wrapped in a blanket of depression all the time. I miss my mother and sister so much, but I am happy for them to be in such a wonderful home now. I must go on from day to day without them.

Anyone who is reading this, please say a prayer for our family. That's all I ask, prayer for strength to go on in this life until the Father sees fit to prepare us a place in heaven also.

God bless you all who have had great losses such as our family has suffered. I believe when we cry for those we've lost, it is for ourselves that we weep. We have been left behind to pick up the pieces of our lives and live the best that we can until God calls us home too.

Until next time when you visit this blog, may God go with you each day and give you many blessings. Amen

I am sad to report the passing of my dear mother, Edith Marie Zentz, on October 21, 2011. She had been ill for so long with a spot on her left lung. It was inoperable due to the position of the spot and also due to her advanced age(88). The doctor told her she would not make it off the table. So, they decided to just watch it, having her get a cat scan every six months. On her last scan two months before her demise, the scan showed the spot had grow significantly and looked like a bunch of straw lapping over one another. Still, the doctors did not declare it cancer. They freely admitted they had not seen such a thing before and did not know exactly what it could be. But, they said it definitely was not cancer. So, what was it that was spreading over my mother's lung and literally choking her to death? I told mother that she was a "unique mystery." She seemed to agree and told many of her friends that she was a mystery to her doctors. They all shook their heads, made a negative remark about doctors today and said they'd pray for her, which I'm sure they did.

The last two months of her life I took total control in taking care of her. I saw to her every whim. If she wanted certain foods to eat, I cooked them for her. She was particularly fond of cornbread and buttermilk with slivers of raw onion mixed in the bowl. I loved it also. We ate a great deal of it growing up in Dundalk, Md. We were actually born and raised in the south, so that accounts for our down to earth tastes. Mother also like beans---any kind; white, pinto, kidney, navy. She liked them with cornbread or hoecake (a southern fried white batter bread made in a skillet or baked in the oven in a heavy skillet. It's origin was American Indian). She also loved tomato gravy over biscuits or hoecake. She enjoyed chipped beef and gravy over biscuits too. Mom was a southern girl through and through. The last few weeks of her life she found it hard to feed herself. Her depth perception was off and she had a difficult time reaching her mouth with the spoon. I helped her guide the spoon to her open mouth without saying anything so as not to embarrass her. It wasn't long after that she stopped eating and drinking.

It was hard watching mother's deterioration from day to day. Eventually she could not stand up without her knees giving way. I had been helping her at least four or five times a day to go from her lounge chair in the living room to her bed in the next room. She needed to take frequent naps and to ease the pain in her back from sitting so much, she had to lie down and go to sleep, even for an hour.

I noticed that it was more difficult and took longer to get her from the bed to her wheelchair, then into the living room and transferred into her lounge chair. This process took almost two hours one day. Finally, one weekend about three weeks before she died, I had to tell her she couldn't get out of bed any more. "Why?," she said. I told her she couldn't stand on her own two feet and that if she fell, I could not pick her up. I was still ten pounds lighter than she was even though she had lost about thirty pounds and was now 120 pounds. I had a rotator cuff problem as well as a weak left wrist and thumb problem. It was impossible for me to lift her without assistance. I explained all this to mom so she lay in bed and stopped conversing with me except if she needed something. I felt she had put up a barrier between us now and this hurt me very deeply. I hugged and kissed her many times a day and told her how much I loved her. She used to say in return, "I love you very, very, very, very much." My come-back was, "I love you a hundred times more than that." So, when she stopped talking to me, it broke my heart.

The last two weeks of her life were very hard for me. My three sisters came up every couple days to see her and sit with her for a while. She talked to them very haltingly. She couldn't seem to focus on anything so when she talked, she seemed very confused. Finally, on October 21, 2011, at 3:50p.m., she took her last breath. I was numb. My daughter, Marie and I had been up all night on "death watch", because the nurse said it could be any moment. We spent the long night going through the boxes and many albums of pictures, choosing about 150 photographs for the slide show the funeral homes liked to make of the deceased to show those at the viewings.

I looked at my wonderful, loving mother, laying cold and yellow-gray in the bed. Her eyes were closed but her mouth remained open. I tried to close it but rigor had already begun to sink in to her body. I called the hospice care nurse and she came to verify mother's death. She called the funeral home to come pick up her body. It was then that I broke down a little. I already missed my mother. I began missing her when she stopped talking to me. I knew she was in a different world already, half-way between two worlds, as it were. Oh, if only I could go with her to see that she got safely to her destination. I needn't have concerned myself though, for I knew that God's angels were there to escort her "home" to God and our savior, Jesus. I would miss her for the rest of my life. I love you, Mother. I miss you so much. Please watch and wait for me for I'll be coming to join you sooner or later, whatever is God's will for me.