Life hits hard

...it always amazes me how life can hit us, usually out of the blue and from what seems like all directions.  I just finished writing a note to my Aunt, my Uncle Hugh has been diagnosed with aggressive lung cancer.  They got the diagnosis on Friday and today, Tuesday he is in hospital with questions about needing hospice.  They haven't even talked to an oncologist yet.  Then 1 1/2 hours away another Uncle is recovering from major surgery including removing his gallbladder, part of his liver and a large part of his colon and is awaiting biopsy results.

For some families uncles are seen at weddings and funerals...but not our family...we were always around family, spent summers together and Christmases...even mixed it up as both my dad and moms family knew each other fairly well, well most of them...my dads family is 12 and moms was 4 kids. It made for a huge number of aunts, uncles and cousins.  Weirdly enough my Uncle Marlin and Aunt Alice(dads sister and brother in law) lived next door to my moms childhood home, my mom babysat for them...so these two uncles specifically knew each other fairly well.

My heart is overwhelmed, memories if my moms illness and death are just constantly whirling around in my head and my empathy for my aunts and cousins is tearing at me because you never know what loosing a parent is like until you face it.

My mind is frantically looking and calling out to God and I know He is wading towards me ever straight, it is I myself that puts the muck around me and as soon as I let it go He will be there with His strong arms and strength to hold me up in the days and months ahead.  While I do not fear death at all,  I fear the pain of that temporary loss and change it daily life that it brings and of watching those around my hurt and grieve.