Category Archives: Family matters

In which we discuss matters of the family.

The convalescing

11/21/2014 Nichole 4 Comments

Rockford's Convalescence by the Numbers Click the image to see its full glorious glory. — Rockford’s Convalescence by the Numbers. (Click the image to see its full glorious glory.)

It’s been four days now since Rockford bid his gallbladder adieu. Poppy and Pete were at their grandparents’ house until yesterday afternoon, so the first two days were pretty quiet. He’s not a terribly demanding patient, but it’s still been enough to remind me that I would be a terrible nurse. This care-taking business is exhausting.

Rockford is back to walking without clutching Pete’s pillow pet to his abdomen, he’s able to stand up and sit down on his own, and his appetite is back to about 90 percent of its prior capacity. So while he isn’t going to be winning the steeplechase any time soon, he’s getting back to normal. The most difficult part of his recovery so far, he says, has been having to think about every movement he makes. He isn’t used to moving quite so cautiously.

Thank you all for your prayers and kind thoughts. Keep ’em coming! We can use them even when all is well.

Family matters

loss

11/11/2014 Nichole 4 Comments

Over the weekend, a guy I grew up with asked his Facebook friends for prayers for his younger sister, K. She’d had a brain aneurysm, he said, and she was coming out of surgery, and they were hopeful. As yet there hasn’t been a happy ending to their story, and it doesn’t look like there will be.

My mom and theirs were close friends when I was growing up, so we spent a lot of time together when we were very young. I have one of those sunny, hazy childhood memories of running around their grandparents’ porch with them — in my mind, their grandfather looked just like Santa — but they moved away and I didn’t see much of them after that so I didn’t know her all that well.

Still: I’m crushed for them. As a mother, as a big sister, as a daughter. That kind of loss would leave such a hole in my life; I don’t know what you do with that kind of grief.

I’m thinking of their family, and I’m praying for them. For a miracle or at the very least for a sense of peace and solace. I don’t know what else there is to do for something like this.

This life is so short, and we’re so fragile.