"Right Now" rolled the die for this - choices were: Wash walls (going to start washing the outside walls by hand, not enough water in tanks to use the gurney), washing living room windows, chip lantana, draw (nearly finished cloud drawing), blog or start weekly letter to Aunt Lee.
Aunt Lee. Her husband, my Uncle Ben, died in January. I wrote as soon as I heard but never received a reply. Then, at the beginning of this month, I get a letter from her. She's in an old age home in Canton, Ohio, hundreds of miles away from Grand Rapids, Lansing, where Linda lives, or Jake, wherever the hell he is (he was in North or South Carolina, then Mexico, so who knows?). I don't know the story so getting mad isn't helpful. Maybe Linda is desperately trying to get her in a home closer to her. Aunt Lee doesn't mention the kids at all. All I know is although she was trying to be brave, the letter was sad and spoke of a woman very much alone - and you can never be lonelier than when you're lonely in a crowd. So decided I would write her once a week. Can only tell her Dry Gully Road news, certainly don't want to write of my woes (not that I have any) but writing about the animals and Australiana and upbeat newsy stuff, well, it might just make her smile sometimes. I am so glad Mom and Dad never went into a home. I'm not going either. I'll die first - and that's the only way to avoid them; stay healthy, stay active, keep your marbles, then die in the night or better yet, have a little warning that I am soon to be cactus so the animals are taken care of.
That was my only fear while Richard was away. If something happened to me while he was gone and no one noticed then the animals would suffer.
So there's my death wish. Suppose Aunt Lee is tired and perhaps no longer looks at dying with a jaundiced eye. It's a long beautiful, well-deserved sleep at the end of a long busy life.
Remember reading somewhere that those who have recently died go somewhere where they get to recuperate from life's rigours. And Wayne had that wonderful dream of Mom in just such a place.
Death is no enemy. Death is called an angel with good reason. It is love that releases us from the constant, miraculous, exhilarating, beautiful but ultimately exhausting embrace of life.
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