winter cousins

About this time last year my Ky cousin's husband was hospitalized for heart problems in Paducah which is about 30 minutes from them. I know that because they took me on a tour one time complete with beer over the coal piles and rails and the lake that is famous for that area. I watched as the dam opened and closed controlling the flow of water to generate electricity for that area I reckon. One of my favorite shots of all time is the one of a train on the bridge from an open window. We ate at the Castle and had some more beer. I got to see Eddyville live and in person! While Deb was busy trying to keep up with Ron all those miles away she stopped taking her diuretic because it makes you pee all the time. She rolled herself around in a wheelchair because of bad knees just to get to where he was because she was devoted to him. She died a couple of weeks after that right after he came home from the hospital from fluid overload. I will carry the memory of our last conversation and that visit with me to my own personal heaven.

Hospice is moving in as we speak with my cousin Donna and her hub off the coast of Washington on Lummi Island. Alpha 1 antitrypsin deficiency is an inherited disorder that causes liver and lung failure at an early age. Her sister Katherine died at 64 and she and her aunt Latricia are both in end stage liver disease at that very same age. Her passing will leave me as the eldest grandchild of Wilmer and Lottie Stafford from Blue Mountain Mississippi but for now, she's somewhere between here and there. Her devoted husband Michael is an artist and devoted caregiver. We should all be so blessed.

So far nobody has killed anybody else with the increased census at Casa Poops so that's a good thing, right Martha? I watched cartoons with Boogs this morning and there were cinnamon rolls which just makes everything better. Plus apple jacks, of course. The washer is in high gear and there are brooms and mops flying everywhere. It's what we do when we're tired as hell and ain't gonna take it anymore.

^j^