Playing Catch Up (again)

Very often I write for myself. This is one of those times that I will need to look back on in the future and so I record my thoughts and memories here while they are fresh. The events of life tumble and spin often leaving us wondering how, what, and why? This is one of those moments...

Three weeks ago my friend Ann left Florida with her husband David. They hooked up their camper and drove from the Ocala area through Virginia and into southern New York State, back to the place where they grew up together. They had plans to drive all the way north to Lake Ontario but first there was an August 25 family reunion for David. A day or two later his nose started bleeding and it just wouldn't stop. They went to the ER. When I went down to visit a week later, because he felt too week to drive 2 hours north, it was still bleeding randomly. On the evening of September 1 she took him back to the ER. They eventually transferred him to a hospital with a Level 2 Trauma Unit. That is where I went on Friday morning (September 6). With his platelet levels plummeting, the prognosis is dire. We had a bit of hope on Saturday when a trial treatment helped to raise the platelet levels. He was able to converse coherently and was even up and walking. He looked so good that I felt it was okay to go home, but his levels are dropping once again. My heart is breaking for my sweet friend who finally, after years of heartache, found the love of her life and is now losing him.

So, I have driven south to the Pennsylvania border twice in the space of a week. I watched as a support team from the Jehovah's Witnesses came to love, encourage, and pray with them and found myself impressed by their network. (They are Witnesses.) This past Friday night I stayed in my friend's camper while she slept in a hospital chair in her husband's room. I am completely undone by the fact that I am any comfort at all to my friend. We have been through a lifetime together, much of it separated by distance yet stitched together by love. Your prayers for my friends is appreciated ever so much.

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We got some rain here Monday afternoon. Buckets of it! I was out taking a few photos on the front step when my phone sounded the alarm. (Flower photo at the top taken previous to the alarm sounding.) It was a warning for possible flash flooding in my area. Thankfully I don't have a basement, and I don't have a creek running through my back yard either, although we did have a bit of a "lake" for a time. The town of Webster, NY is right along Lake Ontario so in some ways it couldn't have fallen in a better location.