I really need to talk...

...and I have no idea of what to say.

Thursday was better than Wednesday. Friday was calmer still, until I got a call from Beloved with what is probably very good news. They want to take more of his blood (greedy beggars), and if the numbers have changed (bilirubin would be down, albumen would be up) he may still be a candidate for the procedure with the tiny glass beads into the liver tumors.

He is also meeting with a radiologist tomorrow. Why, you ask. Because the radiologist compared the most recent MRI’s with those taken at MD Anderson, and he says the mystery mass in the lower canal of Beloved’s brain is metastatic. It took me awhile to convince Beloved that that meant it is cancerous. They think that radiation would knock it out and possibly/probably get rid of his headaches.

My resilience is more than a little wonky these days. I have become adept at rolling with the punches, going with Plan B, saying Thywillbedone and meaning it. But I am better at making the intellectual shifts than the emotional ones.

Friday night I just felt tired and cranky and ready to bite somebody. I would have to look in the receipts that are waiting to be entered into our check registers, to tell you what we had for dinner that night. I do remember that I felt much better after I had eaten. And we tackled four or five boxes of his Christmas stuff, choosing to keep some of it, and to set the rest aside for the kids to go through.

Mel and Squishy came by early Saturday morning, on their way to the hospital to see her dad, who had had a stroke and was not doing well. They filled one of my emptied containers with stuff they wanted and took our love with them to the hospital. Her father passed away a few hours later.

When I emailed or texted my kids to let them know, I learned that 1BDH’s mother had passed away on Thursday.

Yesterday I went caroling with the Cub Scouts. Then I came home, picked up Beloved, and we took the electronic stuff to the vendor, then took our rings to the jewelry store to be re-sized. We both feel naked without our wedding bands. Should have them back later this week.

We were going to have the boys come over next Saturday to help muck out the garage, but we have a funeral to attend, instead. The stuff can wait. Mel’s dad was a really great guy. Her mom is a wonderful woman. They have made me feel so welcome in the tribe-at-large. So we will go share our love the way they shared theirs when Beloved’s first wife died three years ago. Then I will bring him home and head back out to an open house for a dear friend who just got married. He and Firstborn were childhood crushes. His mother was my friend who died so unexpectedly (was it only last year?) I can hardly wait to meet his wife. He is now instant-dad to two little girls, whom his mother would have adored.

Life and death and birth all tangled up together. Sounds about normal. Alison, as I was driving home from attending the Christmas program in Firstborn’s ward today, a hawk of some sort crossed over the highway about ten feet up and about twenty feet ahead of me. You would have known exactly what kind it was; I just figured it was Alison, waving hello from California.

I am roughly halfway done with the raglan decreases on Beloved’s sweater. I thought I would be farther along by now, but I’m still in good shape to have this finished by Christmas.

Younger Twin’s wife came by after their church and made off with another tub full of stuff. So there is very little that will need to be schlepped to the thrift store tomorrow. Most of the Christmas cards are addressed and inserted, just waiting for a brief newsletter which is Beloved’s project.

We took jelly jars to 80% of our home teaching families this afternoon, and the remaining family came over to visit, and left with a jar of their own. I am taking jars to work tomorrow. Hoping for a reasonably productive day once I get there, but mostly just hoping for a decent night’s sleep and wishing that the inflammation in my ankles would make like a tree and leaf.