Gentle Years

We have our home study done.  We just need some type of written approval from our adoption agency to send with it, saying that it is okay with them.  Then maybe, finally, we can send that envelope off!

Yesterday I went and got my oldest sister from the nursing home she is currently in and then picked her husband up at their house so that they could come see my mother.  My sister and her husband live about 75 or 80 miles north of us.  So it was a long trip up, back, then up and back again, complicated by her walker and his wheelchair, but definitely worth it.  On the first leg of the journey, I was missing my sister Kathy terribly (1948-2004) and wishing that she was with me.  Pretty teary stuff-I found my sister on her floor as she lay dying-I miss her all the time.  Anyway, I looked up and through the rain in the Notch was the biggest rainbow I've ever seen in my life, arcing over the Notch and touching all the mountains.  It was gorgeous.  I think that Kathy sent it down, to help both on yesterday's journey and on the long journey that my mother is approaching.  Here is a picture of the drive that I made, but without the cloud cover, rain, and rainbow.

My mother is on a new diet.  Liquids and morphine.  She is still living on her own with one of my nephews and she will die at home when the time comes.  There will be no i.v. treatment if and when she becomes dehydrated or malnourished.  There will be no hospital visits or surgeries.  I pray that when things get worse, she slips into a coma and does not feel the end.

I got a draft of our homestudy to check over today.  Of course I got right on it!  Finally, we'll be able to move on to the next step-USCIS.