Week 10

The running tally continues. That being said I am going out of town tomorrow for a few days and realize that I am going to be too lazy, tired, or whatever excuse comes to mind to blog. Now that the confession is over, I am learning from last week's fiasco and posting early there in removing my ability to screw up. Well in this particular instance, there are plenty of other things I can make a mess of. But I digress. The blog I should have written last week is rolling over this week. I'm not totally convinced I want to write this particular blog, as I have spent the better part of the past 30 years keeping my personal and kung fu lives separate. Crossing that boundary is uncharted territory. One I'm still convincing myself is for the better. The question I keep coming back to is, who benefits from the "better" Did you notice I dodged around it again? Ok here goes. My mom had 12 siblings. 2 years ago the eldest of her younger brothers died in a fire taking the total from 6 boys in the family to 5. This year we are facing the fact that the oldest (her sister) has critical lymphatic leukaemia, has been taken off of chemo treatments and has been in the hospital since last Saturday. Very soon there will be 6 girls in the family, down from 7. Mom's sister in law (wife of one of the twins - youngest boys) has been battling brain cancer for the last few years. She has 20 growths in her brain, and they have now found 2 growths in her liver. She has 3 months to a year left. And though not in the same category for most, my 26 year old horse is slipping away. I've had her since she was 4 months old and she has been my best friend for over 2 decades. She is rapidly losing the battle of time, and I am doing everything I can to make her final time (however long that is) as comfortable as possible. I am dreading the day I have to make that call to the vet. It gets closer every day. Like playing Emotional Russian Roulette. Sadly they are all on borrowed time. But as I learned long ago Life and Death are 2 halves of the same whole. My parents gave us the gift of not sheltering us from experiences good or bad. Life has a valuable teacher called experience. Though some of them are harsher than others.