Just a Short Post...

Currently reading: The Moonflower Couple, by John Fairchild. I'm halfway through it.
E-Book: Still reading Swift of Heart by Janet Davies. I'm on Chapter 8...if two of my kids are still running fevers tomorrow, we're staying home instead of traveling. Maybe then I can curl up with my computer and finish it!
10pm: Just finished both...Great job! Next up in the rotation...Ok...panic time. List has disappeared! I think Brynn's was next...I'll search for it and come back.

7:30 pm: The presents are wrapped, all the baking finished, and all that remains is a quick trip to the grocery store for some coleslaw, so I can make my 22-second salad for Christmas dinner!

Christmas 1994. My daughter was 5 months old; my son had just turned 3, and the baby was 10 years in the future, not even thought of at the time! My beloved grandmother had been diagnosed with esophogial cancer and not expected to live much longer. We packed up our gifts and flew to Florida.

My sister was home from her stint in the Peace Corps, and had taken a job at a local nursing home. She checked on Grandma daily, and visited with our mother, who had taken a leave of absence from her job to be my grandmother's hospice nurse.

Christmas was rough. Grandma could only come downstairs for a few minutes, but she wanted Christmas morning in the living room, not up in her bedroom! After watching my toddler ripping the paper off of his presents and yelling exuberantly, and my baby girl content with the boxes, Grandma gathered her gifts, kissed us all, and made her way back upstairs.

My uncle and his family arrived from Naples, Florida, and we took turns sitting in Grandma's room and talking to her. Grandma was on a feeding tube, but she enjoyed watching the rest of us enjoy the food my mother had prepared, and reminiscing about past years.

One month later, Grandma left us. And the sad thing is, all the video we shot during Christmas morning is lost. Something was wrong with the video camera, and it wasn't discovered until a couple of years later, when my mother finally felt strong enough to watch it. But we've got our memories, and my diary of that last Christmas in Florida.