Is this the Fourth of Never?

Today IS the fourth of July, 2013.  The Fourth of Never was a Johnny Mathis song from the sixties.  For you "youngsters", Johnny Mathis was a popular singer back in the day.  He sang love songs.....SOME teenagers "made-out" (kissed each other for hours on end) to his music.  Actually, the song was the Twelfth of Never.....my old brain just dug that title from it's archives.  The funny thing is that in the eighties it was revealed that he was gay.....maybe he was singing all those love songs to men..... oh, puh-lease.....I won't go there!  I saw him once in person at Carter-Baron Amphitheater in Washington, DC.  It was an open air theater in Rock Creek Park and was lovely to listen to that love music on a soft, balmy, summer evening.  Probably I went with my best friends, Leslie and Cary.  Cary is a boy.  When we were about thirty, Leslie and I finally figured out he was/is gay.  Duh?

This has been a  momentous four months for us.  Curtis' Mom, Aka Edith or Granny, got viral pneumonia  and almost bit the dust.  (Perhaps I've watched too many Westerns?)  But she got well enough to go to Rehab.  We thought she'd hate it but she loved it.  The food....great.....the physical therapy.....great.....the visitors......four times as many as she ever had at home.  But she was working hard at getting  independent enough to come home.   Kinda sorta.  She wouldn't even try to dress herself, or put in her contacts.  She only walked at rehab, not around her room etc....  I realized that after 47 years of widowhood she enjoyed having someone wait on her.  I love me some "serfing," as we call being waited on, myself so I sure didn't blame her.

Then she started having blood clots in her legs.  Her legs would swell up and leak fluid.  Then she would have to stay in bed.....no rehab.  Her legs were very painful.  They got better, then worse and then back to the hospital.  Where they found she still had some pneumonia in her lungs etc....and things went down hill from there.  More tests, more procedures, more breathing treatments, she was dying and didn't know it.  She still wanted to go back to rehab.  Her doctor, Shari Carter, had to tell her, "Mrs. Edith, you are a very sick woman; you are not well enough to go back to rehab." 
"Then I want to go home," she said.  The next day they sent her home and the final journey began.

That was Saturday....on Wednesday night at 11:30pm....she said "take me Jesus, take me.......bye-bye Curtis!"  The hospice nurse, Pam and Mac Chapman helped us through this.  Our son Wayne came with the undertaker to pick up her body that night. 

The visitation and funeral were a swirl of emotions......mostly appreciation for friends and family who came to show their support.  The sweetness of having all our children and their spouses and our grandchildren together.....we, the people she loved the most and did the most for ever since being widowed 47 years before.

Since then we have been cleaning out her house.  So full.....of stuff....of clothes....of  MEMORIES.
Yesterday the last load went to Habitat.  Next week Todd's bedroom furniture will go in storage, and Wayne's bedroom will go to his brother in law.  We are having the den, dining room, and living room furniture she left to them stay in the house until it is sold.

Meanwhile, The Billie Hardee Home for Boys where our son, Wayne, and his wife, Niki have worked for the last 25 years has closed and they are unemployed.  More reasons to pray; more reasons to lean on God.  God was faithful to Edith for 97 years.  He has been faithful to us all our lives.  We know He will prove himself faithful to them; but if you don't mind....say a little prayer for them, their children and all the other employees who are looking for employment.   Amen.