I just received an e-mail from Mom saying my paternal grandfather called today to let us know my grandmother is not expected to live much longer.  To quote: “They don’t expect her to hang on very long.”

It appears my family’s season of discontent persists, worsens even, and each passing day brings with it yet one more fear, one more trouble, one more anguish dangled before us like a rotten carrot.

I struggle with the worries and truths of life: that all blood must be shed upon the altar of time, that all things end, that the curse of love is to watch familiars die, and that pain cuts as deeply years before and years after as it does at the very moment a life is done.