My sister and her husband were intense alcoholics. Both enjoyed those ethereal phone calls so many alcoholics make while they are too drunk to remember how randomly senseless their Johnny Walker Wisdom is. I stopped accepting the phone calls allot of years ago. Hearing problems make phones difficult for me with the folks who can make special accommodations in their speech for my benefit. A slurring drunk? Ouch. Our last conversations consisted of my laying the phone down and letting them ramble until even a drunk could notice I wasn't there any more. My rejecting those drunken rambles was the end of our communication. I continued to hold them in my heart and pray for them continually.

My brother-in-law died in his sleep about 4 months ago. The sister with whom I shared the grandfest tells me our sister is not handling it well, at all. Monday evening our niece found her semi-conscious on the toilet and rushed her to the hospital. Left to her own devices, she would have died already. The hospital staff has kept her alive and it looks likely that her daughters will advocate the half-life of mechanically assisted continuance. We know that can go on for a very long time... My sister and I do not believe she wants this, at all. She has told us often that she did not want to out-live her husband, nor end her days as a mechanical wonder. She has no living will, so by law the daughters have the last word.

And so, another morning finds me whiling away the cool hours of the day here instead of working my farm full of outdoor projects. Sigh.