It’s 4:30am. I want to say it’s Monday morning but since I have not slept yet to me it is really Sunday night. Outside the first big snow storm of 2021 is going on. It’s cold in the house so I’m laying with the dog on the couch under blankets. She is keeping me warm.

When I wrote my last blog entry so much in my life, and the world, was different. If you wrote out a timeline of what was ahead for me in the next 15 months it would read like the plot to a dystopian novel. I had absolutely no idea.

Since my last entry I lost both my parents. My mom died first at the end of 2019. It was shocking and unexpected. She was the “healthy” one. She was the one taking care of my dad (the “sick” one). She and I were very close. It was, and still is, very hard.

My wife and I took over caring for my dad. Things were rough at first but over the year, and despite the pandemic, we settled into a routine. My wife was my angel who took on the stuff I couldn’t. She found a home/health aid to handle the daily house care and get Dad to his appointments. She made lots of phone calls and figured out all the stuff my mom didn’t write down for us.

Toward the end of 2020 my dad was doing well. He was starting to really perk up and showed signs of “moving forward” (As they say). He started making plans to move things around in the house and replace some furniture. His health was stable, his mobility had really improved, and he was in good spirits. We visited with him during the week as often as we could.

And then.. He was gone. I got the call from his sister mid day today (yesterday?) as she could not reach him on the phone. I tried calling a few times over an hour thinking he might be in the shower or taking a nap. It was a weekend and the aid didn’t work on the weekends (we visited him instead). I gave up, drove down to his house, and found him. It was obvious he died in his sleep.

There was a moment.. after the paramedics, police, and funeral home left, that I stood in my parent’s home all alone and realized that this was the first time I was in their house completely without them. They were not out to dinner. They were not on vacation. They were not coming home ever again.

<TIME JUMP… Damnit Q!..>

I actually wrote the above at the end of January. I obviously never finished it. I guess I felt like I wrote enough and that was that.

So here we are 3 months later. Things are progressing. Life has moved forward. The pandemic appears to be receding. At least, where I live. I am getting my 2nd Pfizer shot next week. By the end of the month the whole household will be fully vaccinated. So I guess that is good. I could probably write book on life during the pandemic but I don’t want this post to be about that.

So, life is what it is now. We’re still adjusting to not having those two powerful people in our lives. It is what it is though.. life goes on… time only moves forward.. so we are.