Double post:

As some of you may know, things have been pretty challenging for me lately. If you are at all curious, you can check out my recent post in the Bipolar forum called "You guys are NOT going to believe this". My head is still not in the best of places but I am doing my best to hold it together.

Yesterday, my husband called his dear, sweet 94 year old mother in England for their usual chat and she was truly bonkers. He immediately hung up and called his brother who lives not far from there. The word is, she's been having increasing dementia and they fear she's had a TIA or full stroke in the past two days.

Today, brother phoned to say that they believe her heart is failing and the blood flow to her brain is decreasing steadily. Her vitals are decreasing. She's been holding her own for three to four years, considering her advanced age but it definitely appears that the end stage process has begun. I have always believed that God provides and my husband had only this morning mentioned to me that one of our CD's matures tomorrow (cash available for airline tickets).

Also, we have been planning carefully for months how to budget our money so that hubby can retire at the end of December, which he desperately needs to do now at age 68. We planned carefully and came to the realization that we can survive for more than six years on our savings only even if we have no other income, which of course, we do. So we are not in bad shape. The retirement means little if we don't have this wonderful matriarch of the family to visit, share stories with, and learn from. We actually had imagined that, given his mother's relatively good health so far, she would be around for several more years. This is a very sad development, to say the least.

I am only learning to accept the loss of my own mother. Now, we are faced with this. I will go with hubby to London and support him as long as he needs me. Maybe the change of scenery will be good.

I bought a hat several months ago. My mother-in-law reminds me of Queen Elizabeth. Shes a tough, old English broad. The Queen would never go anywhere in public without a hat. So, I will carry my hat box on the plane. I will honor her at her funeral by wearing my hat.