Chaos Week

The last three days have been unbelievably emotional. Not all good, not all bad, just all intense.

We found a different house to rent right where I was looking that fit all the list of characteristics I didn't think were possible to find, including nearly 2000 square feet on one level, with a safe fenced yard that is bigger than the one we have (but still small, unfortunately), and lots of spaces that are very functional for us. We filled the application and the owner of the house liked us and the property management co liked our credit scores, so we are moving in a month, to the great distress of our current landlords.

The contract arrived, was signed, and was sent back for Tim's first composition that is getting published--the "Pirate Song," for men's chorus, to be published by Alliance Publishing. Very exciting.

My brother-in-law had surgery and the recovery has been full of complications.

My brother had a birthday! Hooray!

My parents found a wonderful house to buy and managed to get a loan squared away for it, so they are moving and selling their current house.

My sister is also moving because her lease is up and my parents' new house is big enough for her to get into, too.

Tim is filming his first commercial for a non-music product--and he wrote all the music for the commercial, which will be released on youtube as soon as it's done. I'll embed it on my blog so you all can see.

My brother just returned from South America, where he was doing a service Spring Break.

And, just when the publishing contract went out in the mail, the house loan came in, the brother-in-law was sent home with his IV still in his arm, the brother got home from the airport, the music project was 80% completed, the notices given we and my sister are moving, the other brother's birthday dinner was about to commence, my very elderly grandpa died.

That, in and of itself, is one of those bittersweet, deeply emotional things. His body had been falling apart for years, and we expected him to die last December, and he is finally free of pain and suffering. But death is never sweet for those left behind, even though I can't say that I feel sorrow. Just intense emotion. I just know he's happy, talking to his brothers who died in World War II, released from pain and the prison his body had become. And those thoughts bring me to tears more than sorrow would.

It has driven me to ponder mortality, though, as I look at my babies and think that someday they will be the gray-haired men surrounding my bed while I die.

And when that happens, I hope they joke and laugh and talk cheerfully to one another instead of mourning and fussing and being quiet and "reverent" and trying to make it a solemn, "spiritual" occasion. I can't think of a better way to go than hearing my children happily being a family still, laughing and talking and doing what they do when they are happy and together. It's those "normal" happy sounds that tell me now that everything is as it should be--those are the sounds that are sweetest to my ears--and that's what I want to hear when I am dying so that I will know that they will go on being a family even when I am not there to direct things anymore. That would be far more comforting than anything else I can think of--just to know that everyone else is okay, too. And that, I hear, is just what Grandpa got.

As Christina Rossetti said, "When I am dead, my dearest, sing no sad songs for me." I don't mind if you sing, of course. Just make it Skook and the Pirate Song, would you? I don't want to be made to feel guilty for dying and leaving everyone miserable.

When it comes to that. When my hairs are white and my body tired and its time to go. Not any time soon.