Surprise!

One thing that's complicated about my life is that it changed so suddenly. One minute I was considering how I was going to spend the five glorious days of my fall vacation and the next I was in the ER with Dad while he stablilized from a massive heart attack. I feel as though I adopted a child that day. Suddenly. He came to live with  me unable to care for himself. I had to worry if he was warm enough, eating enough, happy enough, and bathing enough. I also began to worry even more than I already had before, that I would lose him. As if this wasn't complicated enough, I had just seen my last child leave for college. I was grieving the loss of my role as mother. The girls are all doing great, and I can see that they will be wonderful adults. I feel OK about the job I did as their mother, but I feel sad that they will never be living with me in the same way again. Even if they move home for a time, I won't really be their parent in the same way. Each time I kiss one of them good bye I feel incredibly sad and overwhelmed with grief. I feel a lot of loss right now...I'm sandwiched between learning to be the parent to adult children and learning to be the daughter to an adult with huge needs. And in October I had no idea that my life would take this direction. Surprise!