So it's been a weird year.
It started with the death of my father-in-law's roommate. She passed away suddenly at about 60 at the end of January. Her death exposed his very poor quality of life and serious dementia which she had been covering up to continue to live with him.
That led us to have to move him out of his apartment and into a senior living facility. And to clean out his apartment. And later to have to move him to an assisted living facility in Dallas. We were finally happy with his living arrangements and having him 20 miles away instead of 250 when he suffered a series of strokes and died at the end of August.
In October, a friend of our younger daughter's died at 27 of a rare form of cancer. In November, a friend of our elder daughter and son-in-law died in a car crash at 27.
We also lost a beloved little basset hound in April to cancer.
So that was a lot.
In July, I lost my job. It wasn't my fault (although I'm sure everyone says that) so much as it was a political mess that I got caught up in. But still, for the first time since 1986, I was out of work. And still am, although I have been very close to a couple of great jobs. That has been hard. Money is tight but we might be able to still pull off Christmas. Actually, we can definitely pull of Christmas, but perhaps not at the scale we did last year but enough to not let the family down.
We had some good things. Our younger daughter got a great new job and business opportunity (and moved away from us to Houston) and our elder daughter got a big promotion and is now managing her company's business. The Wife and I had a couple of nice trips to Phoenix and to the Hill Country. Our new puppy has been a cheerful crazy source of smiles and happiness. We're all healthy and that is a price above rubies.
In 2009, my life was a stressful mess. Work was horrible and brutal and the finances at home were bad. I reread The Power of Positive Thinking and reconnected to my faith. And that has basically kept the black dog at bay through every challenge since then. Being in a strong marriage has helped that tremendously. Having someone always in my corner is a priceless blessing.
We've weathered this really well and maintained a positive approach. I feel the black dog nipping at my heels sometimes but he is generally contained.
