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Up to Thursday, September 16th of last week my friend George and I had been working tirelessly on a grant to help rebuild our little non-profit cultural education organization, Frederick l’Ecole des Arts.  George delivered the package to FedEx to be delivered overnight and in their hands on Friday morning.  We are now holding our breath to see if our organization makes it to the next round.  So, for the rest of Thursday, I kind of felt like someone had let all the air out of my tires.  It was weird, it was like all that crazy, frenetic, 5 hour long phone conferences, staying up till one the morning stuff, though it exhausted me, gave me a sense of purpose.  When all of it was over, I felt kind of sad.  But then Friday morning came, the sun was shining, I put on my music and picked up my brush, and got back to work on my poor, neglected Echo XXIII, YAY!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, so this weekend my family and I headed to Wheeling, West Virginia to visit with my mom and dad.  It’s a kind of difficult thing to do because, well, my dad is getting really old.  He’s only 73, but he’s been suffering with all kinds of problems.  He recently had surgery on his spine.  He’d been having a great deal of pain couldn’t walk because of stenosis.  At least now the pain is pretty much gone, but he’s struggling so hard to regain his strength.  His muscles had atrophied so much.  On top of his physical problems, he is also having signs of memory loss and other related issues with the mind.  My dad was a very powerful attorney in his day.  A really smart man with quick wit and incredibly handsome.  He looks so much like George Clooney that when I see George Clooney in a movie, it’s like watching my dad.

So we spent hours talking to my dad, engaging him in conversations and watching old home movies.  In the movies I watched as my sisters and I used to spend hours doing handstands against the wall, turning cartwheels, playing in the snow, swimming and just goofing around.  Looking back at my mom and dad in their youth.  It was great to reminisce about the past, and I really enjoyed seeing us dressed in the styles of the 70’s and early 80’s.  Oh man did we kill a lot of plaid!

The one lesson I am taking from this weekend is that I don’t want to wait until I retire to do the things I want to do, travel, live in exotic places, learn new languages, etc…  My dad never got to enjoy his retirement.  He worked up until he couldn’t anymore, and now he is old and struggling to maintain some type of quality of life.  My husband’s father had a similar experience, dying in his sixties as a result of radiation treatment he had received in his thirties for cancer.  He too never retired, worked up until the day he had his heart surgery.  Unfortunately, the damage and calcification was too great.  He was never able to fully recover and passed four months after the operation, never being able to leave a medical facility because of his fragility.  Life is precious and short.  I know my days are numbered and I want to be able to look back and know that I have done it all.