2014 has been a rough year

I notice that there are no blog posts for this year and that is because on December 9th my dear mother, co-author of our book, became frail after several minor procedures under anisthetic.....enough so that she had to enter a nursing and rehab center here in Camden near me. She had lost about sixty years of her memory (you will recall how excellent her memory was in 2007 when we wrote our manuscript) and required around the clock nursing care after having a blood clot in early December.

She was in physical therapy for about a month when she asked to stop the therapy because it tired her so much. It was shortly after that when we learned her blood count (hemoglobin) was very low and it became necessary that she get blood transfusions every two weeks from February through April.  In mid April we saw that the blood transfusions were no longer helping her. She went on hospice the last week of April and went to be with the Lord April 30, 2014. I was so devastated and missed her so much because I visited her every day, twice daily or more toward the end.  We had such lovely visits talking about her younger life that she continued to remember to the end. She was in such good spirits and very content at the home. She, of course, did not remember that this was the same facility where her dear mother, my sharecropping grandmother, had lived for five years before she died in 1992. Nor did she remember that it was the very same facility where Daddy lived for a year (part of 2003 and 2004) when he had Alzheimer's and before he had to be moved to a home in Arkadelphia where he died in November 2004.

My son was divorced  in the morning of the same day we lost Mama and he became sole  parental custodian of his daughters, ages 4 and 16. Naturally I had been helping with the girls since their mother deserted them in July of the previous year and now my husband  and I found ourselves helping more and more when their father worked. This was a big adjustment for us, having three more people in the house all the time, not knowing if and when they would once again have their own home.

To say the least, I was not able to set up or attend book events during all this adjustment period and time of mourning! Perhaps I can begin to do that now.I have scheduled two events this month - firstly September 20th I will attend Hunting & Fishing Day at the Tensas River Wildlife Refuge near Tallulah, LA and have a book booth for the day. Secondly, I have been invited to the Cotton Pickin Festival in Caldwell, AR, on September 26th and 27th. The mayor has asked that I take the stage for a short time to talk about the book. How exciting!

So I will post again after the book events and give a report at that time.