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Art and craft. I was once an artist. I took art classes. I did drawings and watercolors. I did metal sculpture. I was bored. I became ill. I had a heart attack. I even died (clinically) but for some reason came back. I spent a long time soul searching. I spent time reevaluating my life. At first I thought my days were numbered so I took risks. I had a horrific motorcycle accident. I had a head on collision with a car at 50 mph. I walked away. I guess it was not my time to die. Going back to the first time I died, I actually crossed over. I made it to the other side. I was told that my mission in life was not complete so I had to return to life. Maybe that was why I survived that motorcycle crash. It finally came to me a few years later that I wasn't going to die anytime soon do I got my act together and started acting like an adult. I got an education and started my life's journey. I had had a wild life before but this was different. I had changed. I liked myself. I was more accepting. I had different interests. But I was still evolving. I got started on my career late in life. I got off disability (I was on SSD) and got a job. I changed direction again after 5 years. A new career. I found my niche. I held that job for 22 years. Near the end of the 22 years I lost my father. I started caring more for my mother. Her health was failing and she had already had one bout with cancer, and we were hit with another. She was strong in spirit and will. She fought the fight while I spent my time making sure she got the medical treatment she needed. Her mental state degraded and now my mission was clear. She then broke her hip. It was that incident that marked the end of life for her. She just gave up. One day in her room she said to me she was done. She wanted to go home. She was quite lucid and was very clear about her wishes. I returned home and prepared for home hospice. She had advanced Colon cancer. It had returned and was inoperable. Hospice lasted about three months. It wasn't easy for either of us. I was administering morphine for her pain, about 50 to 100 ml every 4 hours. The doctor and burse told me that at this stage she was getting blood clots and it was one of those that killed her. She had a massive stroke and the next four hours she struggled to live but eventually she died. I took care if all the details and the cremation. I felt empty. My parents had been my primary concern for the last 8 years. Now I was alone. I reluctantly contacted my sister after not hearing a thing from her for 10 years. She had not changed. She was her old bossy self, more concerned about what she felt she was entitled to than about what had just happened. I even drove to Utah trying to rebuild some sort of family to no avail. I left there knowing I was truly alone. I returned home and started packing. I was getting stuff ready to transport to my nieces place and to sell the property as there were too many memories there. I gave away a lot of stuff. I took two truck loads to my niece. I sold the place at a give away price as it needed a lot of maintenance and I wanted out. My mission was complete, so I thought. I was officially homeless. I moved into a small cabin on my friends property. After my mom's death I started seeing a lady named Mary. We hit it off good. Little did I know,at the time that she to was dying of cancer. It was after a month she revealed this to me. I had more work to do. She made jewelry from broken and discarded stuff we found at garage sales and swapmeets. We would sell and make pretty good money. It was always a surprise when we would find gold jewelry in these junk buys. On a few occasions I sold gold worth hundreds of dollars to dealers in Hemet. However as time passed complications started to impact Mary's life. One weekend she was extremely short of breath and I tried to convince her to get medical help. I eventually got her to the emergency room and the doctor gave us the bad news. Her cancer had spread throughout her system. The radiologist was almost in tears as he related his findings to me. Mary's days were numbered. They checked her in. For the next five days it was touch and go. I spent many hours with her talking. She knew she was terminal. We both acknowledged that. I get a call one morning from the nurse that she wanted to see me. By the time I got there she had passed. I was alone again.
As I grow older I find people I know passing on. Some of my heroes have left this world. A day does not go by without the announcement of another death. But I'm still here. I guess my mission isn't finished. I wonder what is next.
