Thankful Thursday
Today I am grateful for...
- Colleen. It's impossible to express how grateful I am that she fell in love with me over half a century ago, and stayed with me through forty-five years of marriage and well over 16,000 good-night kisses.
- The staff at WhidbeyHealth Medical Center. Their care, kindness, and skill got her through many rough weeks over our years on Whidbey, and kept her as comfortable and cheerful as they could all through her final week. The fact that they knew her and her purple hair meant a lot to her.
- Dr. Rosa Rangel, who gave her two more mostly-good years of life, and was there to make sure I was with her in the end.
- The Neptune Society, for swiftly and smoothly taking over the huge stack of paperwork and making all the other arrangements that I knew nothing about.
- Our extended family -- our kids, our sister-of-choice
pocketnaomi and her family, and the scores of people she adopted over the years, all of whom knew her as "Mama Colleen". And the hundreds who might not have been "formally" adopted, but called her Mama anyway. - Naomi in particular, who has been taking care of me and trying to make sure that I take care of myself over the years and especially this last horrible week.
- Our house/grounds-keeper Libby and our housemate S, whose support has kept both the household and me functional during these last trying weeks.
- Colleen's caregiver and dear friend, Vivian. More than anyone else (probably even including me) her friendship, companionship, loving care, tireless energy, and optimism kept Colleen mostly cheerful and as comfortable as possible during her final weeks, and indeed years.
I'm sorry; I can't thank everyone individually. If anyone ever had a hope of remembering you all and thanking each of you personally it would have been Colleen. Thanks you all.
[Crossposted from mdlbear.dreamwidth.org, where it has
comments. You can comment here, or there with openID, but wouldn't you really rather be on Dreamwidth?]