October 29/30/31

Millie teaches Aidan to crochet on October 29th.

That same baby sleeps on my lap while I read history to the girls on October 30th.







My mom called me from the hospital on the afternoon of October 30th and told me through tears of Dad's abrupt diagnosis.   On October 31st, I woke up and started making Zeke a car costume.  I cut cardboard, taped it together, and painted a base coat with my thoughts centered on my mom and dad.  My sister Debbie showed up mid-morning with the offer for me to go to the hospital for a few hours, so I left, came home mid-afternoon, and slap-dash sewed Pippi a skunk costume, my thoughts still centered on my mom and dad.  Deb had helped make/gather the rest of the girls' costumes, but I had no time to finish Zeke's car.


And then I snapped these sorry pictures right before John and I left the house with them.



 


 


Millie was Beth from Little Women.

Annie was...you guessed it.

Susannah was....you guessed it.

Piper and Aidan were both skunks.






(Striped, not spotted.)

And poor ol' Lu slipped through the cracks entirely in that confusing day.  She was supposed to be a duck-horse, but I had no time to make her costume, so she settled on a princess before changing her mind after we'd dressed her.  Final choice, five minutes before we left, was an elephant too big for its skin.

That morning's hospital visit on All Hallow's Eve ended up being the last time I talked with my Dad in the flesh. The man I'd never seen cry wept with me, the man who struggled to express affection to his children held my hand, and we spent a few hours together before they transferred him to Rochester.  I didn't know that he would step from death to Life in just ten days.
Posting these pictures is hard.