I had a surprise visit with my neice and nephew today. My neice’s sister had passed away on friday. I never know what to say at a times like that.

I took her to our garage and we smoked and I listened to her tell me everything about her sister and her cancer. She was glad to have the last couple weeks with her even tho she knew there was no hope of her getting better.  

The guys , my nephew and my husband, were in the living room chatting away.  

We all decided to get some lunch. We had a grand time at lunch. No sadness or talk of death or the goings on to come. We just laughed and talked. It was a great time.  

She said that she needed to get something to wear to the service the next day and I said we would drop the menfolk off at the house and go shopping for a couple hours.  

We looked at many articles of clothing and chatted about the kids and school and our daughters driving. Coincidentally, our daughters who are the same age have the same name as well. We talked about all the kids and how they were doing.  

We went to another store and she finally decided on some items that would make several good combinations for outfits. “Multitaskers” we like to call them . We laughed about that. I knew she was probly thinking about her tribulations but she was keeping it to herself.  

We took our goodies and went home to show the men. The children who range in age from 17 down to 2 all wanted to come see their great aunt and uncle. So she and I went there and got them.  

A very effervescent crew. All five fighting for attention. I must have heard my name a thousand times LOL.  She needed to get some of them some clothes as well, so I suggested we leave the 3 youngest there and take the 2 oldest and have a girl time at the wally world.  

The boys called and wanted pizza because the kids were STARVING as kids always are. So we made our purchases and went and got pizza. The poor ravenous babies snarfed the pizza and I could tell they were all tired . I was gently making suggestions that they needed to get the kids home to bed and try to rest for tomorrow.  

I don’t think my neice ate a bite of dinner. She was looking over her goodies from the shopping sprees and by some stroke of luck everthing she bought went with everything else. This was good. it made her happy. pluse the shirt I gave her also matched everything else as well so that majorly expanded her wardrobe.

I think that being here today was kind of a detox for her. No stress to talk about everything and battle emotions and other family members judgements on her behavior or lack there of. I felt like a shield for her allowing her to just be and not feel the need to react in any certain way or apologize for how she was feeling.  

She did mention during the day that she felt odd that she hadn’t been bawling her eyes out as was expected. I let her know that was just fine and when the time was right for her to break down it would happen. I let her know that her feelings are hers and hers alone regardless how the rest of her family might think she SHOULD be reacting.  

As they left I gave my hugs and love to them. When I hugged my neice I let her know I loved her very much and that she was strong enough to do this. God only gives us what we can handle.  

I pray for her to have a good day tomorrow despite the circumstances of her morning.