The Curious Case of Diane Elisabeth

Well, since my last blog, I've gotten moved in and mostly settled. I really love this house. I mean, I really, really love it. It feels like home for the most part and I absolutely love my bedroom, although it's significantly colder than the rest of the house.

I finally went to see my sister. It wasn't easy at all. I cried almost the entire time I was there. My dad cried a little too, which made me cry more. She looked pretty good, but she weighs about forty pounds less than she did on Christmas. She told us that the doctors told us that she has anywhere from three to eleven months. Her cancer is everywhere in her abdomen and is in her lymph nodes.

She's opting out of the chemo. She says that she doesn't want to be sick and throwing up for the little time that she has left, and I don't blame her one bit.

It sucks so much to know that my sister isn't going to be around all that much longer. It hurts a lot and no matter how much I try, I can't stop thinking about it.

When I went to see my sister, one of my other sisters gave me a folder that had two copies of essays that my dad had written. One was about his time in the service and when he was in Korea. He fought in the Korean War/Conflict.

The other about his alcoholism and life before finding God. It was titled Lost in a Crowd and it was so well written. It gave me a glimpse of my dad's life and how he was way, way before I was born. I wasn't even born yet when he wrote it.

Part of it was hard to read. I'm going to type that part up.

When my first boy was born, I went on a three day drunk. I didn't eat and drank so much that my nose would bleed and I could barely stop it. My wife [not my mother] having put up with this for about ten years sent word to me that I might as well be dead for the good I was doing for her and the children. [By this time he had five kids. He was 30 years old] In my drunken, guilty state this made sense to me. I took over 200 aspirins and 15 or 20 cold tablets. I was found and rushed to the hospital. they pumped about 125 or more that hadn't yet dissolved. I lost my hearing and the nerve ends in my fingers were deadened by the aspirin. When I scratched my head it felt like a soft pillow.

Now, I had heard about the suicide attempt before, but I wasn't certain that it had ever happened. I couldn't help but cry when I read it. The hearing thing makes a lot of sense, too. He goes on to say that he regained his hearing after two days, but he;s had trouble hearing out of his left ear for as long as I can remember. It has to be linked, somehow. My dad has been sober my entire life, so I didn't know what he was like when he was drunk. The essay goes on to tell about him finding God. He eventually became a pastor. I didn't know it but he had left his first wife and my older siblings for a three month period. After that they moved to her home town, which is also my home town. He became a manager of a store and he and his wife ran it until she had a fatal heart attack. He ran it by himself until he met my mom. They then ran it together. He had started drinking again, but finally quit when my mom threatened to take my brother and leave him.

I really enjoyed reading it, although it made me sad. My parents had only been married for ten years when it was written, so it was written in 1987. I think my dad quit drinking in '86.

I just thought that it was really interesting.





Sorry for those of you who read all that. It got a bit pointless towards the end. I hadn't expected to type out that entire paragraph, but oh well.