Raining and Pouring

We had another whirlwind out-of-town weekend for my mother's funeral in North East, PA. I read the shortened eulogy and the attendance was very good. I will update the eulogy text to reflect my final edits. It was also my aunt's birthday on Saturday, and since she, my uncle, and my cousins were all in town for the funeral, we managed to have a little bit of fun amid the sadness.

On our way home, though, before we even made it back into Ann Arbor, we had received word that Grace's father is very ill and in the hospital in Saginaw. So we took just enough time to cook dinner and do some urgent cleaning, and then late in the evening Grace and Isaac headed up to Saginaw to visit him, leaving me to tend to the babies at home. Grace got back about 2:30 in the morning. She is moving directly on to the next crisis without an opportunity to catch her breath. She is going to take the kids up to Saginaw for a couple of days while I try to focus on work. Between my mother's illness and all the travel to Pittsburgh and Erie and then the funeral a week later, I have used up all my available time off from work, and then some (over the last few weeks, I missed nine days in total).

This has been a rough year: since last October, anniversary of my hire date, I took time off for the birth of baby Sam, then time off because of my shingles infection, and then time off for my mother's critical illness, death, and funeral. As far as my sanity and health are concered, though, this does not add up to the restorative powers of an actual vacation, even one taken at home. I am tired, mentally and physically; I'm feeling burned out; and I'd be grieving, too, if I had time to let everything catch up to me. I'm just hoping that when my time off renews again in October that we can plan a real, restorative vacation for the family.