Seasons

It has been a long time. Hello! I cannot give a very good explanation for such an extensive absence from this blog so I will skip directly to the news. Taking up this blogging project again could be daunting as there is so much to say that has not been said in the last year and a half so I am beginning anew with a short post. As many of you might know, my family has been going through a difficult time. On September 18 I received an email while in Madrid from my dad saying to call home immediately, that it was an emergency. So I called to hear the news that my mom had passed away a few hours before. I rushed home, had a fast and easy flight which was a relief and a blessing given the circumstances. I have been in Alabama now for the last three weeks, holding my family tight and helping my dad get some things in order after my mother's death. It was truly a shock, my mom wasn't sick or suffering from anything that we knew of except for some high blood-pressure. We still don't know the exact reason for her sudden death. The day she died, my father had left the house to run some errands around ten o'clock in the morning and when he returned around one o'clock, he found her in a chair at the dining room table still in her nightgown, seemingly having fallen asleep on the crossword puzzle she had been working that morning, the pencil still in her hand. He was unable to revive her through CPR, as were the paramedics who arrived moments later. She was gone. No warnings and no goodbyes. There were things that I wish I could have said to her, things that I wish I had done but I can only be grateful that I came home in July and was able to spend those last moments together. I am so thankful for these last few summers that I spent at home, and for the time that I was overseas because it made it necessary to call and spend hours on the phone with her in pleasant conversation every other week at least. This summer when I was home, I got to give her a hug every night before I went to be and spend a little time chatting before saying goodnight. She took me to the airport with Dad the day I flew back to Madrid and when I came back for her funeral, I passed the very site where we hugged for the last time. I had a really good mom and even though this goodbye came far earlier than I ever thought it would, I am so thankful that she was able to accompany me through so many seasons of my life. Lord willing, there are many more ahead, and I will carry the memories and lessons of my mom, Laura Grace Brown Tucker, throughout all of them.