Sadness

Josie's brother, Louie, died yesterday. Although he has been suffering from the results of a series of small strokes over the last two years, he died suddenly yesterday from a heart attack. There was no suffering and he died while eating lunch with his wife Ida. Funeral arrangements are not complete at this point, so we will wait to see what happens. Josie now has only herself and two sisters - Pauline and Marie - left in her family. She had just mentioned recently that she wanted to pay a visit to him. Louie was the last of her four brothers.

My interview yesterday at Sam's Club was  a long experience. It started out that my application still needed some work - completion of an assessment test - before I could continue with the interviewing process. I completed that using the Club computers in the retail area. It seemed like I was interviewing for an executive job. I went through two interviews - one with the team leader, and a second one with the manager of the group I would be working with - and have a third and final one scheduled at 9 AM this morning with the Club Manager. If that goes well, I will be hired as a seasonal employee and work as a greeter to start. More on that role following my final interview. Today marks my fourth trip to Sam's Club this week to complete the hiring process.

George is home from his surgery and brief stay at the hospital for follow up. It appears that everything went according to plan and he will rest the next couple of weeks before doing much of anything except normal walking and sitting. There is a good chance that the surgery has repaired the worst of his back problems. We hope so.

The rain total for the last two days is .85". That was badly needed rain for all of AZ and it came down at a rate that didn't result in any serious flooding. We'll take it that way every time...

Day of Sadness

There are days like yesterday that we all dread and we all live through. Josie had been getting reports from back east from her family members about the status of her sister, Marie, who had been in the hospital following Chemo treatments for a cancerous tumor in her stomach. She has been in the hospital for three weeks following her surgery to remove a portion of her stomach and small intestine and she is unable to keep food down- and is losing a lot of weight. She is close to being discharged from the hospital to be placed in a rehab center as the doctors are not able to do any more to relieve her condition. Evidently, Marie is having these problems as a result of stress, rather than medical reasons.

We have been following the status of her brother-in-law, Carlos, who has been suffering from liver cancer for the last several months. We last visited with him in January, 2011, while we were making our swing through Florida. Below is a shot we had taken of Carlos and Pauline (and Josie) while on that visit:

We decided to pay a visit to Josie's brother, Louie, yesterday afternoon as she has been unable to talk to him - or his wife, Ida - for many months. Evidently, the number she was trying to reach him on was Louie's old number which he never uses. Anyway, Josie thought she would just try "dropping in" to see if things were still OK. We were happy to see that he was still at the location in Surprise where we last visited with him a year ago. He is much thinner now, but otherwise doing about the same. While visiting with Louie, we received a phone call from Josie's niece, Evelyn, in New Jersey informing us that Carlos had passed away. It was so ironic that the news would be received while visiting her family in Arizona. Although not surprised at the news, it was difficult to accept that another member of her family has passed on. Carlos was 85 years old and will be missed.

Josie begins work again today following her first 4 days off since late February. Maybe working will help her to cope with the sad news that has surrounded her the last few days...