Not a good day...

I write this morning out of sadness. But, as is typical of me, I'll start on a tangential rabbit trail. I hate rain!! The older I get, the more this feeling grows. It's really weird because when I was a kid, I kind of enjoyed rain and would even go out to play in it. Now, however, I simply despise it and only want to hibernate with a good book and my four legged children.

That being said, today is unusual because we are having Fall Conference where veterinarians come and present topics as an opportunity for continuing education. The school is virtually shut down, only seeing emergencies. This worked out well for my plans since I would be able to go to surgery journal club then attend the presentations that I am most interested in as well as allowing me time to go home during the day (a rare novelty) to finish up on some things about which I've been procrastinating. (Me? Never!!) When I woke this morning, though, it was raining and horrid outside. I also had one of my lovely premonitions (if you will) where I just feel as if something bad is going to happen. I didn't go to journal club or any of the presentations yet, but have been hibernating.

Now to the real subject of this post. One of my really good friends from sixth grade e-mailed me a few minutes ago. Her mom has been sick, in the hospital with severe pneumonia recently but had gone home and was doing better. She was taken back to the hospital because she wasn't oxygenating well. They decided that she had thrown blood clots to the lungs and needed to be placed back on the ventilator. They sedated her for intubation and she apparently threw a fatal clot and died.

I hate the fact that I am hundreds of miles away and can't even be there for her. I can hardly believe that her mom, who was also a dear friend to me, is gone. And, as always in times like this, I know that there are not words available to express the sympathy that I feel for my friend. It also brings to a head the other scary fears of life such as the fact that I'm also a long way from my mother who is older than her mother was. And there are my four legged children who are getting older both here with me and at home with my mom. And there are the memories of those that have been lost before both years ago and recently...probably one of the reasons for my hatred of rain. And there are all my friends who are scattered around geographically (primarily because of my tendency to move so much of late) that seem so far away. Makes me think of a quote from one of my favorite authors that I'll probably butcher but something about the more people you care about the more captives of fate there are in your life.