Letter from Texas

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for all your good wishes, thoughts and prayers.

Just an update:

My gran has improved a great deal. Monday she came out of the coma/delerium and started teasing everyone, but is refusing food and remains on IV drips for nutrition and antibiotics (to prevent infections). There are moments when she doesn't see us, or thinks we are other people, but then she figures it out later; she is also advising and encouraging us all for the future, telling a lot of childhood stories and seeing relatives that she will join on the other side.

It was touching that she declared my Mum was keeping her back - thinking that since my parents split up, she needed her mother.

We had a scare yesterday and we all gathered at the hospital, but she pulled out of that too.
This could go on for days or weeks. (I may have to come back...)

We are arranging for hospice care at home in preparation for when the hospital releases her. So yesterday we stripped the walls, wiped everything down, threw things away and gave away furniture in preparation for the hospital bed being delivered today.

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In better news, 14 of us gathered at Red Lobster for a feast last night - my cousin Elizabeth paid and we teased her because she is director of London charities, but she said it was OK since paying dollars makes it half price.

Last Saturday, most of the cousins in town got together for dinner as well, at a fancy Grill at the Galleria. That was expensive but we split it.

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I haven't been able to see my friends in the area because our car is the day taxi and my mother can't drive well at night. I don't know Dallas and am not allowed to drive her rental car - I've never been stopped by police in my life, but she won't relent. This sucks because you'd think there would be enough time in the day, but there isn't. Someone always needs to be driven somewhere, or there's shopping and cooking to do, or hospital visits, or something...I can't ask Gigi to come and get me because she can't drive outside of her familiar area, plus I am afraid of the disability controls she uses. It's not fair to ask my other friends to come here either...anyway, I leave tomorrow...

But we have to remember this is not a pleasure trip. Mum and I were arguing about that, on the way to Gigi's house because we were halfway there when Mum remembered that some family friends who had been keeping boxes from our house in their giant garage had finally allowed her to go there in the afternoon and pick up what she wanted. We argued because I had promised Gigi I'd see her, but I got blamed for an arrangement I had made the day before with her approval simply because she had found out later that we could get our stuff.

She had also given them a lot of things...It is weird going into people's houses and seeing your own furniture and decor integrated into every room. It happens all over the family now - reminders of our former life have been dispersed into all their homes in Texas, Canada, and England. Most weird to see my old Peter Rabbit keyring hanging out of my uncle's pocket...

So yesterday I was taking family photos out of frames and putting them in a folder so I can easily bring them with me to London. Some were specially mounted and framed, so those my mother will take to Canada and store under the bed.

Life is full of changes, isn't it? Sometimes we have no choice but to go along with it, no matter how much you must lose.