About last night

With yesterday being Sisters Day, I made it a point to try to contact one of my sisters who lives in California. I'd already phoned two sisters, but in order to contact yet another sister, I had to call this sister first because I wasn't sure I had the right phone number. This one is in Lake Arrowhead but she is moving to the state of Maine soon. Anyway, she is my older sister, and it's hard for me to reach her by phone because when I call there, I usually get the machine. However, her youngest son (she has 3) answered the phone and I was REALLY happy to talk with him again because I haven't talked with him on the phone for, like, FOREVER! I do try to reach out to him on MySpace, but it's usually the stuff of a monosyllabic discourse.

Well, I figured I would try to catch her on Facebook. We just started chatting on Facebook. (Up until recently, I didn't know you can chat on there!) I'd sent her a message on there and I decided that as soon as she answered it, that was my cue she was online. At least, that was my thinking. I was hoping I could catch her, but she'd said she wanted to chat with me on Facebook when possible. So, I checked my email (not Facebook! I know, I'm weird like that. LOL) and, sure enough, I heard from her. But there were TWO messages, and not just the reply to my original message. One of them had the subject "emergency" and I held my breath as I opened it to read.

Apparently, some really bad business went down with my parents last night. (They live in Illinois.) I'd rather not talk about it here, but it is REALLY BAD. I was shocked, horrified, scared and saddened. And angry, too.

My sister said she would stay logged on Facebook and so I logged in hoping to talk to her about this news. Thankfully, she was still on, and I opened a chat window and asked, "What the hell is going on out there??"

So we talked about what happened. It was very difficult for me. This is something really bad and I had to cope with the possibility that my father might end up dead before sunrise. I was practically in tears but tried VERY hard to stay strong and think straight. While chatting with me, my sister was trying to come up with solutions and things to do to help. I could hardly think of much as far as my father was concerned, but with my mom, I was able to give some ideas on resources she can turn to for help until we were able to get help to her.

Well, we chatted until about 1:30 in the morning. We were both emotionally drained and exhausted. It was so distressing and difficult. She promised to notify me if she heard anything. After I logged off, I wanted to try to find something that would help me get my mind off of things. I was not able to go to sleep. Not with all of that in my head!

So I watched the movie Born Free. I'd rented it for Jen to watch, but I wanted to watch it first to ensure there was nothing in there her young eyes shouldn't see. (There isn't. It's a beautiful movie and I had tears in my eyes at the end. But I had to wonder....if those tears were because of the movie or because I was so fragile.)

I ended up going to bed at 3 a.m. My husband had come home at around 2 and he commented on how I should not be staying up so late, on account of the baby. (He stays up until about 4:30 in the morning and I usually referee the kids in the mornings.) I'd agreed but I'd been too upset to be able to sleep, anyway. I was bracing myself for the worst, with my dad.

I woke up at 7:30ish. Husband had never come to bed. (This actually happens a lot! He falls asleep on the couch a lot.) When I went out to the living room and woke him up, I soon discovered the baby was up, too! I thought he'd just woken up (since this was his normal wake-up time) but my husband told me that, actually, the baby had woken up shortly after I'd gone to bed. He'd been up with him all night. He'd fallen asleep two hours ago and I was practically reeling, thinking, 'Well, was the baby asleep, too?? Who was watching him???' I didn't ask about that. I just didn't want to deal with that just yet. The baby was obviously in one piece and just fine, though I have yet to investigate any damage he might have done in Jen's room.

Looks like I have that to brace myself for, too. But at least this one is not as bad as what I was fearing for my father. I still have that to carry.

And the burden of explaining the news to my daughter should the worst happen to her grandfather. (She hasn't seen him for two years or so. And he has never even seen his new grandson yet. He might leave this world without ever meeting my son! It's heartbreaking. Despite ALL of the bad things that went down between me and my dad, he is still my dad. There were bad things, but good things, too. I still love my father despite the bad things that happened.)

I will try to stay strong as this new day comes upon us and I try to find out any news about my parents. In some way, I knew something as bad as this was going to happen. My father was on a path of self-destruction and nobody out there has been able to get him back on the right path. So I knew that something as bad as this was coming, and that he might even die. I have tried to prepare myself for this possibility. It's just really hard when it actually happens. This kind of thing is something we try to prepare ourselves for...but I don't think anybody ever can.