Snow.  I am starting to loathe snow.  Knapper parked my car
up at the end of the driveway last night so I could leave for
appointments this morning.  I walked the quarter mile with my
bag which holds my equipment (scales, BP stuff, sharps container,
various other medical paraphernalia) and the portable ecg machine.
A nice little treck in the snow.  Once to my car I discover I have
left all of the necessary paperwork back at the house.   

Like someone without a brain, I drive down to get it.  I'm cold, I
don't want to walk. It's snowing.   I get the paperwork, get in the
car and promptly get stuck again.  No getting out of this one. More
appointments canceled.  I call the paramedical companies and let them
know what the deal is.  They say my car is a lemon.  I want to laugh.
My maiden name is Lemon.   

The day drifts by.  I'm floating.  No feeling.  Numb.   
Then I get a call from my father.  They are bringing aunt mary
home from the hospital.  They have found cancer in the fluid
that surrounds her brain.  They are giving her a few days to a
week to live.  Hopeless.  I knew it when I saw her last.  I asked
her then if she was  ready.  She got angry with me.  Nothing left
to say.  Her name is Mary Lemon.  She is a Lemon.

She does not speak.  She holds uncle dick's hand and he pats
it and cannot smile.  The pain is an ocean, sweeping us all up
with it like flotsam in the tide.  We have all known this was
coming.  My father tells me I was right.  He asks me how I
knew.  I can't answer him.  He and my mother will be up from
Alabama at the end of this week, the beginning of next.  There
is nothing I want less than to see them.

I hang up the phone and knapper asks what's wrong.  I can't
answer and he puts his arms around me.  Chris comes up and
puts his arms around the both of us.  We stand, like some
sculpture of pain.  I choke out the words.  We hold each other
and cry.  I come in here, sit down at my computer and compress
the pain into small black letters on a white background.  I cry,
tears like drops of rain on the backs of my hands.   

Life goes on.  Last week we made an appointment for a financial
planner to come to the house at 8 tonight to discuss our "financial
needs."  We tell them the situation.  They ask knapper what he wants
to do, what are his goals.  Irony:  He wants to fish the Madison river
in Montana.  He wants to go to Alaska to hunt for 3 weeks.  The
advisor tells knapper these are wonderful goals.  The man tells me I
would be good at his job.  He invites me to a meeting next week to
discuss hiring me.  I tell him I won't be here after June, that I am
leaving for California then.  He tells me that I can do what he does
in any state.  He says I would be perfect for the job and tells me I
would make anywhere from 400 to 800 dollars per person.   

Doors close, windows open.  Aunt Mary is dying and I am going to start
a new career.  I don't know how to feel.  How can it be that the last
person to love me just for myself, without me ever having to do a
single thing to please her, will be dead in a matter of days? How do I
handle all of this?  Words thrown on a screen will not take this pain
away.  Aunt Mary dies and  I get to start my life over again.  Lucky
me.