Thanksgiving - aging parents, daughters, life and death

I'm not very quick to blog yet in this relatively new blog as Thanksgiving was several weeks ago and here I am writing about it. David and I spent 8 nights in a villa near Disney World. I'm from the Orlando area but as my parents are in a retirement home and have no guest room we would be getting a hotel anyway. This trip we invited David's daughter Vickie and my daughter Dara with her boyfriend Skyler and we all shared a 3 bedroom villa. This was the closest David and I will ever come to being a household with "our" children. As we met later in life, I have 2 grown daughters and he has 2 grown daughters. I sometimes wonder how we would have been as parents together and then reality sets in or I rationalize that had we done the raising of children thing together our relationship would probably not be as strong as it is as it seems something suffers when raising children, at least that was my experience, perhaps that is the reality I created....

Anyway, it was nice. It was only the 2nd time stepsisters Dara and Vickie met, the first time being almost 9 years ago. I wish his Rachel and my Aimee could have been there too. Everybody got along really well and we all went to Sea World together. Dara, Vickie and Skyler did roller coasters while us old fogies held their bags. I think Vickie missed Dara and Skyler when they left to go back to Chicago on the Monday after Thanksgiving. David and I were not nearly as much fun in Disney and Busch Gardens as they would have been!

My parents joined us on Thanksgiving day for the meal we prepared. Dara and Skyler picked them up and drove them to our villa. I can tell by talking to them on the phone every Sunday that age is catching up with them. (They are 84 and 86.) But seeing them in person which I only do once every 6 - 10 months now that I live in England, really brings the changes out. I really only made full peace with them and our differences when I moved to England 9 years ago. Now I adore them and know I will completely freak out when they die... My mother's memory is getting very bad. She has always believed she will get Alzheimers. I pray she doesn't and that this is just normal age related forgetfullness... When we visited my parents on the day we flew back to England they stood outside their apartment with their arms around each other and waved at us. I can't afford to return to Orlando again until September next year and my greatest fear is that I won't see them again...

Of course I believe in the continuity of life and that we don't really die but go where souls go in between lives and I do believe I'll see my parents again somewhere... if not in Orlando again in September.

My daughter Aimee just told me that her childhood dog Perry (belongs to her father and stepmother) just died. I was at a loss for the right words for her and she was very upset by it. She told me it was really her first experience of death. She's very close to my parents and will one day be very upset by that. I hope I'll be there for her but I'll be emotional too so how can I? I believe that experiencing death of someone we love is a heart opening experience and part of what makes us human and very vulnerable yet very powerful at the same time as our spirit/soul never dies. Words are failing me right now for all the emotions I'm feeling.

Without death there couldn't be life though and at the end of January David's daughter Rachel will be giving birth to our first grandchild. I'll probably cry for both joy and for the pent up other emotions that I've tried to describe here. Does this child's birth mean one other soul has died, or just that one soul has now left the interlife that some religions call heaven to join us here on earth. I hope this baby is an old soul and has a lot to teach all of us....