Real LIFE

 It’s been hard to do much blogging, so decided to just explain what is going on. We’ve seen about every life event this year, with the best and most recent, the birth of our second grandson. And we just joyously celebrated our first grandson‘s second birthday a few days before his baby brother was born.

We are living a life most dream of: Loving our lifestyle as full-time RVers, traveling to and fro as we please (or do we?). We even selected a nickname to define our dream, calling ourselves the TumbleLees. A play on the word tumbleweeds with our last name, Lees.

You can catch up with our travels on our one year anniversary and itinerary on our joint blog here: TheTumbleLees. We wrote this anniversary post just two months ago. And at that time, the reality of this year had not yet hit us….

We mentioned in that post, we received the phone call no one wants, a loved one has been diagnosed with cancer and the diagnosis is not good, two to six months life expectancy. My husband and I have both lost our dads to cancer. So we know what is coming.

We are fortunate in that both of our mother’s are still alive. Bill’s mom is 94. She just moved into an assisted living center. We spent two weeks with her right before her move. While we rejoice she is in good enough health to be there and not in a nursing home, it was still a hard decision.

My mom is 92. She is in pretty good health, her mind is sharp and clear, but she has been legally blind for about 15 years. It wasn’t that long after my dad passed her vision began to deteriorate. She was so fortunate to meet and marry a wonderful man just over 12 years ago.

At this time, I’m not at liberty to say much more about this, just to say, we are headed back to spend quality time with family. We’ve had to store our RV and we packed up a few necessities to stay in a relative’s home.

Not all adventures are hiking in mountains, combing beaches, sightseeing, or visiting historic places. Sometimes the adventures are all about family! That’s how 2015 is turning out.

One of my favorite scriptures, I discovered in 1999, through not only my dad’s passing, but his death coincided with my dear brother-in-law’s unexpected and untimely death. I’m using The Message version:

All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. We have plenty of hard times that come from following the Messiah, but no more so than the good times of his healing comfort—we get a full measure of that, too. (2 Corinthians 1:3-5)