It has come to my attention that my absence from writing posts has been noticed.  I was hoping I could slide under the missing blogger wire and nobody would care.  And I am thrilled that such is not the case.

So, an explanation is in order.  Over the last couple of months, my 92-year-old mother's health took a nose dive.  Up until January, she had been living alone in my childhood home.  On the first day of this year, she fell and broke her hip and as is so often the case, everything went downhill from there.  For the last couple of months my sister and I have not only been dealing with her care, searching for a nursing home and a foster home and dealing with Medicare (now there's a fun chore), but we also sold her house, had an estate sale, and cleaned everything out of it.  The house was in the family for 70 years, so this was no small chore.

Mom died on June 11, peacefully, after her family had kept a vigil at her side for many hours.  I miss her terribly and sometimes I forget that she is dead, thinking that I'll just pop up and visit her.  Then I remember.

But I also feel strangely at peace with it now, knowing that both her mind and body were failing and she would not have wanted to live in a diminished state.  She led a wonderful life, as she would be the first to say, and that is a comfort, too.  (You can read her obituary here.)

And there are good things that have come from this time in my life–increased closeness with my sister and other family members, for one.  And a budding feeling that I want to use my remaining time on this planet to accomplish good and many of my goals.  I've got new ideas bubbling up, both for my personal writing and for projects that will be of service, I hope, to writers.

So stay tuned.  I'm planning to begin blogging again on a regular basis next week, after Mom's Celebration of Life is over and all the relatives and friends have returned home.

In the meantime, thanks for sticking with me and caring that I've been gone.