and hopefully a better year ahead.
Tomorrow is my 28th birthday, and it could not have come soon enough.
I don't count my years from New Year's to New Year's; to me, a year is from birthday to birthday.
By no means has this been my worst year ever; my worst year was 2003/2004, especially if the first week of December is included. 2004/2005 comes in second.
However this year yielded some difficulties I did not expect, and some joys as well. This will forever be the year of silver linings for me, as the catastrophes that did come along could have been much worse.
Yes, I did end up filing a very expensive response in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, but in the meantime I find out how many people out there give a damn, as many people aided us with both donations and words of encouragement. Also, the case would have been much more expensive if the 9th Circuit had gone forward with the scheduled oral arguments instead of sending the case back to state.
Yes, I did end up in state court (once again an expensive endeavor) but it was court on my turf and I'll be receiving the judge's ruling any day now.
Yes, my mother did pass away after a brief, grueling, and horrific illness, and I doubt I'll recover fully from what I've seen, learned, and had to do. I was there to give my father counsel, there to give my opinion on whether or not to take her off life support, there when she died, and there to watch my entire family apart. However I experienced much kindness along the road, and should my mother have lived she would have endured many years of chemotherapy and debilitating pain. Letting her go was the best decision we could have made given the circumstances.
The same is true of Springer; it was hard for me to deal Saturday, making the choice to put our poor cat out of her misery so soon after advising the same thing for my own mother. But she was suffering more by the minute, with no hope of recovery, and so we let her go as well.
It's been a hard year, and I've had to grow up a lot, but it could have been much worse.
I'd like to say this year will be better, and I honestly hope it will. We're finally getting legally married after all, and the light at the end of the legal tunnel is fast approaching. However, both my grandparents are ailing (they're both in their 90's), Chris's mother and brother are terminally ill, the health of my favorite uncle is declining rapidly, and we have two pets who may need to be put down in the very near future. This year is likely to feature even more death than the last.
However, in a few more we'll start growing the family even more and there will be life again. Even this year featured the addition of life; I gained a nephew, and we added Jayne to the family. There will be more children and more pets in the years to come.
At some point in the near future, winter will become spring and we'll be all right.
In the meantime I'll try to enjoy the holidays, but it will be hard. This will be the first Thanksgiving without my mom and I don't think it will be easy for me at all. Thankfully I have enough to do and enough people around me to keep me busy, so I'll be okay.
Hopefully this year will be better than the last.
Mel
