We’re heading to Europe for three months. We’ll live and work in the UK (remotely). It’s an adventure!

Last time I went to Europe, I went to my folks’ house to say good-bye to my father, in case he had a stroke and died before I came home two weeks later. I fussed at mom for using the wheelchair. “Mom! You’re going to be around for another twenty years. You cannot get dependent on the wheelchair.”

Two weeks later, when I arrived in Houston, I had 17 texts and phone messages telling me that Mom was in ICU for her heart. (Her heart was the one thing my mother had never had any trouble with. The doctors were always shocked. “You have the heart of an 18 year old!” they would tell her.) Turns out the heart problem was meds they were giving her for what would turn out to be (though we did not know until a week before she died) brain tumors.

I am a little concerned to be leaving the country for three months.

I know that my father would be happy to go to Heaven. We would miss him, but we would also know that he was better off.

I’m a little afraid someone else I’m not expecting to lose will be gone though…

Pray for me and for my extended family.