we are human....

I know it seems obvious, but I remembered today just how vunerable we are to nature.

It's a bit of a story.... we don't get much snow here in the southwestern most part of BC. We tend to get rain, and maybe a sprinkle of snow one or two afternoons in the winter months. It just doesn't get that cold. Well, last Sunday snow started to fall -- not the light dry snow you get up north, but huge flakes of wet snow... which, over the next few days, brought down trees & branches & power lines all over the city. The damp snow compacted into ice and the roads were really really slippery for days - even pro drivers had problems. Some folks were (and still are) without power for days. Some folks had fender benders and some worse. And a lot of people had falls - so many, that I was scared to step outside the house.

This morning, though, I heard my Mom had fallen - and thankfully not hurt herself too badly, but enough that she needed some day surgery to put her thumb back in place (ouch). I took the day off and spent it with her, at emergency, back to place, back to the hospital for the surgery. She's over at my sister's now, getting lots of TLC.

She's amazingly resilient, my Mom, the nurses couldn't keep up with her. They kept giving me instructions, and I kept saying. "you've told Mom this, right?" Cause my Mom, at 83, is fiercely independent and looks after herself. Even when we shared an apartment for a few years, she was the one that looked after me -- not the other way around.

Anyway, as I was waiting for her to come out of surgery, I could feel how worried I was. You forget sometimes just how vunerable the folks you love are. I've spent some time in hospitals over the past year, after my Dad's stroke, and this brought it all back. I'm not ready to face my life without them!!

It reminded me, too, that I need to look after myself better if I don't want folks sitting in a waiting room worrying about me... because I've been foolish enough to let my health go. Then we get busy and it's easier to pick up fast food or eat a bag of chips than it is to make a decent healthy meal - and take a walk.

Anyway, not to preach or anything... but that's what was going through my head sitting in the hospital waiting room....