I did see a shooting star on my way up there, though. I was driving along, listening to the radio when I saw a flash in my peripheral vision. I looked just in time for it to flare up and fall before me.

I finished reading the book I started at B&N back on our anniversary. Damned thing almost made me cry right at the end. I do have to recommend it, though. It�s Population: 485 by Michael Perry. It�s especially good if you come from a small town originally, but I think just about anyone would love it. It�s both hilarious and heartbreaking at once.

My gram emailed me to say that she likes my new purse and that my grandpa is in the hospital again. The last time I almost passed out was visiting him in the hospital about three years ago. My vision started to swim, my hearing faded, and my breathing picked up. I had to back myself into a corner and lower myself to the ground by sliding down the wall in the hopes that no one would notice. Luckily, no one did. I�m not terribly worried about him because he�s been in the hospital at east once a year for the same thing over the past several years, since he had his heart attack. I�m just glad that it�s not Christmas again and he�s in there. I will never forget being in the kitchen with Sarah preparing for Christmas Eve dinner when my Gram rang the doorbell and came in crying, saying that Grandpa was in the hospital, that we needed to have Christmas as well as Christmas Eve on the hill. I haven�t seen my grandmother cry often, can count on fewer than a handful of fingers, so it�s frightening to say the least.

My family, though close-knit, is not terribly emotive in times of crisis, at least not when it comes to being around me. They�ve always tried to shield me from the unpleasantness of illness, aging, and tragedy. When Grandpa had cancer, they told me, but not in explicit terms, just that he�d be okay. I could tell, though, when they were talking about it, using hushed tones so that the grisly bits wouldn�t fall upon my ears.

When he had his heart attack, though, that almost went out the window. I rushed off the island and visited him that night. He was unconscious and on a respirator. It�s more than slightly unsettling to see the man who has always been so strong immobilized and having his breaths taken for him. The scene shook me and I had to keep from running away from it. We knew that he would be okay several days later after the bypass surgery (how many I don�t remember) and he was hallucinating from the morphine. His dentures were out and he was smiling gleefully while working his hands in the air. When asked what he was doing, he said he was playing the drums and that there was water dripping from the television. They stopped giving him morphine after that.

We�ve all grown used to the fact that my grandpa and his health are more than slightly unpredictable. 3 summers ago while the pair of them was trekking across the country in their RV, grandpa encountered some trouble and needed to have a stent put in. Dad had to fly out to Nebraska and drive the damned behemoth back. Grandpa�s spent a total of two Christmases in the hospital, once for the attack, another for the blockage.

I wouldn�t doubt that somewhere my grandparents have an area set aside for all of Grandpa�s medical detritus. The can from his kidney removal when I was six, the cast-off catheter bag from his prostate cancer surgery when I was in my early adolescence, the pile of memories and scars from his heart surgeries, running up and down his legs from the vein replacement, and now another hospitalization from either bug or blockage.

I should have more fear. I should know that one of these times he won�t be coming home. But, he�s weathered so much and I�ve watched him deal and recuperate more than I can say. What happens when it�s more than the sum of all that�s come before?