More on '98

Mair was with us the first couple of months of 1998, and she and I took numerous trips, over to the coast twice, up to the big trees, San Francisco and of course Yosemite with Dick.    It was a good visit although she wasn't in the best of health after the loss of Norman early in 1997.

Later in the year we had a nice visit from Tricia.    We hadn't seen her in a while so it was greatly enjoyed.   

Our grandkids had some big events with Becky's AA:

Debbie went with me to Sacramento for that event, then later Louise and I went to Salt Lake City for Marie's graduation.

As you can see Becky and kids were there too, along with Mindy, Joe and Lynn.

Another big event was Bill and Frances' 50th anniversary celebration held in Oakhurst.

Dick and I made a major decision this year.     Financially the vineyard in Kingsburg was not good for us, the 40 acres did not have enough crop to sustain the upkeep on the beautiful house, yard and pool, so we were forced to think of alternatives.    We considered various places in California, but everything was so expensive.     We also had a lot more traveling that we wanted to do, so made the decision to move to the Midwest so we would be in the middle of the country, and also where the cost of living was considerably less.   

We showed off our place with a lot of photos and in prior trips to the Midwest we had thought we would like to be in the quadrant of NE Oklahoma, NW Arkansas, SE Kansas, or SW Missouri.   We had been subscribing to a realty book that came out quarterly on land and farms in various areas.

The vineyard sold, and we took the final trip to pin it down, ending up in El Dorado Springs, Missouri.   A close second was a place called Poteau in Oklahoma, but at that time what we found didn't seem to fit the dogs so well.    They were used to total freedom and we didn't want to change that if possible.    Louise was going to make the move with us too.   The El Dorado place was ten acres and few homes anywhere near us, and had a separate living area with full bath for Louise.    It was the obvious choice.

So here comes the packing and making the move..............

1998

I have found myself stalling on writing about 1998, even though the year had many good things and for us an exciting ending, but the year itself will forever be etched in our minds as the year we lost Katrina.

I'm sure that everyone who reads this blog will have their own memories of Katrina and some will go back to when she was a child as they do with Dick.    But for me, Katrina and my story started in 1966 when she was still 15 and went through the trauma of her parents splitting up and her father's ultimate marriage to me.    Even with this, somehow we 'clicked' from the beginning and Katrina said that she felt that she had a sister, which she had always wanted.

When Katrina told us about her cancer we were of course devastated, but were very optimistic about the outlook since Hodgkins disease had a high rate of recovery.     She asked me to go with her to the Cancer Center in the Bay area, and a plan of chemo was scheduled.    But after the first treatment, things started to go wrong and it seemed that one bad thing followed another, all made more complicated by the compromised immune system from the therapy and from the disease itself.    During the first three months of that year, Katrina and I spent a lot of time together, she lived with us during certain periods of recovery.     It was during one of these times that she asked me to handle her affairs for her and asked if I would be her Power of Attorney on health matters.     I took it as an enormous compliment and felt that she had put a lot of faith in me.     Little did I know that the full burden of that would come so soon.

But we ultimately lost Katrina on April 10th, and when she was taken off life support, I held her hand, and Joey held the other one, until she took her last breath.   

She will always be a part of my life, and I would like to share my most precious possession from her.    A card that she gave to me on Mother's Day.    It was a simple card, not a mother's day as such, but contained a brooch of an angel and inside she wrote:

Dear Margaret:  On this Mothers Day I wish to say Thank you.    I know this is not the traditional "Mother Day" card but it says what I feel most in my heart.    You have been a friend when I have needed one.    You have been there in my ups and downs & every crazy thing in between.   I just want you to know I love you & appreciate you & want to say,    Thankyou for being you, Love Katrina.

1997

In March 1997 Mair and Norman celebrated their 40th anniversary, only to have him die a couple of weeks later on April 10th (one year to the day before we lost Katrina).     It was devastating for Mair, whose whole life had evolved around Norman.    They had never had children.

We had a lot of happy events that year though.     Both Mindy and Joe graduated, and I was happy to attend both events - Joe in Fresno, and Mindy in Sacramento:

James graduated with Mindy.

Gary and Gill visited with their son and daughter (Judith and Christopher).     It was Gary and Gill's second visit with us - they had spent a month with us when we lived in Yosemite Lakes Park, just a few weeks after they were married.    Returning with their children was kind of special to me, as my mother's sister Lu had visited me in Florida, her daughter Gwyn had visited me twice with husband Oscar while we were in California, and now their daughter was making her second visit with us with her children.     That's four generations.     I hope one day that either Judith or Christopher will visit with their kids and keep the tradition going.

I like this photo of Dick and I taken at Amber's christening this year:

Another favorite photo is one of Katrina with Suzanne, Becky, Marie and Mindy.     They had all gone to Grand Canyon where Suzanne was working and spent time together.     I'm sure this trip remains strong in the fond memories for the girls.

Not wanting Mair to spend a Christmas alone without Norman, we persuaded her to come and stay with us.    

That Christmas was not the happiest we have had.    Katrina learned that she had Hodgkins disease on Christmas Eve, and called to tell us - asking if she could spend Christmas with us.    Some of the kids chose to come too which was nice and we appreciated their support for Katrina.    It did have its funny moment in that we had expected it to be a very quiet Christmas - everyone seemed to have made other plans, so we had prepared very little food.    All of a sudden we had way more people than food and Dick and I chased around Christmas morning buying supplies to throw together a tradition meal.    It wasn't the best Christmas meal we have served but at least everyone had enough to eat.

I end the year with another favorite photo - this time my beloved Callie:

Mair wasn't really a cat lover, but she loved Callie.    Because of the dogs, we used to put the cat food on a shelf in the utility room.     Callie was getting on in age by this time and had trouble getting up there.    While Mair stayed with us, she would paw Mair's bedroom door early in the morning and when Mair opened it would meow, stick her tail in the air and walk down the hall, looking over her shoulder periodically to make sure that Mair was following her.    She would go the shelf, meow at Mair again and wait to be picked up.    If you look closely at her right front paw you will see a small area with no hair - that's where she had the first of two rattle snake bites!