About

I’m a 68 year old, ‘old Fart,’ retired after a 35 year career in Vocational Consulting, last, having washed up into the bowels of Washington Labor and Industries as their Self-Insured Vocational Services Specialist from 2011 until 2017.

My elder sister died, the Friday before Christmas. We’d had a tradition of celebrating Friday Happy Hours every Friday at 2:00 pm, Pacific Time (she lived in Florida….go figure). My Friday Happy Hours have been pretty empty, since then.

She was ripped away, rudely, abruptly, but, thankfully, without suffering for a long time. Through September and most of October, all was well. She gardened and raided Costco for Milkweed Plants for the Monarch Butterflies she loved, and we’d chat merrily away – she with her bourbon, I, my beautifully dry and chilled Martini (s). Then, in late October, she spoke of a doctor appointment pending, for back pain – she thought she’d sprained her back, gardening.

I got a text message from her on a Thursday, telling me to call her *asap*, with a double. I called, with trepidations… she told me she’d been given a diagnosis of stage 4, metastisized lung cancer, and given three months to live; obviously, she didn’t make it that long. ‘Happy Hour,’ … is no longer. In remembrance, I donated $500.00 to the Coastal Nature Garden near where she’d lived, for a Memorial Bench:

This Blog is my attempt to come to terms with her death, as well, perhaps, as my pending… yet imminent demise – I fervently hope, years in the future. Yet nevertheless, there is an inevitable self-accounting when a close friend / relative dies, and even as one simply ages, and realizes the runway is getting shorter (… and I haven’t even lifted OFF, yet!!!).