Oh, brother....

Yesterday my brother ended up in the hospital again. You may recall he was in a near fatal car accident a couple of months ago. Well, he went to work yesterday, already not feeling well, and it just got worse as the day progressed. He was feeling congested and having a hard time breathing. He left work and went to the ER. Because of the recent head injury they immediately ordered a CT Scan to rule out that it was anything accident related. What they found was a blood clot in his lung. Of course, they admitted him and he'll be there, medicated, over this weekend. They're hoping the meds will break up the clot. I'm sure he'll be fine. Thankfully, he got there early and they caught it. But this whole incident got me to thinking about my siblings.

I'm the youngest of 6 kids in our family and all of my sibs are significantly older than me. My oldest sister is 68 years old! All of them, with the exception of my sister Patsy - next oldest to me - have had health issues this year. Two of my sisters, the middle two have arthritis and bad knees and feet which impedes their ability to do much of anything. I see them all slowing down with age and I know being the youngest will mean that I will see them get more and more problems and go one by one. Not that their on their way out just yet but it is inevitable that at some point this will happen.

I remember that this happened with my Dad. He outlived all of his brothers and sisters and those last years before he passed away he often talked about how he missed them. I have a very close family. Probably closer than most. Not a day goes by when we don't talk to each other and we hang out together all the time - even for mundane daily things like grocery shopping and whatnot. It makes me realize even more that I have to treasure this time now, while we are all still relatively healthy, and not let a day go by when I don't tell them I love them.

By the way, my Dad was in his 80's when he passed away and my mother, still kicking, is 90 years old. We come from good stock so I'm sure we'll all be here for a long, long time!