A Facelift and Confession

I come from the angle in life that if you're not going to do something well and often, then you might as well just give it up.  That's the perfectionist in me speaking.  She's noisy lately.  And really debilitating.
  I've come back to this blog sheepishly, like the prodigal's daughter.  Should I go back?  I've been away so long.  But I want to write.  Is is okay if no one on earth reads this?
  I knelt in our bedroom this morning, praying.  My grandmother called last week and said her brother passed away.  I wept with her on the phone.  She is the last child of a brood of 9 that remains.  She said she stood at her kitchen sink, washing dishes, and that thought really hit her.  She has had to live through all of their deaths.  Then she said, "Just. Keep. Washing. Dishes."  She said her sister-in-law died on the same day her brother did.  What a heavy. Load.
  My sister-in-law called two days ago and said her husband's father died suddenly.  Her husband dealt with his mother's death early last year.  Both of his parent's are gone.  That's what I thought about when I was kneeling on the floor.  He must feel very lost.  Parent's are such strong navigational pulls, whether or not you are close in distance or in relationship, the fact that they live on this earth matters instinctively.
  It was while I was praying, that I thought about writing this...and I thought about praying this and maybe there's a lot in me that believes they are the both in the same and that is why I need to not neglect one for the other, but let them live intrinsically together.  Even in the form of blogging.
  Ess Gee and I wrote a card to my sister-in-law and her husband.  I told them that it probably wasn't good etiquette to say, I am tired of people dying, but it was honest.  Then I wrote that their whole family and many others get to take a piece of that man with them wherever they go.  That doesn't change.  That remains.

Praying. Writing. Life. Death.  It's an odd thing to be thankful for, but I am grateful that I am alive enough to know that those four words bring me to my knees.