I haven't been the best "blog updater" lately. There are two reasons for that. One is that I still don't have an internet connection. (I don't have cable yet either. I know that may seem crazy. It just hasn't been a priority.) The second reason is that this is the most dreaded time of the year for me.

Thanksgiving Day was one of the worst days of my life last year. If I were to rank my most horrible days, #1 would be the day we found out the cancer was back and #2 would be Thanksgiving Day. It was on Thanksgiving Day last year that the hospice nurse told me that he didn't have much longer to live. It was on Thanksgiving Day that I had to call Keith's parents and Keith's brother and tell them it was time for them to come and say goodbye to Keith.

I managed to survive yesterday. At first, I thought I wanted to just take Lincoln and escape. I thought about going to Galveston or visiting friends. Ultimately, I decided to just stay home. I guess a part of me thought that if we got away, that I could somehow escape the sadness associated with this time of year. I will be the first to admit that it is so very tempting to want to "escape." As tempting as that is, I also know that all of these emotions must be dealt with at some point in time. If I put if off, I will just have to deal with it at a later time.

It will have been a year since Keith passed away next Saturday. I'm not really sure what next week will be like. Luckily, I have to go to work. (As a teacher, you are so busy at school that you really don't have much time to think about anything else.) In a way, I think that yesterday may have been the more difficult day. Keith was so uncomfortable in the end that his passing was actually a blessing. Through all of this, I have learned that emotions are unpredictable, so I won't really know how hard next Saturday will be until it's next Saturday.