To unreal to be true

I think it was KathiJo who recently said that we all started with a 365+1 blog and slowly but surely most of us started using it as diary. That is certainly true for me. I write at different times of the day before I publish the next day. It mainly helps me to cope with the situation but my ramblings shouldn't be forced on anybody so please, don't feel obliged to read all this stuff . The 365+1 photo is at the end of the post.

Thanks God my Dad doesn't suffer from cancer so we are not in a similar situation but I remember that when my MIL was in hospital even in the last days of her life we sometimes had unstoppable giggling based on the most stupid small thing. I guess it is the way our body finds to release the pressure and keep us sane.

Yesterday afternoon had such moments. The kids were here and we called so Dad could talk to them. He was a bit overexcited and joking joking joking. Honestly he would have been 70 years younger I would said he smoked pot! Knowing that he didn't, that got me really worried because it was like this guy is my dad, but he is not. I talked about it with my auntie and she called him to get a feeling. She called me back to say he seemed just normal. She came up with the idea that he is over doing it on the " I am feeling good side " so I don't get too worried about him. Not sure he managed that one very well, lol but it makes sense so I felt a bit better.

At 7pm my mum called. I thought she had arrived home but she said that although she left from my dad's room 1 hour ago with another auntie, they were still stuck in the hospital car park because they couldn't find the car and she needed to hang up quickly as her cell phone was almost out of battery. One 89 and one 85 years old lost in one of the biggest hospitals ' parking looking for a car  . . . As if we needed that too.

I decided to call my dad so he doesn't get worried that mum didn't call him yet to say she is back. Gosh, what did I do !!! 
My dad said " No problem , I go down to the parking and I will help them find the car ."
What ?????????
No Dad, you don't go anywhere, you are sick and even attached to plenty of stuff.
In the end, I convinced him he wouldn't find them anyway as the parking was massive. That has nothing to do with overplaying " I feel good ". He seems to be a bit unclear as of where he is and why he is there !

After hanging up I told Dennis that if they all go on that way, I will die before they do.

So I called my auntie to ask if she had the cell phone of the other auntie and she gave it to me. That other auntie is nice, but a bit . . .  special and I thought I better calm her down to retrace her steps and find the car or they would spend the night out there.

When I called, I reached a lady and it was obviously a wrong number. I called again and they were so pissed off with me that they talked as if they were the answering machine. I could tell it was a guy talking and he was on the other end of the phone. Weird people. So I hang up and I called back Auntie 1 ( need to put numbers or you will get lost ) and tried to explain her she gave me a wrong number but by then I was laughing hysterically, telling her all what happened and dad who wanted to go to the parking in pyjamas . . .  We both had a mad giggling 5 minutes and it did us really good.

I got the right phone number, well I guess because it went on answering phone directly and Auntie nr. 2 is known for never picking up anyway.

So as there was nothing else I could do, I left them both to their fate in the parking lot and I hope they will decide to take a taxi if they are unsuccessful at finding auntie's car.

I have laughed so much that I am much calmer now ! As well because it's well past 9pm in France and I still can't reach my mum at home.

I tell you, it all started only 3 days ago but I will be lucky if I don't end up in a mad house soon, lol.

I eventually managed to talk to my mum at 9:30 and she made me laugh again because she was so fuming. My auntie came to visit my Dad and so when she left she proposed my mum to give her a lift, so my mum didn't know where the car was parked. When they were looking for it my auntie said the only thing she was sure about is that she parked underground so they walked and walked row after row but it's massive there.

Eventually  2 people proposed to help them look. After a while my auntie said in fact she thought she probably parked somewhere else. By that time my mum who had already walked half an hour everywhere underground wanted to strangle her.

So they started looking in the other parts of the parking. By the way she described how she walked into the hospital after parking her car, one of the guys helping them had a genius idea and found the car. It was parked outside the hospital in private hospital grounds and she just had managed to enter there because the always closed gate was by fate open. Told you, my auntie is nice but . . .

So my mum needed to vent a bit and now everything is back to normal, til tomorrow !!!

'til tomorrow . . .  so I thought. At 10:30 pm we got a call from Dennis' brother regarding my father in law. He was sitting down to have a meal ( my BIL is looking after him ) put some food in his plate when he suddenly got up, was quite disoriented, was cold, didn't want to talk and just wanted to go to bed. That happened at 7 pm. You don't tell my FIL what to do and he didn't want to go near a hospital, so my BIL has been keeping an eye on him all evening.  He seems OK but it's just a bit alarming as at his age ( if you remember he just turned 90 last January ) bad things can be happening very suddenly. So we have to wait and see how he will be tomorrow morning. Just another thing to worry about.
. . . 
Today there will be no park, at least for now. Miracles don't happen day after day and it's raining a lot. We called my BIL and it seems thatFfather in Law had breakfast then went back to bed. May be he just caught a bug of some sort. My BIL is a doctor so he must know what he is doing.
But obviously it got Dennis worried so we decided he will drive there tomorrow. That's the inconvenient of having 2 big dogs and the dog sitter currently on holidays, as it means I need to stay here.

I talked to my dad this morning. Still this laugh I can't get used to and still thinking it's a bit weird. He said they removed the live scanner and he is waiting for the cardiologist. So no current problem there.

When I was a litle girl, I wished the people I love would die the latest possible, when I would be old, because when you are older, you don't feel pain and you aren't sad. I don't know where I picked that from but I surely realized soon enough that it doesn't really work that way !

I don't know exactly what I feel. There isn't any immediate source of concern, I think it's just the " if it isn't this time, it will be next time, or the time after " feeling. At the end of the day, we are talking about life and death and that's just our story, we get born and we die but there is part of us wishing that our loved ones leave us the latest possible and I have this " please, not now " running around my head, as if it could change anything !

As my Taiwanese boss says : If it's your time, it's your time and if it's not, there is nothing to worry about.

Well I am not Zen that way yet, though I surely try very hard !

Again thank you for being so kind in your comments, it means a lot to me. xx


Project 365+1 - Day 198 : Hero

I found in Goggle the definition :
Hero: A person, typically a man, who is admired for courage or noble qualities.

Even as a little girl I never saw my dad as a Hero as such. He didn't directly saved the life of people but he had a tough life and made a lot of sacrifices for his brothers and sisters so he will be my Hero for today's word.

My dad was born in 1923 in Spain from a French Dad and a Spanish Mother.  My Granddad was an anti-militarist and escaped the 1st world war from France to Spain by walking across the mountains. He then started a family in Spain but when the Spanish Civil War was close, he decided it was time to go again. He went to France and took my Dad with him. My Dad was 14 or so. He was a brilliant kid and wanted to go to the University, what never could happen. They arrived in France, my Dad didn't speak any French. My Granddad was put in jail for a while for desertion whilst my Dad stayed with an uncle. When my Granddad was released he tried to find some work and my Dad was working with him as a factotum in a bank. To cut a long story short, my dad eventually learnt French and they started establishing a life in Marseilleso my Grandmother and some other 5 children culd follow. Some years later the 2nd world war declared, but this time, they all stayed in France as I guess my Grand Father realized they couldn't keep on moving around.

It is from that time I guess that my Dad always pushed my brother and I to work very hard and study, probably to compensate the fact he could't. He has self taught himself a lot of things by reading many books (what Jen was talking about yesterday) from Astronomy to Atomic particles and he is a very interesting chap to talk to.

I just wanted to honor him today. here are a couple of photos :

 This one is around the time he left Spain to go to France

This is when he was doing a kind of military service . He was around 16, so handsome.

I love this photo. It was take in Marseille's most famous street : La Canebiere. I don't know if you saw the movie "Borsalino" with Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo ? My dad looks like one of these cool sweet gangsters.

This is a beautiful photo too. My parents did a lot of mountain climbing until their age didn't allow it anymore. I love the oak and my dad close to it. The oak is physically very strong. My dad is old and frail but mentally so strong !

Last year

And that's the clown dad with the tripod I offered him this year

Take care everybody, xxx