And Life Happens

First I want to say “Happy Veterans Day” to all active and retired service members! As a former Marine and a retired Navy Corpsman, Brett and I are proud to have served this great country. We appreciate each and every person that has given of him or herself to protect the freedoms we hold so dear.

Now for the hard stuff. I was really debating on writing about the things I have been going through the last couple of days. But in thinking about it this morning, I think that it is only right to do so. I mean this is a journal of our history too. We aren’t just talking about the history of this grand plantation, but also about the journey we are on to open it.

For anyone that has opened a business, you understand that while you work so hard to get things together and get things rolling, life doesn’t just stop around you. It is how you handle those things that happen that determine your success. And I also wanted to show those that are thinking about opening a business that it isn’t always wonderful.

On Saturday evening, I received a call from a friend of my mother’s. My mother had been rushed to the hospital. They had found her wondering around her apartment complex, disorientated and unsure of where her apartment was. They thought she had had a fall. She and my stepfather live nearby at an independent living apartment. My stepfather has Alzheimer’s and this was a good place for them to be. Before I could get there, I got a second call that she was being rushed to ICU and it didn’t look good. Her heart was beating about 20-30 beats a minute. Way too slow. By 2am, she went into arrhythmia and they had to put an emergency pacemaker in.

After a night’s sleep, I returned on Sunday. They were having a hard time waking her. After a CAT scan, they discovered that she had also suffered a stroke. I stayed by her bed all day. She isn’t really responding to anyone. They had to take her down yesterday afternoon to replace the pacemaker with a second one. Before she left I held her hand and talked to her. Her eyes opened slightly and she seemed to hear me. I don’t know if she really did, but I hope so. I stayed with her all evening.

Today we face a second CAT scan to see how bad the stroke is. My two younger sisters are now on their way here from Alabama and Northern Virginia. I know that we are going to be making some hard decisions this week and I am not looking forward to them. But we will make it together and try to do what is right and what she would have wanted.

I tell you this, not to look for your sympathy, but to show that even though we have this wonderful thing happening to us, life still happens. We don’t expect these things. We try to handle it as best as we can, but we continue on this journey anyway. When we first started this journey we came up on several “pot holes” in the road. But as I said then, “If you are driving to a location and it starts to rain, you don’t turn around and go home. You turn on the window shield wipers so you can get a better view of things.” Well this isn’t a “pot hole”; it’s more of like a lane decrease that slows us down. But we aren’t stopping.

Just like those things in the newspapers that I posted about last. I wanted to document this event in our history too. Because everything that happens to us changes us in a way. It gives us a new insight or view of things.

Life just happens…………..