Thank you all for your prayers and thoughts. They are much needed and appreciated.
My DSIL has had Diabetes type I for most of her life. When she was younger she did not manage it well. She has had two strokes and after the last one, her doctor told her that if she had another one it might well kill her. She has been doing every thing right though - eating right, exercising and managing her insulin levels. Her momma passed from complications related to diabetes when she was in her 50's.
My nieces are 22 and 13 and my nephew is 15. My oldest niece has 2 kids and is pregnant again. The oldest niece has made some poor choices and is married to someone who is living under a pseudonym. She is a sweet girl, but her choices have been self-destructive over the past few years. My nephew is a sweet, sweet kid who wants to join the Air Force when he graduates high school. He could talk the birds out of the trees and never met a stranger. I swear, once I went to Chuck E. Cheese with DB's family when nephew was in grade school. The closest Chuck E. Cheese is in a town 50 miles away, and he walked in and already knew kids in the place! I don't wish the life of a minister or a politician on anyone, but my nephew. . .well. He has the personality for it. The youngest niece doesn't have a mean bone in her entire body, she's just sweet from her heart out and takes my breath away with her gentleness and is so smart it makes my head spin. If I were half as smart and half as kind as she were I would be a better person.
DSIL was the light of my DB's life. I just can't imagine what he's going through right now. He loved her so much; they were like so many married couples, two halves of a whole. They didn't find one another until they were in their mid 30's.
They adopted my oldest niece, starting the process of becoming foster parents who wanted to adopt when they were still engaged. Oldest niece was about 5 when they adopted her Oldest niece has beautiful red hair. My DSIL has dark, dark hair. My brother, who is a strawberry blonde, started wearing a beard so that people would see the red in his hair and stop asking stupid questions, because she was theirs!
My DSIL got pregnant with my nephew when they were on their honeymoon, near as we can figure. As soon as the doctor said it was safe - due to the diabetes, both pregnancies were risky, but at that time DSIL was in good health and she did everything the doctor said to do in her pregnancies - she got pregnant with my niece - they knew the window of opportunity was closing fast.
DSIL was funny and warm and gentle. She taught school - she was the kind of teacher the kids know they can go to for a smile or a kind word or help even if she had never been their teacher, even the worst kids knew that she wouldn't give up on trying to help them or thinking that they could change.
She loved Star Wars and the Dresden Files and Harry Potter. I just this week pre-ordered the next Dresden Files and I pre-ordered her a copy as well - she was so looking forward to reading the next book. She loved and collected angels. Her house is stuffed full of angels.
Anyway, thanks for letting me blather on. I am going to go take a shower and wait for my DH to come to meet me. I know it was selfish of me, but I just couldn't face riding home from a conference I'm attending with a mean girl (if I had known this about this person, I never would've gone to this conference with her) so he's going to drive up to the conference and pick me up and then we'll go to my family's, then we'll have to drive home so I can get my car and I can drive back to my family's. DH is working 6 10s right now, with no back up, so he can't take more than one day off. (It's more than I want to get into here, but ah, yeah. DH has job security, but it comes at a price.)
Your family will be in my prayers. Was she sick or anything?
