Wednesday, December 18, 2019

2019 Christmas Letter, Part 5



 As we were driving home from our vacation to Virginia in April, we received a call from our house-sitters when we were about four hours out. Our basement was flooded. The snow melt was soaking into the ground all around our house and water was coming up through the basement floor at an alarming rate.
 We beat feet to get home, not that there was any more we could do when we got there. The sump pump which had faithfully eradicated incoming water over the past twenty years just couldn’t keep up.

 It was a constant battle for several weeks. And just about the time it seemed as if the war was won, a storm in mid-May took out power, as well as a tree. 

 From three am one morning, Hubby and I bailed water out of the basement, before finally giving in sometime after six when we needed to start getting ready for work.
 At least with all that water and a gas stove to heat it, I took a refreshing bath before heading to work.  
 Other events in the spring brought these inconveniences into perspective. My sister’s husband, Claude, was diagnosed with brain cancer. He had surgery to debulk the tumor, but there wasn’t much more they could do to slow the growth. (Claude's birthday in 2014.)
 Around that same time, Hubby’s mother finally went to the doctor because she could no longer walk on one of her legs. Not to say “told you so”, but I called it, knowing that she had to have broken her hip. Surgery went surprisingly well, but it put a lot of stress on the family, stress which hasn’t abated. (Dino, of course, helps everyone deal better with stress.)


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