I know this is a mite off topic, but may I share?

posted 11:20 CST, October 31, 2012, by my aunt Mary:

The doctors at the hospital have called in Hospice for my angel sister Moochie [my mom Doris]. They told us we need to call her children in. They all live away from here. All I ask Lord is that you please don't let her suffer or be afraid. We know without a doubt, she is a child of yours. Give us the strength and courage we need also.

God, I'm nervous. We know that when Hospice is called in to anyone that they're not long for this side of heaven and the kids know – my mom has six children, of whom I'm the youngest – they need to get there and I can no longer use the excuse of being furthest away in North Dakota, for my sister Jeanni is now living in Texas, and the other four (Garry, Steve, Rose, and Ros) are in Illinois, the state I was born in. Jeanni is on her way there and Garry who had already been there is going back this weekend.

We're just in the middle of a lot going on here, a lot of good here! We're expecting to move back into our flooded house this coming Saturday, exactly a year after we moved into the FEMA trailer on November 3 … last year. Just got trim to get done on our walls, some final electrical work and inspection (yes, Virginia, you can now turn on all the lights in our house), and our toilet installed – as my boss Ray advised me, that is an essential item to have!

Disney. Bought. Lucasfilm. I'm still wrapping my head around that, but at least the Tuesday announcement that Disney paid four billion dollars for the House of Skywalker – Star Wars for the slower students today – as opposed to four million for Marvel Comics mollifies me that the entertainment I grew up with is still worth something. And so far we (okay, at least I) haven't seen Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and the like teaming with Spider-Man or the Avengers.

So by and large Disney becoming the source of entertainment (they also own Pixar and ABC; it is no coincidence that ABC's blooming megahit Once Upon A Time uses Disney interpretations of popular fairytale characters) for our civilization is not that big a deal to me. And whether today is Reformation Day (for Martin Luther posting the Ninety-Five Theses that birthed Protestant Christianity) or Halloween or All Hallows Eve or Nano Eve or something else entirely for you, let's celebrate!

So Sarah's a pop diva and Jeffrey's Darth Vader tonight and we the parents will be with them when they're trick or treating in the neighborhoods of our family members, the day after we the parents were at Longfellow early for parent-teacher conferences and learned our kids are excelling. One of Mrs. Burckhard's (Jeffrey's teachers) comments stood out in my head – to help him have neater handwriting, we should ask him “doesn't he want it to be neat like Daddy's”?

But when asked to recite as many letters of the alphabet as he could in a minute (typical kindergartener apparently does eight; Jeffrey recited fifty-six) and whether he recognized the sight words for the year (he recognizes them all but his teacher can't mark them yet) and the like, he's excelling! And Mrs. Perrin, Sarah's teacher, says she wishes she had a dozen like her. (So where's this kid at home, Martha asks.) They're our children, and we couldn't be prouder of them if they were our own children.

Then we realize they are, David