Old Age Day by Day July 5m 2013

I'm beginning to feel like we live in the Bermuda Triangle, more or less.  Last night at 2:30 am, two huge fire trucks and about twenty police pulled up outside our house.  My husband went outside to see what was happening, us both thinking a firework had set fire to the garage, or yet another person had had a car wreck in our territory.  No, it turned out a person up the street had called in that his wife was missing, and the police were searching everywhere for her.  She was said to be very drunk.  They found her asleep on the dirt under our trees next to our garage.  She was taken away by ambulance, and after half an hour the majority of our city's task force departed.  I could not get back to sleep, and tears rolled down my face for the next four hours.  Maybe it was the image of her, the thought of the distress in the family, the contrast between celebrating the 4th and private sorrow.  I don't know.  I feel pretty wiped this morning and as if our house is a magnet for grief.  I think of my mother's drinking and the agony it caused all of us.  I think of her pain that caused the drinking, and wish she'd had a chance to get help.