who says you can't go home....

ok before anyone freaks out..no i am not moving back to blue river drive...it has been an extremely long weekend..i slept thursday night for the first night in a week...i was so relieved to know that my precious daughter was still CANCER FREE! i slept friday night so soundly...only to be wakened on saturday to terrible news...now understand when my executive director calls you it is usually not good...if she calls you on the weekend it is really not good...and you can bet your bottom dollar that if she calls at 8 am it is terrible...i missed the call...looked at my husband and said, " i guess state is in the building." what i would give if it had been that simple...kim called to tell me that our beloved director of maintenance, preston tollison, had suddenly died of a massive heart attack...my gut hit the floor...i had lost a friend totally unexpectedly...i was sick...why had this happened? his wife kristin is a nurse at our facility as well...this is where they met...he was only 46 years old...my mind was spinning...kim gave instruction for me to go the facility and inform all the residents and do the necessary paperwork...let me tell you in all of my years as a social worker i have never had anything like this...i have been chased out of yards by pigs, dogs, by a lady with a butcher knife...most of my stories are funny at some point...there is nothing funny about this...i had to go tell all these residents that "pete" was gone...he had worked there for over 20 years...he was a fixture...he knew where every screw, every wire, every everything was in that building...so i went to the building told the residents, did care plans for the ones that were cognitive and made notes on the other ones...then had to type a letter to family members explaining what had happened..cause you definately don't want an elderly person telling people that someone has died...you know they will send you out for stuff like that...i worked all day...brought all the letters home to fold and stuff in the envelopes...i would fold and i would cry, i would fold and i would cry...finally stephen said,"give me those you will never get them folded"...he folded and stuffed the envelopes and i put the labels on the front and taped the back...so saturday was over...then there was sunday...i went back to the building to help get the residents ready to go the funeral...all i am going to say is that it is a trip...so we go to the funeral home...there lays our "sweet pete"...that is what we called him...he looked peaceful but it was not real...i had just seen him on friday...he said to me, "bring me the meausrements on monday and i will start on your bookshelf"...he was going to build me a bookshelf for my house...i can honestly say the last words i said to "sweet pete" were thank you...

there is a song that says, "who says you can't go home"..the home i am looking for is not on blue river drive where i grew up or on ridge drive where i live now...we never know when we will be called "home"...who says you can't go home...before you are ready...i really think that pete was ready to go home...he lived his life to the fullest...i only knew him for a short period of time but he impacted my life in many ways...this weekend reminded me of what God says, "life is but a vapor" i love you all and hope that i have been as a good of a friend to all of you as all of you have been to me...let's all be ready to go home when our time comes...