Ehlana and Ethan:
Happy 14th Birthday, Kara Johnson. We sent a family gift, but didn’t talk with her today; and hope that she’s having a happy day.
The rest of this update will only be about the most-important news for our family – through Michael. We’re writing this update this afternoon because we’ll be busy for the rest of the day – including with Cassie and Michael once they get home.
First, we should include the latest news about Grandpa Lloyd’s death. Jacob and Miranda aren’t happy to find out that his father apparently hasn’t been feeling well, but wasn’t surprised to learn that he didn’t want to go to the doctor or get tests – in part because of the pandemic. An autopsy isn’t being done, but the doctor that pronounced is certain that he died of heart failure or a stroke. Grandpa Lloyd was in his mid-eighties; he was unconscious and unresponsive by the time paramedics arrived on the scene; and he was gone before doctors at the hospital even had a chance to really start trying to run tests. Grandma Francis was with him when it happened, but while we have no doubt that’s she’s devastated, she is also a strong person; and is apparently trying to stay in charge of making the arrangements for her husband’s funeral and everything else that needs to be done – though her daughter and son-in-law are helping her as much as she’ll allow.
They are, by the way, on the way here too – along with most of Michael’s cousins; and they’re coming today because the forecast is for a lot of rain tomorrow. Cassie and Michael made their plans to come home too once they had the tentative family and funeral details, but while they waited for that news; Cassie put in a lot of extra hours and basically took care of marking all of the mid-terms she was responsible for while also helping Michael to deal with his grief. He’ll stay here until after the funeral, but Cassie will need to be back at school for Monday; and then she’ll drive back again on Monday night to be here for the funeral on Tuesday.
We’ve been busy too, but our work was mostly of the chores variety – including helping out at Jake and Stephanie’s house to get guest rooms ready for their family – jobs that we offered to help the Bassetts with; since Sylvia is coordinating most of the help for Jacob and Miranda while they still need to juggle family with keeping the Inn running. Mom had us get our home chores out of the way early, but she’s also helping out with pre-cooking some meals that will be needed over the next few days; and she’s spending extra time with Miranda and Stephanie too. Dad’s doing the same for Jacob and some of the friends around town that were closest to Lloyd and Francis; and he’s juggling that with getting ready for his week in the city. He isn’t very happy about that because he won’t be able to come home for the funeral, but canceling his court dates and appoi8ntments isn’t really an option; so he’ll only be coming home on Monday evening for the only night of visitation the Stones are going to have ahead of the funeral service.
We’ll have more on that over the next few updates, but need to move on; so let’s wrap this up. We helped with cleaning guest rooms for a couple of hours; had a visit with Stephanie before coming home again; and we’re currently getting cleaned up and changed while waiting for Naomi and Aiden to come over for the rest of the day and a sleepover. We were offered places to stay with them instead, but decided to be here after we knew that Cassie and Michael would be coming home today. We probably won’t get to spend much time with them tonight after they get here because they’ll need to be with his family, but we’ll all be here for them too – even if that’s just in a silent, supportive sort of way. That might not seem like much, but when that’s also through our connections and strong empathy; you’d be amazed at what we can accomplish!
That is all for today, since we’re not even thinking about anything else going on around town or in the world, so we’ll move on now; and get back to focusing on our family and friends for the rest of the day.
This is Ehlana and Ethan Proctor; live from the hidden home of the Magi of the Light – and May the Magi Force be with you!
