It's all about timing

There's good timing.

It started with the sale of our house, which had been on the market for two months. We accepted a fantastic offer on Saturday evening. My due date was Sunday.

On Thursday morning, Kees was born. No more house showing, so no more unnecessary cleaning. This is a GOOD thing.

Then there is bad timing.

Yesterday, a week after selling the house, 4 days after Kees's birth, my Pepère (grandfather) passed away.

I want to be there for my mom, who has just lost her daddy. I know what that is like.

I want to be there for my Memère (grandmother) who has just lost her husband of 62 years. Col. Mustard and I were married on their 57th wedding anniversary.

Memère & Pepère provided the piano on which I learned to love music. We didn't have a piano, but my mom used to take me to their house to practice on theirs for the first 5 years of my lessons. Then, when opportunity arose, they gave my parents the money to buy a piano for my sister and I, who were both into lessons by that time. They used to pick me up from school and take me to my many music festival performances every year for all of my youth. They usually bought a festival pass, they were there so often.

They always made a point of attending every honor roll presentation, every speech competition, every poetry recitation, every award ceremony throughout my schooling. That's the kind of grandparents they were. That's the kind of Pepère he was to me.

Pepère loved my husband. He loved conversing with him about pharmacy (my husband's profession), faith, religion, and why we should go back to using trains instead of tractor-trailers and big trucks for transporting freight (this one came up a lot, for some strange reason).

Although we all knew that this was coming, as Pepère had been battling Alzheimer's fro the past few years, I was really hoping that he would hang in there until we moved back to our home province and that I would be able to see him again. Now, with the way the timing works out, it is actually impossible for me to attend the funeral. I have a 5 day old son, who is not able to fly due to airline policies, and even if he could, I am not entirely certain that flying for 8 hours, then driving for another 5 hours just to make it to the funeral wouldn't send me over the edge of complete mommy madness, as though having traditional baby blues and stitches isn't enough.

In a lot of cases, timing seems to bring everything together when you need it.

I guess this is just not one of those cases.