Aunt Joan

K and I embarked Saturday on our first long distance trip in over a year, on short notice. K learned this week that her Aunt Joan was deathly ill, at home with hospice care. She'd been wanting to visit Joan for over a year, and especially so after Joan's health took several turns for the worse. With K's own health issues, it just seemed too difficult to achieve. This latest very serious news got us jumping through hoops to make a trip happen. Most of the usual options weren't available to us, because of K's need for bulky equipment to provide oxygen 7x24, and also because of the uncertain schedule. So we took advantage of this challenge, to buy the Honda CR-V model we were eying throughout the winter. I felt the need to stay in town to support the first launch attempt of AV-009 on Thursday morning, and then the actual launch on Friday morning. The mission was successful, but not without issues, and I had to stay a little later than expected. Then we stopped into Honda and spent several tedious hours getting the paperwork done. By that time, it was late enough, and we were tired enough, that we decided to grab some sleep before leaving. We headed for the highway in our new vehicle on 6am Saturday morning. The drive went really well, with some really beautiful scenery that we'd almost forgotten about. I got really sleepy about halfway, but that was no problem, with K available to take over the driving. We made it in a little over 12 hours, and found K's brother John waiting for us at the curb outside the house. Joanie was in bad shape, lying there with very labored breathing. We stayed until midnight, keeping her company. It seemed like she was reacting to our words and touches, with an occasional sigh or groan. We finally headed over to our hotel for a few hours sleep. Joan died just a few hours later, very early in the morning.