Today, tonight, just a few minutes ago actually, I made my mother-in-law laugh. A hysterical, ridiculous, deep belly laugh. Those kind that once they start the laugher has no control over the laugh and it just keeps going. It was hilarious. Not what I said, mind you, but her.
Last post was a long, long time ago. Super short story: Cousin rejected brother in Lehi and refused to move in with him, moved back in with us, has lived a full month longer than doctor's expectations, is doing much, much, much better than doctor's expectations and next week, next Thursday to be exact, should be stepping aboard a plane, off to the land of Colorado, to live out his final days, however long those days may be, with his family.
The past two weeks have been particularly difficult, my stress eating has soared (and yes it is still weird to me that word does not have a "w") to new heights. I like to eat, like lots of people, but you know on those documentaries about addictive eating habits, where people are all, "I eat to comfort myself, or to feel better," well it turns out I, although I thought I did, never knew really what that meant. I don't feel it all the time, but there were two days last week where I fully knew that eating three bowls of ice cream, went through a carton in two days, was the only way that I was going to make it that day.
No joke, no poking fun, no hyperbole. For the first time in my life, I needed food to be something beyond good tasting, or fuel for my body. I needed that ice cream (yogurt of course, I am sadly lactose intolerant) to be love and comfort and to help me feel better. And it did just that, it made me feel better.
That brings me to what I said tonight. Mother-in-law and I are making up her blow up mattress bed (sidenote: Husband's mom is Cousin's aunt. She flew out the day before Cousin got out of the hospital and with the exception of a week's time, during which she went to her father's funeral, she has been living on our blow up mattress. It has been almost two months now.) and I am having a super hard time putting the fitted sheet over the side of the mattress. We are tired, it is only 9:30 and we are both ready for bed, and as I am fighting with this sheet I say, "Why is this so hard?" I feel she may have thought that question incapsulated our current life story and just laughed. Laughed a lot, for a long time, and couldn't move she was laughing so hard. It was awesome.
