Standing at the edge of the ocean in Bay Head used to make me feel both invincible and powerless at the same time. There was a serenity to knowing my burdens were in the hands of a being who created, and managed, such magnificence. It's the same feeling I get when I stand knee deep in fragrant sagebrush along the valley floor beneath the Tetons. Somehow my shoulders lighten, my mind clears, my heart begins to sing and I feel I can do anything. I can overcome any obstacles placed before me.

We are in Bay Head and I am hoping to spend time at the edge of the ocean today, to pull strength from the rhythm of the waves, from the smell of the salt water, and the cry of the seagull and osprey. I need strength for this last push. To figure out so many things, like what happens next in my life, and how am I going to solve the financial crisis I find myself in, and what will keep me upright when I have to leave Parker alone in Texas in a few short weeks.

Parker has done beautifully. The plane ride being the exception. And the day before the plane ride when suddenly there was something else, another unexpected problem with his illness and recovery.

The plastic mesh that is holding his body together has started to push through the skin graft. So the skin graft wasn't as perfect as had previously been announced. The plastic surgeon seemed disappointed and said I will have to continue to clip back the mesh pieces that come through, but what I want to know is, if I do that, then what is left to hold his guts inside? If piece by piece I am clipping away at the mesh that is serving as his abdominal wall, then what is holding it together? And is that why the area where the skin graft was done is bulging out some? Will he wake up some morning after I have gone and find his bowels laying on his stomach, like when he was in the hospital, before they put the Marlex mesh in place, when he had the absorb able mesh that split because they turned him?

John got him an appointment with a surgeon in MD for next Tuesday. I am so relieved to know someone else will be looking at this and giving us a second opinion on what is happening, what needs to be done, what the risks are. I can't rest, not knowing. How am I to leave, to return to MD after all this without knowing everything is okay?

On a positive note, Parker and James have been joined at the hip. They laugh together, they go to movies, they hang out and talk sports, they listen to music ...... everything James told him that night in the hospital when Parker was supposed to die, they are doing all those things. Like James promised.

Hearing them together, the chatter of their conversations, the hum of their laughter at jokes only the two of them understand, and the music of their voices, makes my own heart sing. And for that, I am eternally grateful. Because you never know what tomorrow will bring.