New Additions

There have been some changes in my family recently. We have a couple of new additions to our household. Maggie and Fuzzball have come to live with us full time.

My mother decided to move all the way to Lakeland, and I told her that it wouldn't be right to separate Katie and Maggie that way, so we agreed that Maggie would move in here instead. And since Fuzzball is still so young, and Maggie has become like a mother to him, he had to come stay here, too.

We're still not sure what we're going to do with Fuzzball, though. We have to keep him at least until he is weened from the bottle and eating dry food. Phil does not want a male cat, but maybe by the time Fuzzball is ready to go, he'll have changed his mind.

There has also been a recent addition to my extended family. My mother's parents have never been involved in my life, and that was just fine with me. Thanks to my Uncle Jack's parents being so wonderful, I still grew up with two sets of grandparents, so there was never anything missing from my life by not having my mother's parents around.

Even though my mother's parents divorced when she was young, after her father's wife died, her mother moved back in with him. Last week, my mother's mother unexpectedly died, leaving her father all alone. He's not in very good health and needs someone to take care of him.

Even though my mother's father did not raise her or the other children he fathered with her mother, and he had several children with his late wife that he did raise, none of his numerous children were willing to step up to the plate and take him in. Some of them even suggested just dropping him off at a hospital and washing their hands of him.

My mother decided that since no one else would do it, she would have to be the one to take him in and take care of him. So, all of a sudden, after having no grandparents for a number of years, I have a grandfather around.

It's really rather weird for me. Because he was never involved in my life (I believe I met him once when I was a child), I have no feelings at all for him. I don't know if I ever will. But it is what it is.

I just hope my mother doesn't work herself too hard taking care of him.