What Kind of Day It Has Been

Early Friday morning a burglar crept up the side of our building into our balcony and into our apartment. Stole mine and Rachel's laptops, a digital camera, and took her purse (found dumped outside with only the cash missing).

I had backed up our work on Wed evening, so we only lost Thursday's work, but we also lost the hardware and software and a whole lot of bother. I still haven't gotten any work done, in between trying to get a new system or configure my son's underpowered desktop.

Friday and Saturday I was a bit of an emotional mess. That's not the reason that I lost a game of Puerto Rico to Rachel (I beat Nadine) on Saturday afternoon, but I'll go with that.

I figured the worst that was going to happen on Sunday was more time trying to get insurance to fix things, find a laptop, and get my son's desktop working well enough to use (I didn't; I can surf on it, but I can't really work with my old copy of Office 2000). Or that the person I'm playing against on Lexulous would take the spot I needed to place my 116 point word (UNIONIZE across two double word spaces; she ended up taking my spot).

This morning I found out that my 18 year old nephew Tuli suddenly died in the hospital. He had Familial Dysautonomia. That link won't do it justice. Suffice to say that for 18 years he's been in and out of the hospital; actually, he hadn't been in the hospital for the last 6 months, but that was a rare period. He drank liquids through a tube in his stomach, and always needed to have his lungs suctioned. His mental abilities were somewhat affected due to numerous bouts of loss of oxygen. And he was in a wheelchair, always followed by tanks of oxygen and a suction machine.

Yet he was also so often happy, smiling, and laughing. He loved cartoons and games. He would cheer up the people who came to see him in the hospital. He loved to see me, and he would always grab me with a strong moist hand and hold tight, laughing, like he would never let go. That's what I remember most about his: his hand that wouldn't let go.

I sometimes spent nights with him in the hospital, perhaps not as many as I should have. My brother and sister-in-law, and their other kids, and various friends, family, and national service girls, devoted an awesome amount of time and energy to raise Tuli and keep him as healthy and happy as possible.

May his memory be blessed.