Normal

I'm telling myself that this is normal. Everyone reaches a point where one or both of their parents are really sick and/or dying. Ok, not everyone. Some people's parent's die before their old enough to know about it, and some people have no idea who their parents are, being raised by foster parents or what have you.

But it's *fairly* normal. I guess it's probably not super close to the middle of the curve in terms of what age it happens at in North America. Probably most people get to be 40 or 50 or older before they deal with this. But the point is that everyone has to deal with this--it's normal.

Being of the brain damaged gender (and no doubt I somehow got more of this than most), it takes things time to ... register, with me. I remember kind of waking up one day when Eowyn was about 6 weeks old and thinking "Holy God, this is ... *huge*! life-altering!" My wife graciously said "Ummmm.... did you just now realize that?" To which I replied "Ummmmm.... yes, actually"

So I am saddish and snappish-at-people. Not to an unbearable extent. Just a little. I still haven't gotten to that "ah, it's dawning on me" with this. Give me time. some of us are a bit slower in certain areas.