Now that the holidays are over, I bit the bullet and explained things to my sisters. Not easy, but I was as honest as I can be about why I have been staying away, spraing myself nothing. Here is what I said:

I hope everyone had a good Easter!!

I would like to apologize to all of you for not being ready to spend time with any of you yet.

It is nothing against any of you as people or as family members -- in fact, I think all of you are quite wonderful in your own way.

It is just that I am still, after all of these years, trying to deal with the legacy of our parents, and not having the easiest time of it. That is complicated by some rather horrible things I found in Mom's papers right after she died. I hid them, I did not want to have Brenda or Carol see them, as the content was so painful. I'm sure that probably wasn't the right thing to do, but I didn't want anyone else to feel the pain that I did when I saw them, but I have still felt weird and guilty about it ever since, and that is a big part of why I have been staying away.

Add to that my basic natural reticence and emotional withdrawal when I am troubled and in grief, and that doesn't help, either.

One good thing in those papers, though was how much Dad loved every one of us, with all of his heart and soul. He was a good man, and I wish with all of my heart that I could have spent some time with him while he was in the hospital, though my own health and Bill's concussion (which happened the same week Dad went into the hospital) prevented that.

The last few months have been rough. Steven has had some health problems including a recurrent staph infection (which finally cleared up around Christmas), a concussion, and he is currently having infetigo (I don't think I spelled that right, but its a skin infection). Despite that, he has done so well with his wrestling that he qualified for two different national championships (one of the two he qualified for three different times). But this last infection was enough. We won't be taking him to the nationals next month, just too much, and why put that sort of additional pressure on a little kid who has already gone through more stress than most adults have to deal with in the last six months?... Bill has had a healthy year, thank God, though it took months for the effectsof the concussion of two Decembers ago to wear off. Both kids are doing fine with school, and Bill will be a senior next year.

Dan and I have been having some problems the last 2-3 years, primarily due to the simple lack of time together, as we work opposite shifts, have different days off, and having nearly every weekend sucked up by wrestling tournaments or soccer games for one or both of the kids. That especially started getting nuts when Bill got to high school.  But we've been making a great effort since the new year, as we have both missed each other and were miserable, and things are getting a lot better now. We've been going out to dinner and jazz and classical music concerts in Ann Arbor, and just spending time together is wonderful beyond words.

Peace and love to all of you.