I Jinxed Myself

I missed Flash Fiction Friday last week. Oops!

Actually, there have been a few Fridays that got away from me, leaving me to play catch up and write on Saturday. I allow it (my blog, my rules) because Saturday here is still Friday in the US.

This time, Friday got away from me and it wasn't until going to bed on Saturday night that I realized I hadn't written a story. Well, I don't have a ton of readers who would notice, so... no big deal. 

It crossed my mind that I am good at keeping the fiction going unless there's a death in the family, so I thought, "Haha. People will think someone died." No one had died.

Until Monday.

Yup. My dad died in the wee hours of Monday morning. My family had almost made it through one calendar year without a death! Almost. But I jinxed it by not writing. (I don't really believe in jinxes, but all I can do is make jokes.)

I laughed. I laughed at the irony. I laughed at the fact that I had talked to my mom in the morning, and then she called me that night as I was settling in to watch TV to say everything had changed.

One of the reasons I can laugh, and not be sad and weepy and mourn-y is because we expected this and talked about it even before we moved away from the US in 2016. My dad was in renal failure then and refused dialysis. Doctors said he needed the dialysis to stay alive. He lived 5 more years, so suck it, Medicos! And it wasn't even kidney failure that got him.

Well, I don't think so. When I talked to Mom she'd only been awake an hour and a half and hadn't even had coffee yet. Between that and a bad connection, I'm a little vague. He'd been in a nursing home recovering from a broken shoulder, and something went wrong so they'd sent him to the ER in the night.

Anyway, Dad was living on borrowed time, and he wasn't happy with life anymore. He was ready to meet his maker and reunite with two brothers, a sister, a daughter and a grandson.

So there you have it. Last week's absence explained. I'll be back with more fiction on Friday. For sure!