To make a long story short, I didn’t write anything these four days.

I spent Friday (the 25th) and Saturday (the 26th) getting ready for the drive to Ohio to attend my aunt’s visitation and funeral. She was one of Dad’s sisters and one of my favorite aunts. I have many fond memories of homemade bread she used to send down to Dad, and she always sent two loaves. I scarfed one, and if Dad didn’t eat his fast enough… well…

My absolute favorite memory of her is when she and a sister and a brother came to New Albany, Ohio, when Dad was having surgery on his neck at a surgical center there. Mom waited in his room, and my uncle and aunts sat in the cafeteria and talked until Mom came and got us. I enjoyed sitting down with them and spending that time. It meant a lot to me at least that they made the trip.

Plus, a sizable portion of Dad’s family came to West Virginia for the visitation and funeral when Mom died, and I wanted to go for that reason as well.

Remember that quote from an old writing about “the best laid plans of mice and men?”

Yeah… the trip did not go according to plan at all.

I don’t know if it was a stomach bug that followed me up from West Virginia or something I ate after the visitation (<–my personal guess, but I could be wrong), but I grew very unwell while I was in the hotel room that evening. It was very, very not fun.

I knew I wouldn’t be in any shape to go to the funeral the next day (Monday), and if I had no choice about whether or not I was going to be sick (that ship had already sailed), I decided I’d much rather be sick at home and worshipping that porcelain goddess than four hours and change away in a hotel room.

So, I packed up everything and made the drive home. I think I got the worst of whatever it was out of my system by the time I crossed the border into West Virginia, and I only stopped along I-77 one time and puked as far away from the pavement as I could manage. The other two times, I was close enough to a rest area to make it to them.

I made it in around 3am and went straight to bed… as soon as I fished one of our trash bags out of the creek. Apparently, we’d had high winds while I was gone Sunday.

I woke up Monday feeling marginally better but still overall yucky until a need for a few groceries drove me back out to civilization.

I would’ve liked to attend my aunt’s funeral, but I didn’t want to take the chance that whatever I had was actually contagious. Like I said, I don’t think it was. It behaved in all respects like times before when I’ve eaten something that didn’t agree with me… but… well… better safe than sorry.