Yesterday evening I was sitting at my dining room table, marking quizzes, drinking tea, and listening to vinyl in the background.  I was in a great mood because I'd had a good workout that evening, and had come home and spent time cleaning my kitchen, and preparing food so I'd have healthy lunches for the week. 

As I sat at the table, working, I thought that, hey, this may not be glamourous but it's a pretty awesome life.  I'm drinking tea out of a mug from one of the many places to which I've traveled.  Yes, I'm doing work, but it's pretty awesome that I make a good wage for doing something that's valuable and not back-breaking.  I'm listening to music.  I have a pleasant cat friend to keep me company.  Life is good.

I took a break to phone my parents.  I'd phoned them earlier in the day to see what was up, and they hadn't answered, which had worried me because they are always home at the time.  Perhaps one of them had knocked the phone off the hook and hadn't noticed.  Anyway, after waiting a while and attempting again, my dad picked up.  My first thought was that this was not a good sign and I was right.

My mother had fallen earlier in the day and was in a lot of pain after the fall.  She went to the hospital and it turns out that she'd broken her hip.  She was in the hospital awaiting a visit from a specialist and would have to have surgery.  That's pretty much all my dad could tell me.  No idea of what recovery would be like, how long she'd be in there, etc.  Not much info.

I spent the rest of the night feeling really down, and worried, and fearing the worst.  I felt helpless and completely frustrated that there was nothing I could do to control the situation or figure things out or anything.  I wanted to talk to my mom so badly to hear how she was doing, but my parents are technological dinosaurs without cell phones, hence there was no way to reach her.  I hate knowing that she's in the hospital, and she hates hospitals, and is in an immense amount of pain right now.  I'm pretty sure that being a worrywart is a trait that has been passed down from her side of the family, and I'm sure she's worrying about the outcome of this injury too.

I had a hard time getting to sleep.  I thought back at how just a couple of hours ago, I was feeling so great, and then, BLAM, total turnaround.  At one point, I wondered why life would tease me like that, but I guess it's better to get bad news when you're OK as opposed to when you're miserable about something.  At about 1 am, I decided to take something to help me sleep.  This morning I went to school, and pretended like nothing had happened.  When I talk about things, I get emotional, and I didn't want to break down, so it was easier to stay composed and pretend that nothing happened.

During my prep period, my friend who also went to Kenya came to visit me in my office.  I had messaged him the night before because I knew that I'd be going home this weekend, and could not make our second last Kenya meeting on Sunday morning.  He and I were supposed to provide snacks for the meeting, so I'd messaged him the night before to let him know that he'd be in charge of snacks, and I'd throw in some money. 

Last night, he'd been working on figuring out how to make mandazi, which is a Kenyan fried dough treat which we'd had there, for snack.  He had a trial batch and wanted to me try one.  All I can say is that that was definitely the best part of my day.  Eating something that reminded me of a place and time so dear to me, as I was sifting through life's next challenge.

The rest of the day was tolerable.  Work takes my mind off of things.  I got to talk to my dad and my aunt (better with details) tonight and found out more.  My mom's still waiting for surgery, and I'm going to head down there on Friday to see her.  I could go earlier, but they feel that there is no point in that, there's not a lot I could do, and there are my responsibilities here.

Oddly enough, I felt a little bit better this evening.  I appreciated small things, like how my fluffy shower mat feels on my feet, and how good my shower gel smells.  I made an amazing cup of pumkin chai tea, using the traditional way where you simmer milk, water, sugar, and tea on the stove.  My friend Mathew called me and we had a great long phone conversation.  I booked my ticket home using my VIA Preference points, so the trip is free.

I know the next while is going to be tough, but I'll handle it somehow.