Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.

November brings with it deer season in the hills, and along the quiet roadways sit the empty shells of pick-up trucks. The hunters have trudged off into the woods with their deer calls and shotguns, and will remain there until darkness settles, more often than not leaving behind a pile of discarded beer cans and fast food wrappers as they pull away and head back to their out-of-state homes. Litter in the fallen leaves: an unfortunate sign of the season.

Before our hikes in the woods J and I don bright orange coats, advertising premiums left over from my dad's life-long career as an auto parts salesman. Though the coat styles are different each covers our heart with a black and white FRAM Autolite patch. Dad had acquired hundreds of jackets, coats, and baseball hats in a rainbow of colors, all bearing various logos and labels: Monroe, Champion, Delco, Dayco (if my dad could see this list he'd be beaming and pointing at me, exclaiming "She knows! She knows! You take after your old man, Mel!") His coats-of-many-colors collection eventually grew so large he built a closet for it in the basement, shiny nylon arms sandwiched tightly together on three closet bars, dozens of baseball caps looming above like trophies. Several of the jackets ended up with J when my parents house began getting cleared out last summer; these safety orange ones have proved to be the most useful.

We've also wrapped blaze orange bandanas around the dog's necks, just in case, though I'd like to go one step further and spray paint the tip of Yeti's deer-like white tail. "He doesn't look anything like a deer" J assures me. He could be a mini deer though, or a deer way off in the distance. Things are not always what they appear to be. Someone could make a mistake, jump the gun.


After our rainy, wet woods walk, devoid of any birdsong or mushrooms at this time of year, I head to my computer and J to his wood shop. He's building a long, sturdy step stool with a hand rail on each side for my mom, 6" that will enable her to climb safely in and out of bed at my brother's house. I'm finishing up my part of the eulogy my brother and I are writing for her. Last Wednesday, after several days in a row of growing ever weaker and sicker, my mom agreed to let the ambulance take her to a nearby hospice suite. Originally, the plan was to keep her there for 5 days, regulate her medications, try to get a bit of her failing strength back, and let her return home to my brother's house. If she does, she'll need the step stool J's built for her — but we'll deliver both the stool and the eulogy to my brother today, before the three of us head to hospice together to visit her.

Hope, meet my companion, reality. Reality, this is my good friend, hope.