It Sucks Getting Old

Love the title of this post or what? Well, it's true and the reason being is that every year you lose yet another loved one.

My Uncle Delmer Bates died today. I woke up to a phone call from my Aunt breaking the news to me and telling me to call my Mom and break the news to her.

Sucky..long..time.

Uncle Delmer hasn't been in good shape the last few years(suffering from Parkinson's) and we knew he didn't have much longer but that still doesn't ease the pain.

Here he is meeting Brad for the first time at our Arkansas wedding reception.

If you're new here then you may not know that my Mom's family is super close. She's the baby of six kids and all of her siblings are much older than her and treat her as their own child.

Last year -- almost -- to the day we lost my Uncle Gary. Seriously...Uncle Gary was buried on the 9th of November and it's likely that Uncle Delmer's funeral will be this Tuesday - the 9th.

Uncle Gary was the first of the six to pass away. He died after going into cardiac arrest as the result of a snake bite.

Now -- a year later the number goes to four.

Here is one of the last pictures of the six siblings. Uncle Gary is the one in the brown shirt and Delmer in the veteran hat.

I'm flying out to Hot Springs, Arkansas here in a few hours. I'm meeting up with my Mom in the Atlanta airport and we fly together.

Prayers for our family please. RIP Delmer Bates. You were a GREAT man!! Love you!

I'll be taking some time off from here. More later.