[Posted this to Facebook this evening, and I thought it was worth exposing to a wider audience. It’s about life.] Relieved a bit this morning with a text from Mom. The weekend, when the rents visited, I learned that Dad had some internal bleeding. “I’m at about 80%,” he’d say. He’d have anemia-like moments. Doc told him the standard: no climbing, no heavy lifting, no flying. (The last is because he just got his pilot’s license at 60+!) Coming about a year after prostate cancer, this blood thing was a bit scary for us all. When they were here, he clearly didn’t want to talk about it. We got him as far as ‘black stool’ and he shut it down. Changed the subject. So we gave him space. It didn’t keep him from hunting 8 hours a day, though he didn’t climb up in to the tree stands. This morning, he had an appointment for an endoscopy in the Cities. Mom’s post-appointment text went something like, “only an ulcer.” My question: how can a guy who’s a month from retiring from working for the ‘man’ get an ulcer? I guess the lesson is that life’s transitions are stressful. (Really did want to know more about the ‘black stool’ and other symptoms so it could feed or fight my hypochondriac monkey.)