Grief is Weird

When Randy and I first met, I was living in Atlanta and he was in Minot, ND, but we met at his home in TN. We would text, talk on the phone and FaceTime when we were 1600 miles apart. The first time that we FaceTimed, he had a sign behind him that said "Randy is the Greatest!" It was placed so that he wasn't blocking the sign at all - perfect placement. The sign never came down and was still there when I moved into the house in Minot. I haven't come across it yet, but I'm fairly certain it's packed with our things from ND. Randy and I talked and texted a lot, even when we were in the same place. Probably a very good thing that texting became unlimited (remember when we had a limit and had to pay for the extras?) Then one day the person that you texted all the time isn't there anymore.  You pick up your phone to text or call and then realize that he's not going to respond or pick up, and as time goes by, you have to scroll further and further down in te...

 The Grief Train I recently was told that grief is like a train. You ride it with all of your baggage, and sometimes people get off. They may leave their bags on the train or take them. People may just get off for a brief stop, sometimes a longer stop, and then someday they never get back on at all. I don't have "great" days right now. I have bad days, and okay days, and some days really really suck. Tuesday was 6 weeks since he left. There are times when it feels like it was just yesterday, and the grief is still raw. Monday I had to go to Atlanta for a couple of doctor's appointments (note to self, do not schedule annual physicals with both your primary care doctor and gynecologist all in one day) and had to drop my car off for service. It was a long and crappy day. Terra Running, a local running store in Cleveland, does group runs on Monday evenings. I had not been in a while and decided I would go, because I needed to move my body, and, like I said, it had been a ...

I'm a glass half full kind of person...to the point that it never enters my mind that someone will actually die. I always have hope. I did that with my Dad. He's been gone 11 years - I still haven't deleted his cell phone number from my contacts - in fact it's still in my favorites list. One year ago today Randy and I left Mayo in Rochester, MN to drive home to Tennessee. He had just finished 5 weeks of radiation and chemo for esophageal cancer. At his last radiation treatment he told me he was not going to ring the bell - in his mind he wasn't finished. The nurse even came out and asked me if he was sure and I said yes, he was sure. When he got through surgery and to the 1 year mark, he would go back and ring the bell. We left full of hope - after all, the doctors told him that after treatment and his upcoming surgery he would have 40 years to live. We left Rochester at zero dark thirty, planning to be home before the Tennessee-Florida game that evening. Of course ...