Grief is Weird

On February 17, 2023 my dog Gypsy passed away. She had a tumor in her spleen and it was removed in April 2022, and the vet said we'd have 3-4 months with her. We had another 10 months, and she was perfectly fine until a couple of days before she passed. Randy was right in the middle of the Legislative Session in North Dakota, and I was at our home in Tennessee with Gypsy and Frackie. He had planned to come home during crossover, but Mother Nature decided to dump a blizzard in North Dakota and his flight was canceled, so it was just Frackie and I. Honestly, if it weren't for Frackie, I might have stayed in bed the first couple of days after Gypsy, but Frackie needed me, so I got up and took care of her. She helped to heal my heart. Frackie had been a mostly outside dog. Well, I was lonely without Gypsy, so by the time Randy finished the legislative session, I had turned Frackie into an indoor dog. Rather than take her in and out to the backyard several times a day, we decided to...

Today is October 13. It's been 2 months. Some days it feels like forever, and some days it feels like yesterday. Randy had 2 dogs when we met, Sadie and Frackie. He rescued Sadie from a horrible situation and in return Sadie loved Randy and was devoted to him - he was her person, and she was his ride or die. When Sadie passed in May 2021, it gutted Randy. The only consolation was that he got her home to Tennessee before she died, and her ashes were in the bedroom, in the shelves next to his side of the bed.  When we found out that Randy's cancer had returned and it was terminal, I made him a promise. I promised him I would take care of him until the end. Randy said he did not want a funeral, and wanted to be cremated. The one thing that bothered him was leaving Sadie's ashes behind so he gave me specific instructions for Sadie as well. I promised I would take care of them both. I have no doubt that Sadie was waiting in Heaven for Randy when he arrived (and I'm sure Gyps...

Today has been 8 weeks...56 days...almost to the exact moment. Last night I started Grief Share at a local church. Randy's friend and former coworker Mike is the pastor there, and he invited me. Randy and Mike worked together at First Volunteer Bank before Mike became a full-time pastor. Mike shared that Randy went to visit him right after his diagnosis last July. He wasn't at the church but told Randy to wait, he was on his way back. Mike said he prayed with Randy and gave him a list of Bible verses to refer to during his cancer journey. I know that Randy valued Mike's friendship and counsel. I found the list not too long ago, written on a yellow post it note, tucked in Randy's checkbook.  Grief Share is hard. There were times last night when I felt like I couldn't breathe, and just wanted to leave. I didn't leave. I stayed, watched the video, cried some, listened to people who felt like sharing and came home and cried more. It was a lot of emotion. I'm sti...

Randy's brother and nephew flew in to Chattanooga on Thursday to pick up Randy's pickup truck, trailer and ATV to take back home with them. I drove the truck to the airport to get them, just to drive it one last time. As I did, a rush of memories came at me. The first time I went to Minot he picked me up in the truck. I remember he remote started it because it was December (who visits North Dakota in the middle of December? That would be me.) and turned on the seat heaters for me. When he had his hernia surgery, I took him to and from the hospital in the truck, and that's the first time he said "Darlin' you look good drivin my truck" (and yes, that was before surgery, so no pain killers were involved).  I would watch him leave on Sundays to drive down to Bismarck for session when we were in Minot, and look for it to come back on Friday afternoons. Those sorts of things. We got back to the house and the trailer was hooked up to the truck. I can't remember t...

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 ...