There May be Dark Days

Today was one of those days that is sandwiched in between the good days, the bad days, and the very bad days. We attended a therapy session which is designed to support my husband and I and fortify us and solidify us as parents of James, who has endured a great deal prior to coming to us at 14. I was down today, and this is unusual for me. The therapist observed that as much as we are doing well with James, that having James does seem to underscore the loss of Daniel, at times. I was tearful as I related that I wish they had both grown up together here.
Grief is a journey, and it is adversely affected by sickness, cold, days without sunlight, winter, reminders, and simple annoyance. The news on television with regard to the economy and world situation is also not a help sometimes.
I wish that we could facilitate, address, and treat grief, and somehow resolve it to a background plateau of some kind. The fact is, we cannot. It becomes a part of us, to surface sometimes at inopportune or sometimes even happy times, when a trigger has tripped.



Grief is a tidal wave that over takes you,
smashes down upon you with unimaginable force,
sweeps you up into its darkness,
where you tumble and crash against unidentifiable surfaces,
only to be thrown out on an unknown beach, bruised, reshaped...
Grief will make a new person out of you,
if it doesn't kill you in the making.
Stephanie Ericsson

Winter Freeze

In the dead of winter, it's hard to realize that one of our children has grown up, learns and lives in a dimension away. It has been a great consolation that my Dad is there to teach him and learn with him, but still, there were lessons I wanted to teach. I hope the dimensions of Heaven are everything and more than I hear they are. I console myself that both of you are happy and fulfilled. I miss you Dad. I miss you Daniel.

I Miss the Flowing Water

The Winter has been a hard one. From the moment we returned with James we have been deluged by cold and by one snowstorm after another. It has been helpful to have another set of hands to help with the animals as there is so much more work in cold weather than in the moderate variety.
Our black lab Mark continues to hang in. We still have him in the barn in a pillow and chux lined plastic dog house, where we can remove the lid to turn him, cover him with blankets and feed and water him. Caring for him is labor intensive because he has meds, and must be hand fed and watered. Other than that, he hangs in. His front legs and head are moving well but those back legs are still not able to balance or bear weight. He is occasionally incontinent, but we have his food and water on a schedule, and so we can change him and keep him clean also on a schedule. He looks terrific, and we have the greatest LOOKING dying dog anywhere. The vet still says that as long as he's eating, drinking, and enjoying his life without pain that there is no reason to euthanize him. How strange that some of our loved ones and our pets evaporate from our midst so quickly, and others hang on beyond what seems rational or sometimes even possible.
I hope snowless flowing waterfalls return soon. I am tired of the cold, the ice, and the snow.