loss

At The Intersection of Joy & Grief

I made a decision about a month or so ago that I was slowly going to come off the anti-depressants I’ve been on since PawPaw died. That we maxed out after Fred died and had to change completely during COVID because they weren’t working. I’ve reached a chapter in my life where I have such a strong support system and I’ve done so much work in counseling I felt like it was time.

But it’s that time of year again. The month or so I spend holding my breath each day as I open TimeHop and each time I talk to my kids. The memories of him that are in my oldest daughter’s smile, in my son’s laugh, or in my youngest daughter’s tender heart. The anniversary of Fred’s passing is today and, as this new season of my life progresses, the time of year I am so besieged with emotions I can barely sort them.

Guilt is constant because I have found joy again. I wouldn’t ever want the kids to think I’ve forgotten the life we had with their dad. Yet I made a promise to Fred that I wouldn’t be sad too long and that I would marry again. Grief because no matter what I still miss him. Confusion over missing him when I have a man in my life now that loves me to a depth that is indescribable. Sadness because he’s missing out on momentous occasions in my children’s lives. Our first grandchild will make an appearance in September and I know his presence will be missed even more than it already is.

I know that it’s been long enough since he’s been gone that most days I choose joy. I choose to thank God each morning when I do my prayers for the life I have now and the blessings he’s given me. On days like today I feel like I’m standing at an intersection of joy and grief and while I know I need to choose joy more today than any other day the sadness of grief is so deep it’s hard not to give in to it.

Trying to focus on joy I think back to that last “perfect” Lanford Saturday we shared with Fred. It was May 20, 2017 and Fred had been home from the hospital for about a month. It was one of those days where none of us could sit still and were so joyous from having gotten Fred through rehab and home that we just wanted to be out in the world. It was still spring and the weather was gorgeous. We spend the day doing some of our most favorite things. We went to Grapevine and had wine and snacks on Main Street. It was Main Street days in downtown Grapevine and we wandered around different booths for quite a while. The kids each got to have a cast made of their hand holding their dads. Something we didn’t know how very soon would be an irreplaceable treasure from the day. We finished in Grapevine around 3 pm and by 6 pm were back out headed to go see live music at The Truck Yard. With Tigre in tow.

Those are the days I look back on and remember how very much he lived during his time on earth. Those are the days I hope bring a smile to each of my kids when they are sad. And that is the Fred I remember with a heavy heart on the days I am sad. He was a good man. He gave me my family and for that I will forever be grateful.

If you have a favorite Fred memory I’d love to hear it today.

Blessings – Amy

Another Goodbye, A Closing, and A New Year

This one has been bouncing around in my brain the last few weeks and I’ve been trying to sort through so many emotions. Figure I’ll sort it out here like I always do lol. The Irving house finally found its new owners. About a week ago another tumor took our sweet Paris. And inexplicably a new year is upon us.

We signed the papers on the Irving house four years to the day of when I unpacked the last box, hung the last picture, and posted the before and after video of the renovation from moving into Turtle Summit. Funny sometimes how God’s timing works. I’ve been trying to put my mind around the emotions there, cause there are some, but can’t quite get there. When I reflect back on who I was then…man.

Four years ago I was so angry. So tired. So overwhelmed. So afraid. If I dared to crack open one of my prayer journals I can almost promise you those prayers read something like “give me my life back” or “rewind the clock”. My children were leaving home, my husband was gone, and I had absolutely no idea who I was. And quite frankly I was crazy. Out of my mind flipping crazy. I look back on that person and wonder where she came from and thank God every day that he put the right tools and people in my path to get me through.

As I look around today? My list of blessings is as overwhelming as that list of pain and sorrow was. A home I never could have dreamed this small town girl would ever have. A man I adore who loves me beyond measure. A job that challenges me and pushes me to keep growing even when I’d like a minute to breathe.

Last weekend we said goodbye to another of our fur babies. She was older but we weren’t ready. She had a tumor in her ear that they couldn’t promise us wasn’t in her brain. She was in pain and not herself. We kept the promise we made each other not to prolong our babies lives for our own inability to say goodbye. But less than three months after losing Hope it just made the grief hole rip open again. The energy in the house has shifted again and the three remaining girls are tying to find a new rhythm. They are very clingy to us and hate when we leave the house.

Tim and I’s word for 2025 is “intentional”. So often we find ourselves at the end of a week, month, or year having just responded to all that came at us instead of acting intentionally towards our goals. We want to work on the goals we have set and live life on our terms. I think some of that is a result of seeing what we accomplished when we set our mind to it with the house. Not sure. We just know that as we heal from some of what 2024 took from us and embrace some of what it gave us we have big plans.

I am waking up at night with my mind and my heart racing. Anxiety coursing through me that I can’t identify. I thought it was the house. But with that settled not sure what it is. Work is out of control busy so maybe it’s that. But I know that if I turn it over to God and just lift it in prayer it’ll resolve itself in time. Just takes the one thing hardest for me – faith.

What are you reflecting on in as we close out 2024?

—Amy

Another Goodbye is Upon Us

Someone said to me today that pre-grieving is as hard as the grieving can be. While I had never heard the phrase “pre-grieving” it certainly fit. Knowing what’s coming, agonizing on if you are making the right decision, if the time is right, knowing how much it’s going to hurt…it all sucks.

The time has come that we have to say goodbye to Hope. Tomorrow we’ll take her to the vet and send her home to God where she won’t be in pain anymore. While I know she has quite the host of angels waiting to receive her my heart is still breaking.

Hope is the youngest of our babies. If I really dwell on the unfairness of it all that’s the thing that hits me the most. We have three senior citizen dogs and our youngest girl got aggressive non-treatable cancer. Like WTF.

From the day we got her Hope’s role has fit her name. She gave us hope. She came into our life to fill the hole left when we lost Tigre. The kids wouldn’t let me name her Faith or Love from 1 Corinthians 13:13: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” So I named her Hope.

She has always had human tendencies. She has never been one for just a belly rub. She has to hug you. Both arms around your neck hug you before she is content. She sits up in “her” chair on her butt like a human. She has never ever realized her own size…she’ll crawl into your lap like she is a five pound chihuahua instead of an eighty pound overgrown love mutt. She’ll sneak under the covers in bed with you at night and curl up oh so tight only to run you off the bed spread across half of it in the middle of the night – running in her sleep no less.

I read something recently speculating on what a dogs’ purpose is on this earth. It is to remind us humans that love is supposed to be easy. Unconditional, all consuming, and with the unadulterated joy that comes to a dog when we walk through the door. It’s us humans that make it hard. Dogs like Hope are especially good at their job. All she ever needed was a piece of human food snuck under the table (cherry tomatoes are her favorite!), a hug, a lap to sleep in, or a car ride with her ears flapping and her tongue wagging. Or to wrestle with her sister over who got to get to me first when I walked in the door.

So how do you say goodbye? How do you look into those big brown eyes and tell her it’s ok to let go? That you’ll be ok even when at that moment you aren’t sure you will be? That’s how I will love her the way she has always loved me. Selflessly and deeply. I don’t want her to hurt anymore. I want her to run and roll and play and feel no pain. My heart will carry her with me for the rest of my days. I’ll console her sisters for many many weeks to come – especially Lilah. I’ll bury my face in her blanket and seek comfort from her smell until it fades.

I believe in heaven and I believe with all my heart that the angels who sent her to heal my broken heart after Tigre left us are making ready her place with them. I believe she’ll be free of pain. I am deeply grateful that God made the pieces fall in place on our move to allow her final days to be spent someplace where she had a yard to run and play in and be a dog instead of the way she’s had to live the last four years in the backyard at the other house. I’m grateful for these last core memories of her. More than I can even put into words.

So I’ll sign off now and soak up these last hours of Hope snuggles. Thanks for indulging my rambling. And go grab and extra hug from your own babies for me. Life is precious and it goes too damn fast.

Blessings – Amy

O Holy…Yah All That

Somewhere around the time you have your first go round with grief Christmas loses it’s first piece of the magic. By the second, third, or anywhere there after Christmas becomes a field of land mines to be navigated carefully in order to get from December 1st to December 31st in one piece. To come out of it anywhere close to sane without having a) lost a ton of weight b) quit your job or your family or c) stepped off the nearest cliff. You have days where you feel good. You do all the things – shop for the presents, plan the traditions, listen to the music. And then you have the others days….

Those days are the ones you have to watch out for. The days where you hope your tribe is near and their intervention is swift. Where the tears (or the rage) come so quickly it takes your breath away.

I remember, clearly, the first Christmas that was different. It was Christmas of 2014. My grandpa had passed in May and sometime in that summer I had shut off feeling. Stuffed everything in a box because something about his death reminded me, daily, that I was going to lose Fred and Mom (my grandma). Looking back I know now that was when I should have started my counseling journey, but you know, I was busy raising kids and taking care of everyone else first. Before that Christmas I was THE Christmas person. Traditions for the kids, Christmas music before Thanksgiving, more presents than would fit under the tree, kids having to have a stocking box because I got too much for their stocking, all the things. I pray my kids didn’t notice how much had changed for me that year but I’m learning now just how astute my children were so I know they did.

Fast forward to Christmas 2017. The year we lost Fred. We flat didn’t do it that year. I took the kids, and one of my might as well have been my kids, and boarded a ship. Started a new tradition of running away. Though the ships always celebrated Christmas something about not being at home where all the memories were made it easier to endure. COVID forced us home for one Christmas and I am positive I cried through the whole thing.

Despite having endured the loss of Mom this year – I am staying put for Christmas. I refuse to have my baby girl go through this holiday alone. But beyond that – I’m going to prove to myself how much work I have done. That I can do this. I know I am stronger now than I have ever been though there have been many days in the first 13 of this month I have questioned that – I’ll be honest. (I also am hightailing it out of town right after Christmas but that’s my reward.)

In the meantime, I’m going through the usual cycle of drowning in memories, experiencing daily roller coasters of emotions, and learning to be patient with myself in riding it out. But what I am NOT doing is stuffing it in a box. Ignoring my pain. It is exhausting the expectations to be “jolly” when you’d rather crawl under the covers and cry.

Grief is a monster that once it has you – it never lets you go. It may ease it’s grip sometimes, you may be able to put a leash on it and contain it for a while, but it’s like a second skin you have to learn to live with. If you were lucky enough to love and be loved? That grief is an indicator of the hole their absence left in your life. I have lost three wonderful people so far in my life – each loved me beyond measure – so I’ll carry their love and learn how to ride out the tough times and cherish the memories no matter how long it takes me to learn how.

If you are grieving this holiday season, be patient with yourself. If you know someone who is grieving, love them through it. Just being there is more help than you know. The holidays aren’t the stuff they portray in magazines and on TV. For some, they are a hellish 31 days to endure. Be kind. Be sensitive. Be thankful if you still feel their magic. Most of all…blessings.

Amy

Grief is….

Grief is…anxiety. Fear. Guilt. Anger. Pain. Regret. Messy. Confusing. And so much more.

Death is not peaceful. It’s not something you can prepare for – no matter how much you tell yourself you can. Your journey through healing from a loss is not something anyone else can understand – even if they have experienced significant loss themselves. Grief is a deeply personal internal journey that one must navigate oneself. At the very best the love and support of friends and family will allow you to do so and at the very worst words like “just move on” or “aren’t you over it already” will be said. People say dumb hurtful things without even realizing it – death and grief make people uncomfortable so awkward encounters are to be expected.

I think when we think of someone grieving we think of someone in a state of constant crying. Maybe unable to eat, sleep, smile, or laugh. And yeah, for the first little bit those things are definitely the case. But grieving goes far beyond what the outside world sees in those early days after a loss.

Grief manifests itself in hundreds of ways. For me, grief creates great anxiety over loss. Without realizing it I push away those close to me because if they aren’t close then maybe it won’t hurt so bad when they have to leave me too. Or the alternative. I hold on so tight neither of us can breathe. Neither option is super great for important relationships in my life. Grief in another anxiety form is the inability to make the simplest decisions for fear they will be wrong. For fear they will set off some kind of chain reaction that will make this black place I am existing in worse.

Grief in the guilt form is endless questions like “did they know how much I loved them”. “Did I spend enough time with them?” “What was the last thing I said to them?” “Did I do enough?” “Was I enough?” The answer to all of those questions is YES but the sleepless endless loop of those questions can make you wonder.

Grief makes everyday life impossible for a while. Things you used to be able to handle – loud noises, high stress, weird situations – unbearable. Situations that are usually no big deal can make you burst into tears or irrationally angry. Grief in the anger form is extrapolated over many aspects of your life. Anger at traffic. Anger at the guy who cut you off in line at the grocery store. Anger at little things not realizing you are really angry because someone you loved deeply was taken from you.

Grief just plain hurts. Physically and mentally. I get stomachaches that keep me from eating. My limbs get heavy and functioning hurts. My brain starts to ache after a while from trying to settle my thoughts. It becomes easier to just go through the motions of my life than to try and sort out the volume of feelings and thoughts that I have. That is where depression takes over and the life I love starts to ebb away. THAT is a dangerous place I have to watch out for.

Most importantly – grief has no dang timeline. I don’t care what any book, expert, or TV tells you. Everyone heals on their on pace. And just when you think you have something rips it open again. It may not bleed as bad the second, third, tenth time – but it’s a wound that just keeps opening. To this day I have days where I miss my grandpa’s hugs so bad I just want to lay down in the floor and cry. Or where I would give my left arm to hear Fred make my daughter laugh, really deep down laugh, the way only he could. And most recently I’d give anything to be able to just “rest my eyes” next to Mom the way she’d make me when I was a kid to trick me into taking a nap. No one can tell you how or when to heal. There is no right or wrong way to do it. Just FEEL and breathe. Best thing I can say.

And if you don’t relate to this blog post at all – you are one of the luckiest people I know.

Blessings y’all. – Amy

Drowning in Memories

I have come to the conclusion that the dark side of this second season is that as we age the losses come with more frequency. When we find our footing after torrential grief the button gets pushed again. And again.

My grandmother is making her way home to heaven. Towards the man she was married to and loved for over half a century. To a place she believes in with every fiber of her being. She’s given us several close calls this last year but the hospice staff tells us we won’t be granted a reprieve this time. Though I think Em and I will hold out hope until that final call comes.

My brain has become a time machine of memories. My grandma, I call her Mom, was a huge part of my childhood. My 17 year old mother had no idea what to do with a newborn born with a birth defect in need of constant medical attention. I was raised in my grandparents home during my formative years thus learning to call my grandma “Mom” from hearing my mother do so.

I have years of memories of being sent to stay with my grandmother when I was sick. When I was recovering from any one of the 50 surgeries I had before my 18th birthday. When I needed to be taken to endless doctor appointments. It was always Mom that I remember taking me. I am sure my mother was there somewhere but it’s Taco Bueno and Bennigan’s lunch dates with Mom that I remember across the street from Memorial City hospital. It’s ENDLESS pots of our families “slumghetti” recipe she would make when I was sick. (She swore after the third pot when Em was born she would never make it again. She did – she just didn’t eat it after that!) Recipes that can’t be recreated because they are missing the touch of love I’m sure she put in them.

I spent most of yesterday trying to remember the last time she made me any “slumghetti”. I can’t. I didn’t know it would be the last time. When we broke down her house last year the memories were packed away in boxes. Boxes I find myself wanting to open and just rewind time.

Mom and I’s relationship changed after PawPaw died. She swore it was because we loved him best. She just didn’t know how hard it was to be around her without him and with the knowledge that she too would leave me. First PawPaw, then Fred three years later, now her five years after that. I look around at people that I love dearly who aren’t getting any younger and I know this is one part of life I’m going to have to get a little stronger at. Does one ever really get good at saying goodbye?

This picture is one of my favorite of Mom. That joy? She always had it when Em was around. I have siblings that would tell you she had it with me too, and I’m sure she did, but our bond was forged deep on the years she was there for me when people who should have been weren’t. With Em? She got to just do the joy. She knew I had Em in all the ways my mother let me down so she just got to love her the way a grandmother should. Even if she was her great grandmother. So precious for those two to have 20 years…how many great grandmothers get that? I know Em is drowning in more memories than I am but I also know there is a part of her that will be glad when Mom gets the one thing she has wanted for eight long years. To be with PawPaw again.

You have heard this from me more than once. You’ll probably always hear it from me. Life is short. Precious. Getting more so by the day. Hold those you love close. Appreciate those who are there for you because they want to be not because they have to be. Love HARD. It’s the only way to survive this life.

Blessings y’all – Amy

Remembering Always

There are dates that live in our heads that have the power to make us smile…or knock our world off kilter. Sometimes we have control over what that reaction is and sometimes not. TimeHop keeps some of those memories fresh that we might not want while reminding us of others we want to cherish forever…

Most of y’all know December is a month full of emotional land mines. The last week of January and the first week of February has a few of those too. It was late January five years ago when we wound up in the ER with an unexplained fever for Fred that led to the discovery of the hole in his ankle…thus beginning the change to our world that would indescribably change the kids and I. To this day I can’t stand hospitals. Granted I realize they are no ones favorite place to be but since we more or less lived in one from that day until late March I have a special loathing for them.

February 3rd is/was our wedding anniversary. It would have been 15 years this year. Feels like a lifetime ago a starry eyed 29 year old said “I do” without a care to what a 22 year age gap would mean in the grand scheme of her life. The adage “love is blind”? 100% true. Whether it’s failing to see what everyone else around you can see about who you have chosen or refusing to acknowledge you have chosen the absolutely hardest path you could for your life. Love is an intense wonderful blind free fall that guts you and yet sometimes, if you are lucky, gives you strength when you need it.

When it became clear that Fred’s health was failing he asked me over and over again to promise I would marry again. With the absolute naive certainty I had then I told him the heart can only love once. He would just smile and say “not yours – you have too much to give”. I could write a book on the things he was right about…

My heart is very conflicted this week. I struggle with still missing Fred. Grief knows no bounds even when life is moving forward. I feel guilt at having found love again. Despite knowing it is what Fred asked me to do when you have carved out a place in your heart for someone as special as Fred you always carry a piece of them. I am beyond blessed to have found someone who understands I was not single by choice and is deeply respectful of the myriad of emotions that can tumble over me at any given time. How on earth I managed to find not one but two amazing men in my life is a question I’ll never have an answer to….but I am grateful.

February 4th was my grandfather’s birthday. He’s been gone 8 years in May and I still wish he was here. I was a grown person who could still climb on her PawPaw’s lap in times of need and I miss that lap!

And as if those two days together weren’t enough Feb 4th was the day chosen for my kid to move across the country. Leaving behind everyone who loves him. A year without my charismatic, kind, compassionate, center-of-attention-in-any-room son has been hard. Beyond hard. Anyone close to me will argue and tell you it has been incredibly good for me but a mother’s heart will always prefer her kids be close enough for a hug. This year has pushed me deeper into my faith, deeper into my tribe, deeper into understanding myself, and to find love again. It has also pushed me deeper into understanding my role as a parent of now adults – the joys of letting go and just enjoying them as human beings instead of worrying about protecting them all the time. Life will teach them things I can’t and my only job now is to enjoy my next season. Those things I will celebrate instead of being sad. Those that hold me accountable won’t allow anything less.

I’ve learned a lot about myself this year. Mostly that the strength that got me through losing my father figure (my grandpa) and my husband is still there. It may hide from me some days – behind anxiety, tears, and a general heaviness I can’t shake. But for whatever reason God carved my life with as many great joys as he did deep sorrows. I have much to be grateful for and to focus on those joys every day is the best way to honor them. I will try not wallow this week….but I will remember those I have lost and miss…always.

Blessings y’all – Amy

13 Mothers

I have to be careful how much news I watch. How often I get sucked down the rabbit hole of his opinion vs her opinion and all that that entails. It is difficult to get any truly impartial news anymore anyway so often I just tune it out.

What I have not been able to tune out, nor would I want to, the last few days is the heartbreak that 13 mothers are facing. The overwhelming and unending grief that they are consumed by as their brains try and make sense of the news that their selfless children gave their lives for their country. I don’t think I could come close to understanding their pain; but I think that every mother has some idea on some level the agony they would feel if they couldn’t hold their babies one more time. It was instinctual for me to want to reach out to mine this morning. To assure myself they are safe and whole. It brings tears when I think about those 13 mothers that will never have that comfort again.

The solemn procession of a fallen solider to his final resting place

In April Amy and I were fortunate enough to take a trip to Washington D.C. and I will carry the sense of patriotism I felt there for the rest of my life. As we stood in Arlington National Cemetery and watched a fallen soldier be taken slowly and with all the honor he deserved to his final resting place my heart ached for him and all the lives that lay before me. As the 21 gun salute rang out in the distance I got chills. You see I have always considered myself an American. Fred and I always taught our children to thank soldiers when they saw them. Buy their meal or their coffee. Small tokens that don’t equate at all for the sacrifices they make for us. Standing in that sacred space finally gave me a deeper understanding of what it means to be an American.

13 soldiers gave their lives for us. 13 mothers will never be the same. Their hearts are forever shattered. The only way we can honor that is by remembering their sacrifice every day as we go about our lives. Lives that are preciously free because of their sacrifice. By honoring our flag and our forefathers. By uniting as a nation and staring down terrorism and those that wish us harm.

All gave some. Some gave all.

To the veterans, to those on active duty, and to the families that support them. To those that have gone on due to their service. To the 13 mothers with broken hearts that I feel so deeply today.

Thank you. And God Bless You.