Dana

Today we lost our dear sweet Dana.  She was having a difficult time jumping yesterday morning and I knew things were a little "off."  By dinner time, Dana just laid down next to her food bowl and wouldn't get up or eat.  Our on-call vet gave me some instructions but basically there was little we could do. Dana has had hyper thyroid and kidney disease for the past two years.  But she's been a fighter and stayed spunky and active all this time.  I knew when she curled up next to me and looked at me last night that she was done fighting.  I spent the night lying next to her, giving her sips of water.  Finally this morning I knew she was getting worse and not rallying back, so I took her in to our vet.  The vet confirmed she was in final kidney failure and I had to say my good-byes.  Difficult, difficult morning.

The kids were of course crying and hysterical last night.  My friend from Texas is visiting this week and while I am sorry she had to be part of a sad good-bye, I am SO glad she is here to comfort and distract the kids for me.  The girls just left on a road trip for a few days and I am glad Katherine has some time away with her BFF.  I pray it is a healing and joyful time for her amidst so much pain this year!

Our "first born" Dana was 15 years old.  Ryan got her for my birthday at a shelter in Shreveport, Louisiana in 2001.  She was our loyal, loving and quirky little calico.  We joked that she was not all that smart, but she was sure beautiful!  And although she was for me, Dana always adored Ryan so much more than anyone else. Amidst my tears today, I am joyful picturing Dana's reunion with her daddy in heaven.  I have no doubt she is curled up in Ryan's arms today, where she really belongs.   Ryan loved his baby girl so much.  I love and miss you so much, precious Dana.

October 2001

Dana curled up yesterday

on Ryan's lap



this past Christmas

pumpkins

Sometimes all you need is cousins running around a pumpkin farm to cheer you up.  Happy fall!
 🎃 🍃  🌻🍁

article

This link had some great information for those who have a friend or family member who is grieving and they don't know how to help:
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4329830

Here is the text of the article:
How to Help a Grieving Friend: 11 Things to Do When You’re Not Sure What to Do  by Megan Devine

I’ve been a therapist for more than 10 years. I worked in social services for the decade before that. I knew grief. I knew how to handle it in myself, and how to attend to it in others. When my partner drowned on a sunny day in 2009, I learned there was a lot more to grief than I’d known.

Many people truly want to help a friend or family member who is experiencing a severe loss. Words often fail us at times like these, leaving us stammering for the right thing to say. Some people are so afraid to say or do the wrong thing, they choose to do nothing at all. Doing nothing at all is certainly an option, but it’s not often a good one.

While there is no one perfect way to respond or to support someone you care about, here are some good ground rules.

#1 Grief belongs to the griever.
You have a supporting role, not the central role, in your friend’s grief. This may seem like a strange thing to say. So many of the suggestions, advice and “help” given to the griever tells them they should be doing this differently, or feeling differently than they do. Grief is a very personal experience, and belongs entirely to the person experiencing it. You may believe you would do things differently if it had happened to you. We hope you do not get the chance to find out. This grief belongs to your friend: follow his or her lead.

#2 Stay present and state the truth.
It’s tempting to make statements about the past or the future when your friend’s present life holds so much pain. You cannot know what the future will be, for yourself or your friend — it may or may not be better “later.” That your friend’s life was good in the past is not a fair trade for the pain of now. Stay present with your friend, even when the present is full of pain.

It’s also tempting to make generalized statements about the situation in an attempt to soothe your friend. You cannot know that your friend’s loved one “finished their work here,” or that they are in a “better place.” These future-based, omniscient, generalized platitudes aren’t helpful. Stick with the truth: this hurts. I love you. I’m here.

#3 Do not try to fix the unfixable.
Your friend’s loss cannot be fixed or repaired or solved. The pain itself cannot be made better. Please see #2. Do not say anything that tries to fix the unfixable, and you will do just fine. It is an unfathomable relief to have a friend who does not try to take the pain away.

#4 Be willing to witness searing, unbearable pain.
To do #4 while also practicing #3 is very, very hard.

#5 This is not about you.
Being with someone in pain is not easy. You will have things come up — stresses, questions, anger, fear, guilt. Your feelings will likely be hurt. You may feel ignored and unappreciated. Your friend cannot show up for their part of the relationship very well. Please don’t take it personally, and please don’t take it out on them. Please find your own people to lean on at this time — it’s important that you be supported while you support your friend. When in doubt, refer to #1.

#6 Anticipate, don’t ask.
Do not say “Call me if you need anything,” because your friend will not call. Not because they do not need, but because identifying a need, figuring out who might fill that need, and then making a phone call to ask is light years beyond their energy levels, capacity or interest. Instead, make concrete offers: “I will be there at 4 p.m. on Thursday to bring your recycling to the curb,” or “I will stop by each morning on my way to work and give the dog a quick walk.” Be reliable.

#7 Do the recurring things.
The actual, heavy, real work of grieving is not something you can do (see #1), but you can lessen the burden of “normal” life requirements for your friend. Are there recurring tasks or chores that you might do? Things like walking the dog, refilling prescriptions, shoveling snow and bringing in the mail are all good choices. Support your friend in small, ordinary ways — these things are tangible evidence of love.
Please try not to do anything that is irreversible — like doing laundry or cleaning up the house — unless you check with your friend first. That empty soda bottle beside the couch may look like trash, but may have been left there by their husband just the other day. The dirty laundry may be the last thing that smells like her. Do you see where I’m going here? Tiny little normal things become precious. Ask first.

#8 Tackle projects together.
Depending on the circumstance, there may be difficult tasks that need tending — things like casket shopping, mortuary visits, the packing and sorting of rooms or houses. Offer your assistance and follow through with your offers. Follow your friend’s lead in these tasks. Your presence alongside them is powerful and important; words are often unnecessary. Remember #4: bear witness and be there.

#9 Run interference.
To the new griever, the influx of people who want to show their support can be seriously overwhelming. What is an intensely personal and private time can begin to feel like living in a fish bowl. There might be ways you can shield and shelter your friend by setting yourself up as the designated point person — the one who relays information to the outside world, or organizes well-wishers. Gatekeepers are really helpful.

#10 Educate and advocate.
You may find that other friends, family members and casual acquaintances ask for information about your friend. You can, in this capacity, be a great educator, albeit subtly. You can normalize grief with responses like,”She has better moments and worse moments and will for quite some time. An intense loss changes every detail of your life.” If someone asks you about your friend a little further down the road, you might say things like, “Grief never really stops. It is something you carry with you in different ways.”

#11 Love.
Above all, show your love. Show up. Say something. Do something. Be willing to stand beside the gaping hole that has opened in your friend’s life, without flinching or turning away. Be willing to not have any answers. Listen. Be there. Be present. Be a friend. Be love. Love is the thing that lasts.

brokenness

I have come to realize that when we have a broken heart, we can do one of two things - let it scab over and harden, or embrace our tender woundedness.  Our gut reaction and the way the world often encourages us to respond is the former.  It is easier.  Toughen up, chin up, move on.  But I think God calls us to the latter.  "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." (Ezekiel 36:26). It is our tender, broken wounds that God can use, not our hardened hearts.

I have experienced grief, to a greater or lesser extent, many times in life - grief over saying good-byes to friends or places with each military move.  Grief of missing family and holidays across the miles.  Everyone experiences some dose of these griefs throughout their life.  And I honestly dreaded feeling these sadnesses every time they hit me.  Who wants to embrace pain or sadness?  But I realize now that the pain of my grief works to bring about change in my life because it is that pain that forces me to adjust to my new reality.  And it is also through pain that I heal.  We don't heal by ignoring, denying, avoiding, or hardening.  We heal by feeling.

When we do not allow acknowledge our grief, our sadness, our brokenness, we deny God the chance to bless us through it.  If I cut off my pain or stuff it down deep and not deal with it, feel it, I also in essence cut out my capacity to feel joy.  A hardened heart does not feel pain, but it also does not feel joy.  I think feeling grief truly makes it more possible to feel other emotions such as love, joy, and excitement.  In this broken and hurting world, our loving and gracious God has figured out a way to take our brokenness, our hurts, our deepest pains, and use them to shower us with the deepest joys.  A tender and open heart, busted wide open, can feel SO much.  If we let it.

If you google "grief" (I did in those first horrific weeks), you read it is a process (which implies a beginning, a middle, and an end) or about the five stages - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.  But being in such an all-consuming depth of grief, that "process" was not comforting to me in any way at all because I did not see the "end."  If the "end" of that process even existed, it was so far out and removed from me that it provided absolutely no hope or comfort.  That can be a scary place to be.

But I think it is when I allowed myself to start to embrace grief as an ongoing thing, a process without end, an agent of change, a method of blessing, that I began to see hope.  My relationship with Ryan continues internally, it always will, until I see him again.  I don't stuff that relationship down or forget it or harden myself against it - I take him with me.  I let my heart stay wide open and tender and raw and usable.  Grief is the price of love and its pain can be transformative, if we allow God full access to use every part of it.  "My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise." (Ps. 51:16)  Grief is a gift - we just need to learn how to accept it.

school

I just ask for prayers for Kate this morning.  She begins her first day at a homeschool charter school today.  I know she is very nervous and worried about it.  Please pray that the teachers and students are sweet and kind and welcoming to her.  And that a few girls will be friendly and come alongside her and befriend her with smiles, so that her walls and anxieties crumble and break down.  That her fears of change and new situations melt away today in the new environment. 

camp out

So I just dropped my little guy off at his first camp-out without Daddy.  Pray for us.  Charlie seemed okay since his uncle is one of the scout leaders and is with him.  But he was quiet on the drive there and I am a mess.  We have actually never left Char overnight before without a parent.  So this is a first and I am trying not to worry.  Please pray that Charlie have a good time this weekend and that the other boys be sweet and kind to him, and that he not stress (he worries, like his mama) or be overcome with sadness, that the weekend is a time of healing and overcoming fears for him (and me).
Here is the sunset tonight from the camp site up on a radar site on base, it was gorgeous:

Sunday, October 16th UPDATE:  The camp-out went well, despite the weather.   California hasn't had rain in months, but of course it rained all weekend during the camp-out...  But the boys were troopers.  Charlie made it through Friday night, sharing a tent with his buddy and lots of glow sticks.  I did not sleep a lot that night, just was very emotional.  I stayed at the campsite until about 7pm, said good night to Char and then hung out with Kate and my sister until really late at night.  Saturday the boys spent the morning learning about radio transmissions and talking to other scouts via radio.  I came up to the campsite late Saturday afternoon, where the boys were playing monopoly in a tent due to the downpours outside.  Charlie was having fun but was tired and didn't want to spend the second night.  We stayed through dinner and left to sleep in our own beds.  Then we returned early this morning to help pack out and get all the boys back to the church parking lot.  I am so proud of Charlie - he did really well, seemed to get to know the other boys, and truly had fun.  I am so thankful my brother-in-law was there to watch out over Charle (& respond to my many texts!).  And Charlie knew his limits well enough to say he did not want to sleep out a second night and that was totally fine.  The leaders van actually broke down over the weekend, so I loaded up five of the boys in my car this morning to get them from the campsite to the church.  It was fun listening to all these 10 and 11 year old boys talk and made my heart happy to see Charlie smiling with them.  Thank you all SO much for praying for us this weekend.  Now I am off throw muddy scout gear into the washer, put some warm soup on the stove, and possibly take a nap...

monopoly game

rainy day at radio site

Oct 13th

So today was my birthday.  Not a lot to say except I am a year older.  We had dinner and cake with my sister's family.  My kids were trying their best to make it a special day for me and I love them for it.  They and my sweet nephews made me smile.
Here are a few pictures from previous birthdays that I treasure:

2010

2009

2006

I did indulge on my birthday a little bit and took a nap on the couch this afternoon.  My little snuggle buddy showed up and laid down with me:

me

I think for those who are grieving, after some time has passed, we begin to present ourselves to the world in a way that does not show our intense emotions anymore.  I think partly because the world can be somewhat unforgiving of prolonged grief.  I don't say that as a statement of judgement on anyone, just a personal observation.  Before June, I was extremely blessed to have never really been acquainted with intense or incapacitating grief in my life.  But I also mistakenly thought that grief was just a deep sorrow that one feels, passes through in stages, then moving on.  I didn't get it.  Other widow/ers get it.  Those who have lost a parent or child or had some other significant loss, they get it.   I get it now.

Whether I want it to or am ready for it to, life does go on and I have to step up and attend to responsibilities and parenting and, I don’t know…just everything.  I can not just be a sobbing messy ball of emotions, day in and day out.  So I began to find my smile.  But this does not mean I am ignoring my grief or refusing to deal with the mess of emotions inside.  I am simply being functional.  It is all still right there, trust me, just below the surface, pain flowing from my heart throughout my body with every heartbeat.   In smiling and functioning, however, I am not avoiding my grief.  I read somewhere this it is like the idea of applying pressure to a wound in an effort to keep the blood from pouring out.  I apply pressure to hold my grief back so that I can get "stuff" done.  And I am blessed to have a few "safe places/people" to regularly pour those emotions out.  That is both necessary and healthy.  God blessed us with tears to release the pressure and compassionate others in our lives to lend us a shoulder.  

But daily, you will see that I smile because I am engaged, I laugh if something is funny, I am truly present with the people I see throughout the day.  Because that is what life is and I am still alive.  What I have noticed though is that I can do all of those things and even though I grieve, each joyful or necessary action is truly authentic.  It is just that, since Ryan died, even while I do those daily things, I am also dying inside.  Missing him.  Wishing he was here on earth.  Wanting desperately to see him walk through that door again.  Sharply feeling his absence.  His gone-ness.  Even as I smile and engage with people, my heart still aches, reminding me with every beat the divide between heaven and earth.

I am different since Ryan died.  I am both here and not here.  I am smiling outside and crying inside, both together at the same time.  Both authentically me.  I am truly paying attention and hearing you, my precious friends, while simultaneously listening to my own inner emotions at the same time.  Both of these are real parts of my every day, one seen and one mostly unseen.  For those who have never felt intense, shocking, incapacitating grief, this may not make a lot of sense.  But I have become familiar with it.  I have become familiar with having one foot squarely here on earth and the other foot somewhere else, wanting desperately to be have it firmly planted in heaven.  

I feel like one person here with you all, functioning out in the world, but also someone else at the same time.  As I smile and laugh, I am not stuffing any of this grief stuff down.  I am just  living out loud - while a deep, intense sadness, a dying to this life, a heaven-focused mind, mills around inside.  And I guess I am "okay" with that reality for now.

Katie-bug

Unpacking and found this adorable family picture of our Katie-bug, just over a year old.  The picture got a little damaged in the move, but it is one of my favorites.

And here is our Katie-bug now, age 14.  How quickly she has grown up!!

gift

Daddy Bear

Unpacking more boxes today and found Ryan's deployment gear, his WHCA suits, as well as gifts we had given the kids when Ryan deployed.  A few of the items were Charlie's "Daddy blanket" and "Daddy Bear."  The Daddy blanket was a small quilt I made during the first deployment Charlie experienced in 2011.  Charlie was only four years old and explaining a six month deployment to a four year old can be challenging.  So we made the Daddy blanket with Ryan's picture on it, so Charlie could still "hug" Daddy when he wasn't here.  And the Daddy Bear is a build-a-bear we stuffed together, wearing AF blues, that has Ryan's voice recorded  in it.  I was hesitant to push the button, thinking after all these years the battery must surely be gone by now.  But amazingly, when I pushed the button in Daddy Bear's paw, Ryan's voice came through.  It says, "Hi Charlie Bear.  I love you and I miss you.  I will see you as soon as I can.  Your Daddy loves you!"  I recorded the message on my phone so I can keep Ryan's voice even after that battery in the bear finally goes.  I know Kate's "Daddy blanket" and a "Daddy Owl" (with recording) are still somewhere, just haven't come across them yet.  The other item I found and had completely forgotten about is a recorded book, where Ryan read aloud "Guess How Much I Love You" for the kids, so he could still "read" to them at night when he was gone.  I had totally forgotten about that book recording all these years!  And of course the battery in that is dead, but I am curious to see if the recording will still be there with a new battery?  Not sure if I can handle hearing Ryan read that book out loud right now, but I would love to retrieve it for the kids to treasure.  Ryan was such a good, loving daddy.

As I found these items, I asked Charlie if he wanted them in his room or if he wanted me to put them in a box in his closet.  I wasn't sure what he would answer, but he readily wanted his "Daddy gear" close by.  He also got Ryan's DCU and BDU hats, along with Ryan's camelback.  Charlie hung Ryan's hats on his wall hook and wore the camelback around the house all evening, drinking out of it.  He put the Daddy blanket on his bed.  At bedtime, however, my little boy broke down into tears.  I knew it was a lot for him to take in emotionally, receiving Daddy's stuff and missing his daddy so much.  It is a lot for me to take in.  And Charlie was Ryan's little buddy.  So it has been an emotional evening, followed by an emotional bedtime, just sitting and holding my hurting baby boy.  But tears are God's way of letting us release our sadness and as painful as it is, I am thankful my little guy can do that.  We talked a lot more tonight about Daddy, how Daddy watches over us, about mental illness and suicide, and about God's amazing love and heaven. Again, I just ask for prayers tonight for little Char, as he processes his grief, and that since I can not take the pain away, that I can at least be some comfort to him.  And that his "Daddy gear" bring more comfort than pain.

Daddy Bear

Daddy blanket