Death

 No cliffhanger here, it's just what's been going on here in my world.  Changes are needed at times and then sometimes they are hard to endure.  I am definitely a creature of habit and sameness, anything out of the ordinary can rock my little world.

Two years and nine months ago, I lost my mom, she was 90 and it was amazing that she lived as long as she did, but she was afraid to die, it was her fear and will that kept her going.  I knew that because she told me a few years back and in June prior to her death, I was visiting her and took her shopping for a wheelchair and she wanted to get a good one because, in her words, "Just in case something happens to be, I can give it to your brother."  She was 90 and she couldn't even say the word much less embrace that reality.

One year and 2 months ago, I lost my dad. It was horrible and the guilt is still real in my gut.  Not to go into any details, I learned a lot about the medical profession full of young people and that they aren't too crazy about old OLD people at all, my dad was 93.

Two days ago, I lost my 18-year-old orange tabby, Lolek.  He was my good little boy who loved to sit with me in the sewing room or rub on me while I made puzzles on the computer.  He was my favorite and I loved him like none other.  Again, the experience: realizing he was suffering and biologically shutting down, but very uncomfortable in the process, I had to take him to a Vet hospital early in the morning and make the decision to put him down.  He hated the crate ride there and then being IV'd threw him in a tizzy.  I loved on him to calm him down while they gave him the sedative.  I couldn't watch anymore of the process.

One thing I know from all three of these deaths is that, as one of the doctors on my dad's team said, "We have been dying for thousands of years, and still, we don't know how to do it well."

Grief is a tricky thing, at first it is the gut punch, then just the sadness and triggers.  Someone told me that the first year is hard, but the second one is harder.  Basically, because you realize that the lost loved one is never coming back and life has to go on without them.  That reality has a sting of its own, and it lasts a very long time, if not forever.