Grief:

I know this should be posted on Face Book or some other social media type of thing rather than on a blog meant to entertain, but I cannot help myself. On May 7, 2013 my brother, Randy, died while on home hospice care. On May 6, 2014 my mother, Grace Smiley, died while on home hospice care. My grief over losing both of those wonderful people is great, but there is something else I also mourn the loss of. I know it must sound strange; I mean, why would anyone miss living from crises to crises, but taking care of Randy and mom was a large part of my life for a long time. I feel lost when I get home from work now or when I have a day off. Something very important, almost like a part of my being, is missing, and I do not know what to do with my time. My feeling of loss and emptiness cannot be cured by tears or talk, as necessary as they might be. What is clearly needed is action, some sort of positive step forward -- no matter how small that first step might be.

I know I have to move on, just as I know that I am still going to cry at times. Building a new life will not be easy, but I have to start soon. An event that could have been written by Kurt Vonnegut or Douglas Adams really brought that point home to me. On the sixth of his month there appeared in the in-box of my e-mail account a message from my doctor telling me he had ordered lab work that I needed to attend to. The message was dated June 11, 2013. I do not know why this message did not make it into my in-box last year or why it showed up now. What I do know is that I did not take very good care of myself while I was taking care of Randy and mom. Now that they are gone I cannot use them as an excuse for not attending to my own health. I have just sent my doctor an e-mail. Getting in touch with him, and writing this post are very small steps indeed, but I have to start somewhere.

Adding irony to irony is my previous post. I merely copied it from my files in the order in which it was posted on my other blog. I did not pay much attention to the content until I started proof reading this. No new years eve ceremony this time. This is my catharsis; you are reading it.