My Ramblings

The majority of my ramblings on this blog have revolved around Daniel’s death and life. This is natural, I suppose, as he is why I started the blog. Most of the writings have dealt with my grief, crying, and general sadness. There has been a taste of fond thoughts, hope at seeing him in heaven and humor but it has mostly been negative things. As I have said, I don’t know how long I will grieve to this extent, but these moments are winding down in number and intensity. For this, I am grateful. Yesterday, I began to give some thought to the bright side of my life which led me to the other members of my immediate family. From the youngest, Caedence, my sweet and newest baby girl who is only a month old; Judah, my nine month old grandson who is crawling everywhere and pulling himself up to a standing position; Cambria (19 months) who does the “pretty girl” dance, runs to give me hugs and loves to play chase; Logan the five year old future UFC fighter who is hooked on all things Godzilla

Linda and I went to the cemetery today to visit Daniel’s grave. I sat in the truck as I am unable to walk up the small hill on the thick grass without fear of falling down. Daniel is buried about 100 feet from the road. Linda went and stood there for a while. This was a good thing because I believe she needed some time alone with our son. She came back to the truck and we held each other while we cried. Although the pain of our loss has begun to subside, we have moments when it hits us again that our son is gone from this world; out of reach. Gone is his presence, his largeness of life, his dry sense of humor and his gentleness which he attempted to hide under a rough exterior. These moments of sadness hit us without expectation. When they come to me, I cry for a bit and then get myself under control. Last week, I opened a drawer and there was a picture of him on top that I had put in there and forgotten. Certain songs get me. One of these is a Don Williams song titled, “If Hollyw

A few days ago, I received a letter from a dear and longtime friend who lives in Northeastern Oregon. I have known her and her husband for about thirty years. I was more a friend to her husband over the years but I did take their wedding photos a long time ago. It wasn’t until the past five to ten years that we have gotten to know each other better. She shared the path of our friendship as she sees it including that her first memories of me are generic, I was funny and was a nice guy. She recounted how she then became friends with my wife, Linda and that each of our children were much the same age. The bottom line of the letter is she believes that I help people get connected; she and I have connected as friends,– that we “get” one another. I wrote the following in a partial response to what she said in her letter to me: I am unable to find a lot of words to respond to your letter. I cannot stop crying. I so wish that we could see each other more often because I love being in your c

Since September 17, I have been out of commission. I made four trips to the ER and ended up being admitted twice, once for five days all in the span of ten days. My Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) hit me hard; I was extremely dehydrated and anemic. After the five day stay, it appeared I was back on track but two days later I went back because something was very wrong. Turns out I was in Atrial Fibrillation (AF) which is an irregular heartbeat. Sometimes my heart was beating 140-150 beats per minute. I am now on a slew of new meds including Warfarin, a blood thinner to help prevent blood clots and a possible stroke. My cardiologist speculated that the AF could have been triggered by the stress caused by Daniel’s death and all that goes with it. I am as weak as a kitten, constantly tired and short of breath. There have been times this past few weeks where I have asked God to just take me home. I have felt like this before due to my son’s suicide but now it is amplified by how lousy I f