Additions

I'm in Florida at the moment, we've had the two oldest grandkids for the week and brought them back Wednesday. Yesterday we met the youngest grandchild for the first time.

Laura Ann was born Monday, August 10th just in time for my mother's birthday which was on the 11th. Her mother was the one who swore she would never have kids, and that if she ever got the maternal instinct she would borrow one of her nephews and get over it. Both of the ones in the last two pictures are hers.

Welcome to the world baby girl, your PopPop loves you.

Dear Laura

I can't help but think that you had a hand in the events of the past two weeks.

Perhaps it is just superstitious foolishness, perhaps we do fool ourselves in believing these things in order to make our lives easier to live; if that is so then it hurts no one, but I believe it to be true.

You knew me better than anyone else in the world has ever known me, and you loved me in spite of it. You knew all my faults and foibles, all my weaknesses and all my strengths. You knew the worst of me, and you were the best of me. Who else, then, would have found someone so perfect for me?

You told me not to be alone. I was angry at the time, I said things I wish I had never said, but you forgave me. It didn't mean as much then as it means now, but now...it means everything. Sis told me that I should let you go, that I should release you to your rest, but I selfishly hung on because you were the best of me and I did not want to lose that.

She wants me to love her the way that I loved you, but what she does not know is I will love her better because of the lessons I learned with you. Because I learned the value of time.

I wasted a lot of time with you doing other things when I should have been loving you as hard as I could every waking moment of every day. When you are young you think you have all the time in the world, but when you are older you realize that ALL you have is all the time in the world. I learned the true meaning of that during those last desperate hours with you.

It was a mistake, and I won't make it again.

She wants to take the time to savor the moment; in that she is wiser than I because I want to start forever right now. She needs this as much as I do, but she needs the time just as much. She deserves the time, and so do I.

We have all the time in the world.

And now it is time for me to let you go to your rest. Thank you for all the lessons I learned with you, you will always have a piece of my heart...and of course my soul, that goes without saying...but I will move on now the way you wanted me to. I can do that now. Come what may, I can do that now.

Goodbye my love. I will see you when I get there.

21

She was a red-headed hellion, but she was MY red-headed hellion.

I am grateful for the sixteen years I had her.

Dying Of The Light

I got the call a little over an hour ago, Eldest Daughter is on her way to Gainsville. Pop (Laura's Dad) is in the hospital and not expected to last the night.

Pray not for recovery, but for an easy passage. Pop is a heartbroken and weary man, he has buried his wife and his only child and he deserves peace. He will not rage against the dying of the light. He will ask it why took so long.

Goodbye Pop. Say hello to my favorite mother-in-law.

And tell Laura I love her.

Four

Yesterday. Doesn't seem like it was that long ago.

Whirlwind

Favorite Niece and Eldest Daughter both had birthdays today.

Favorite Niece's boyfriend got her an engagement ring for her birthday. From what I can tell she liked it, not that there was any doubt.

Eldest Daughter called me this evening with some sad news, though. Laura's best friend is not expected to last the night.

I have known this woman for 20 years. Sometimes she makes me crazy. She has been dying of something  or other since I've known her, and sometimes I've thought she would outlive us all in spite of herself. It looks like that will not be the case after all.

I will call her husband tomorrow when I get off work and offer my condolences. In spite of everything they have always been there. I wish I didn't know so well what tonight holds for him.

Go in peace, best friend of my best friend...and when you see her, tell her I love her.

20

She's been gone for three and a half of them.

Three

Image from http://plantedblackrose.blogspot.com/

Hot Buttons

We all have something that provokes an immediate reaction.

Cancer is mine. I hate it with a searing intensity that borders on irrationality.

So when someone asks for help, I can't help myself.

Go here.

Urgently Needed

Go on over and say a prayer for my shipmate Bull.

No, I've never met him, and it's unlikely we ever sailed the same waters at the same time, but "he who sheds his blood with me" and all that. Bubblehead he may have been, but shipmate he will always be all the same.

Besides, I hate this fucking disease.

End Of An Era

TDP is gone.

Middle Daughter, who inherited the car after I got my new ones, finally got tired of trying to fix it. What finally laid it low was a check engine light that no one could properly diagnose; it has to be out to pass inspection and after throwing several parts at it the light was still on. This after a bottom end job and a transmission solenoid to fix up the lockup converter that wouldn't unlock, a common problem with the TH125 transmission.

The junk man came and got it Tuesday and the plates got turned in today. I dropped the insurance on it this afternoon. Whoever picks over its bones will get a good engine (the only thing that hasn't been touched is the rings, but the compression was good after the head work) and transmission, but the rest of it was crap.

I had a dream that included me sitting on a cooler drinking beer and laughing like a madman as they fed that car into a shredder and made blue confetti out of it. Unfortunately the place that got it doesn't have a shredder, so it remains only a dream. A good dream, but a dream nonetheless.

Laura loved that little car, and it was good for her for a long time. Rust in peace TDP.

19

It just occurred to me what day it is.

The funny thing is...she could never remember it.

I still miss someone.

Today in History

1964

1969

dammit

Prayers to CoolChange.

I hate this f**king disease.

Two

I don't know if it gets better or if you just get used to it. Maybe a little of both.

Laura's Garden

First Rose

Three years ago yesterday Mother In Law left us. Pop still putters around in the last house they lived in together. I have some time off this month, I am going down to help him clean the garage out. He's making noises about moving again. We will see if he does.

One year and a month, to the day, her daughter followed her into that great beyond. She got to see the roses before she went. Every year the roses come, and every year I can hear her delightedly say "The roses are blooming!"

This is the first rose of the year.

Day After Christmas

It was a pretty good Christmas at the Refuge, we didn't do any gift exchanges because we're saving all of that for January in Jacksonville with Eldest Daughter.

It is the second Christmas that Laura has not been with us. We all miss her, but this year wasn't as painful as last year.

I hope all of my friends in the magic box had a great Christmas.

That Which I Had Feared

She never told me how sick she was. I hid it from myself, and she hid it from me; I knew that time was precious but I did not know how little of it we had left.

To this day I do not know if it would have been better to know, or to not know.

Kent knows.

My prayers are with you Kent. May you have all the time you need, even though it will never be all you want.