Life After the Air Force!: Holidays After Loss Suck

*Disclaimer...I started writing this before Thanksgiving, but I had to set it aside. Sometimes the memories are too much.*

This year has been so difficult...and now with the holidays coming up, truthfully I wish I could just fast forward through them. I guess we all go through this...well, I guess those of us who were blessed with parents whom we have loved and who have been good parents to us go through it. I realize that many people aren't blessed with that gift, and that comes with its own set of intense emotions. It has been so strange, the different emotions that Norman has gone through losing his parents. We have taken the same journey, but we haven't experienced the same type of anything...love, anger, pain, despair, etc. We have walked the same road of loss but faced completely different things, and I am certain that our journey is not over yet. It's so crazy that the very thing I am so thankful to have had growing up and throughout adulthood... loving, giving, precious, selfless parents...is the thing that cuts so deep and has caused a level of grief that is insurmountable. My dad was a giver. He gave enough food to fill people's freezers if he knew they were hungry. I grew up raising and showing show pigs. My dad raised Yorks, but my love was with Spots (Spotted Poland Chinas). He would just give an entire pig to a family and cover the butcher fees. He would open our freezer and give beef from our own stock. He gave show animals to kids at a boy's home, including feed to get through the season, so that they could experience 4-H and FFA. He gave his time to listen to others...he covered people's bills when they struggled...and he never wanted recognition. He never wanted to be paid back. He just loved people, and he wanted people to know that Jesus loved them too. He was a high-school teacher by day and a wheat and cattle/hog farmer every other minute of every single day. He often joked that he taught school to support his farming habit, and as most other farmers would attest, nobody can survive on farming alone. I miss his wit...his particular sense of humor. He was a practical joker to his core, and his grin when he pulled something over on someone was what I see when I think of him. I'm so thankful I was his daughter. He instilled a love of our farm...the church camp that was my grandfather's and then my dad's legacy, the love of horses deep in my soul, and the level of responsibility he tasked me with was so unfair...at least that's what teenager me felt. But I'm so, so grateful for it now.

Thanksgiving was a quiet day, spent with my mom, our family of 4, and my brother, sister-in-law and their 3 kids. They just had a baby in October, so I got in plenty of snuggle time with Crew.

Monday afternoon we are taking mom to go see The Chosen Christmas movie, and I think that is the first time she has been to a movie since my dad died. Baby steps.

Norman and I somehow came across this show called Catfish, hosted by Nev Schulman and Max something...lol sorry Max! But it is crazy how many people have been catfished! Norman told me about his own catfish story...it must have been in '98 or '99 maybe. He was in Germany, and he was emailing this chick in Atlanta. Apparently she used someone else's photos, but when he came home to Atl to visit his family, they decided to meet. Not weird for Norman, but this chick lied about who she was and agreed anyway! 🤯 Like...WHAAA?!?! Lady...you knew this would not end well! So Norm shows up at her house and all the lights are out, but she left him a note on the door telling him to come in. At this point I'd be getting back in my car and hightailing out of there, but I guess the curiosity was killing him, plus, he's in the Army. Short of her ambushing him, he feels pretty confident in his ability to keep himself safe. I still think it's crazy. But he goes in...she's hollering for him to come upstairs. I'm still thinking, "don't go idiot! It's a trap!" But he goes upstairs to find this woman who is under the covers and who refuses to let him turn on the lights. I will end this story up by saying that he got unbelievably mad (who wouldn't...she had been lying to him for a long time), and all I can work out is that she wasn't the 130lb chick she presented herself to be...you can guess the rest. I just don't get the lying. Show the real you, people! There are gorgeous, kind, wonderful people in every size and shape body. What's unattractive is pretending to be something you are not.

I love hearing his dating stories...maybe that makes me weird, but we have been married 20 years. I love hearing about his time in Germany and the experiences he had there. I only know of 2 girls he dated in particular....One ended up marrying his friend, although they aren't married anymore, and the other girl made him speak German because she wasn't entirely comfortable with her English. His German wasn't fluent, so I would have loved to watch their interactions and see how they communicated. I think she ended up having a baby with another soldier and have wondered if she ever made it here to the U.S. I am still friends with some of my ex-boyfriends...heck one came to a birthday party I threw for Norman! He is even connected to one or two of them on LinkedIn. But I am not friends with any of his exes, and someday I wish (as weird as that sounds) that I could somehow find them on FB. But they would think I'm weird for sure. I just love hearing stories and learning what Norman was like before we met. I didn't have the ability to reminisce about him much with his mom...thats for another blog post I'll probably never write...but I'd give anything to hear more stories about funny/crazy things he got up to when he was younger. Maybe someday...

So this past Tuesday we finally went to pick up the 3 rats that Eli wanted for his birthday. They are sweet as can be, but 1 is blind and startles easily, and that makes him have a tendency to bite. The first night we got him, Eli got such a deep bite, blood was all over the place, so Norman took him to the ER. Then Chase got bit and I got bit pretty bad too. It will take some time for the poor thing to adjust. I ordered handling gloves, so that should help.

I am attaching some photos from Thanksgiving, and some of our 3 new rat children. We got them from a reputable rattery, they are clean and vaccinated, so while the bites hurt, we are not in danger health wise. I just had to throw that in there.

To all you guys who still read my ramblings...thank you. This year has been so hard, and the holidays just magnify our losses. We are thankful to all our friends and family...I may not know who still reads this, but I am grateful that you do. Hugs to all of you...