So much has been going on since my last post a million years ago…. I don’t really know where to begin so I’ll begin where we left off. The winds of change are still blowing and we still don’t know where they’re blowing us. I’m really surprised at how calm I am about not knowing where we’ll be in life and in location less than a year from now. I just have this feeling that everything will be okay and definitely better than it is right now.
Dan put in his retirement paperwork a few weeks ago but they’re trying to talk him out of it. In the beginning he would have dropped the paperwork if they’d told him for sure that we could go to Ft. Hood, TX but they may have waited too long. “Penciling” us in just doesn’t cut it after five deployments and 20 years.
I do have sad news to share. A part of my heart was taken on May 22nd. I got a call from my cousin that my Grandmother had suffered a heart attack and and it didn’t look good. We were on the road within an hour and made record time to NH. Though she never regained consciousness, her heart stopped two hours after we arrived in Wolfboro so I was able to hold her hand and tell her I love her and how very much I’d miss her. I had just called her the day before to let her know we’d be coming up the first weekend in June to help my uncle paint my grandfather’s workshop. She was very upbeat and I’m so glad that I’d called her. At least she didn’t have to suffer the Alzheimer’s. She was in the early stages and it was already very frustrating for her. My grandfather is heartbroken. They loved each other since they were six years old. I’m grateful that Dan took the job at West Point so I could be so close to my family and spend some time with her. We had a private funeral for her on my little acre on top of the mountain. She had eight children, 25 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren and every single one of us felt her love and were devastated when she passed away. I still can’t get my head around the fact that I can’t just pick up the phone and call her anymore.
I came into this world wearing layette sets that Gram knit for me. She was buried in the Field of Flowers Shawl I knit for her a few years ago. It made me feel good to know that she’d have that wrapped around her to keep her wrapped in the love I felt for her. I miss her so much.
To end on a good note, I have news about Lucky. He may get his hearing back! While visiting Kim of Woolen Rabbit a couple of months ago, she mentioned PSOM might be the cause of his deafness (he’s not completely deaf, he can hear very loud sounds and Aggie barking). When I got home and googled it, I was amazed to find out that the vet at OSU doing a study on PSOM was the very vet that did Lucky’s BAER hearing test when he was in foster care last year! I emailed her and after doing several other Cavaliers, she thinks this might be Lucky’s problem after all. Her initial reaction last year (just a couple of weeks into the study) was that it was nerve damage. Daniel, Lucky and I will hit the road next week to Ohio. Keep your fingers crossed that his surgery is successful!