For a decade, I had a blog … well, more than one actually. However, the “main” blog had been around as I ventured into other areas. Sometime in January of 2014, my blogs were hacked. Some extremely misguided person with too much time on their hands found a way to destroy all I had done for the past decade.

I was able to salvage the content of my other blogs. Sadly, the content of my “main” blog was lost. It was aggravating, to say the least. It took hours to try to repair what had been done.

On March 31, 2014 I turned on the restarted blog: Random Entries. I chose an entirely new look for the entirely new blog. I did, however, choose to keep the same name for the blog. As many who know me, I seem to have “random” ideas to pop into my head.

On May 18, 2014 I received painful news. A dear friend of mine who was like a brother was found dead by his sister that morning. He had apparently had a heart attack the evening before in his chair. You see, I knew his routine. When I heard where he was found, I deduced when it happened.

At any rate, it was hard to handle. He lived in Connecticut. I had no way to go to the service. Add to that, the guilt I was feeling for not calling him the previous 3 weeks. I kept “being busy”. It bothered me greatly. I was almost instantly in a state of depression.

Add to that, a few weeks later, my Grannie (my father’s step mother) passed away. I was not particularly close to her. We did, however go to support my father. Mind you, my family was in Lansing, Michigan. I live in Jackson, Tennessee. It is a 12 hour drive. Yes, drive.

Thursday, June 5, 2014, I and my wife and 10 year old son were driving to Michigan for the funeral. By the way, this was also our 21st wedding anniversary. What a way to celebrate.

Short summary of the time in Michigan, certain family members could not wait even a few hours after the funeral to start causing trouble. Don’t we all have those in our families? This whole ordeal helped my parents decide to return to Tennessee .. to the town I had grown up in from age 10 on: Gleason, Tennessee.

Over the course of the summer, several people, both family and friends and family of friends died. I had termed it “the season of death”. I had often said that I wish the season would end.

My parents found a place and moved back to Tennessee. They moved back to Gleason. This was mid September. They moved the week after our son was baptized. Yes, our amazing 10 year old wonder gave his life to the Lord.

Fast forward to Tuesday, October 14. My wife, who was both homeschooling our son and an other little girl, also spent much of her day working at a store. ( I will expand on the store some other time.) My wife came home that day not feeling well. She had only lead half a day’s worth of schooling with the kids. That evening, after I had gotten home and cleaned up from the days work, we went out to eat and then to the store. I remember she stayed in the van because she was not feeling well.

Over the course of the week, she got worse and then better. It was as if she had flu like symptoms. These symptoms were very similar to those she experienced from time to time as a result of the disease she had. She had a very aggressive auto-immune disease that was genetically passed down from her father, with absolutely no known cure. We had no reason to think it was anything different this time.

However, it was most certainly different this time.

Friday, October 17, 2015, 3:00pm, I receive a call from a friend who tells me she is at my house with my wife… that my wife is very sick… that an ambulance has been called and they are taking her to the hospital. Me thinking it was our friend over reacting, I finished the task I was doing (about 20 more minutes worth). I headed back to Jackson. (I was working over an hour away from home.) I went home and changed clothes and cleaned up. Then, I went on to the hospital. Still not thinking it was sever.

I saw the fear in the faces of the friends in the waiting room as I was ushered back to be with my wife. I was starting to think maybe it was more than I had thought it was.

I am thankful for small mercies. I am so glad my dear wife was not looking toward the door of the room when I walked in. She would have seen the shock on my face. I was horrified. I did not recognize her. I quickly gathered myself and entered the room.

SIDE NOTE
Regarding our son, the 10 year old.. You see, that previous Sunday, our son, who had not attended the RAs program on Wednesday night in about 2 years, decided he once again, wanted to be involved. This weekend, they were to go to RA camp. They were to leave early Saturday morning. Since I was out of town working at the time my wife was taking to the hospital, the children’s director (and friend) came and got our son. Her son, same age as our son, was also going to the camp. So, our son would spend the night with them and go on to camp.

RESUMING
My beautiful wife was very ill. Her skin was discolored. She looked as if she had been in a battle with a great army all on her own. (I had no idea just how true that was at the time.) I will not go into details of what transpired over the next 29 hours. I will say this, for those who do not know the outcome, my dear wife is now in Heaven.

Over the course of those 29 hours, we were in 2 hospitals, saw numerous doctors, there were countless tests run, even a surgery performed. I was watching my wife rapidly fade away and I could do nothing to stop it.

I would receive word from doctors either directly face to face or by phone call from somewhere else in the building. I would then, repeat/relay those words to the family and friends who had gathered for support. To hear the constant flow of horrific news is one thing. To then, have to “verbally” convey those very same words to others .. to hear those very words coming out of your own mouth, is surreal.

Things happened so fast, by the time my son was brought to the hospital, my wife had been dead over an hour. I walked with him (and our friend who brought him) from the ER to the cafeteria. I directed our friend to the waiting room. I then sat down and talked with our son. He was excited to tell me about his day at camp. My heart wanted to scream.

I had to tell our son, that mommie was not waking up. Mommie was gone. Mommie was dead.

Hearing the words is one thing. Saying those words and hearing myself say them is another thing. Hearing myself tell our son those very words and seeing him fall apart .. well .. there are no words.

It has been 3 months now. For weeks, I knew she was coming home. This was just a bad dream. Surreal was not even close to describing how it all felt. I have, for the most part, gotten past the feeling of expecting to wake up from a bad dream.

Our son had his 11th birthday in November. He had a great party with family and friends. With the generosity of many, he had a party at the roller skating rink. He also had wonderful birthday cupcakes from an incredible local bakery. (Thank you HaliHannigan’s.)

When I asked him what he wanted for Christmas, he simply said, “Mommie.”

We are moving forward together trying to figure out the “new normal”. I have heard the phrase many times in my life … “Time heals all wounds.” … This is a big one.

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