Well, things are looking good.
Rhino is back home with an exhausted mom and dad, and doing better. It terrifies me to think of a little guy in the hospital with IVs and whatnot.
Thanks for all your well-wishes, even tho its not as much my place to thank you people as it is Sumgirls, it is great to see. You people are the best.
Well, most of you.
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Yes, its been four months since we lost GAC. And thats OK. I didn’t even realize it until later in the morning.
Don’t know if you noticed or not, but I’ve moved away from putting the personal stuff on the ‘tumor, in an attempt to move back to what it was. My life has gotten back to normal, along with this dumb little website. I much prefer it this way.
Its funny, looking at the evolution of the website. GAC and I started it off in Sept of 05, and got Bos and Eaves on board before we launched it, in an attempt to make a place for locals to chat. It became that, but it became more of a sounding board for us. Sure, we did local stuff, but we also did stuff about school, or work, or kids, or just whatever. I called us quasi-anonymous, because anybody who tried hard enough could figure out who I was, even from the beginning, but by using a super secret codename it was easier to do things like accuse public figures of pig-shenanigans, or just speak my mind in general.
When BJ got sick, it became a lot more personal, and I had to have an outlet for what was going on. It very likely kept me sane, both the outlet, and the fact that all of you gluttons for punishment kept coming back saying nice things.
I ran out of things to say, and you still kept coming back. Its humbling.
Life is good.
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This morning was full of coincidences, but I don’t know if I believe in coincidences anymore. Lemme tell you about it, and then I’ll ramble about other things on other days.
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So, today the plan was for Bisc and Damama to come up with my grandmother (who has never been to Casatuma) and spend a bit of time before heading off to drop her off. I totally forgot to clean the house.
So, I got up about 8 (or was it 9? Still haven’t gotten the hang of the new time thing yet) and cleaned the dump up. By the time we were done, I was in no mood to cook breakfast, so we decided to spring for Hardees. I called Damama to make sure they wouldn’t be here for another little while, and we took off.
On the way to Hardees, we passed Applebees, which had some signs advertising a pancake breakfast.
Now, I can’t pass up a pancake breakfast. I went to one a few weeks ago (the morning before I ‘upgraded’ the WP, which went completely backwards) and man, those things are dyno-mite. 5 bucks, all you can eat pancakes and sausage links, and it goes to some charity or another. That first time, it was the Oak Ridge High Orchestra. I wasn’t sure who it was for this time, but I knew I needed some pancakes.
So, we parked and headed in.
Turns out, it was for Methodist Medical Center, something about their hospitality house or some such thing, but as soon as we went in there, we bumped into Dr. Joe, who was BJs anesthesiologist for her surgeries back in November. He had a mom in the CCU at the same time as BJ, and his Dad was somebody that I mentioned way back in those days, that seem so long ago.
Dr. Joe is one in a million. I never mentioned him, because he wasn’t one of the guys that I was hanging on for scraps of hope, he wouldn’t be able to tell me what her white blood count was, or her brain activity. However, he was somebody who always remembered my name, who always looked genuinely sad and shocked that my wife was stricken. He was the only doc (to my knowledge, correct me if I’m wrong) who came to BJs funeral with his family.
He served me pancakes this morning. We chatted for a while (his Mom’s home and better). It was when I saw him that I realized that it’d been 4 months. Amazing.
What an incredible thing.
Thanks, Dr. Joe, for being who you are. Thanks for remembering me and the boys. Thanks for your unfailing kindness and optimism.
And that makes a difference.
Life is good. A 4 year old boy is OK. KatyK is spending the night, and the kids are tucked in the beds, quietly squawking at each other (except Pigpen, who I think has passed out). I close my eyes, and reach out my arms, and I feel BJ all around us.
It can’t get any better than this.
