A birthday and a kick in the dick…

9/6/2010

Hello all! I hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend.

First, thanks to all those who reached out to me on Friday. The beauty of being an adult is that you can make as much or as little out of a birthday as you like. This birthday was just a technicality for me. I sure didn’t feel like celebrating another year of my life knowing how hard David fought for just another year of his own only to have it be taken away so prematurely by a relentless cancer – sarcoma. Maybe next year – maybe not. If David could speak to me from Heaven he would remind me of how precious life is and that it is to be celebrated. My answer to him would be simple. Living without you love is harder than anything I’ve ever done and celebrating just feels wrong on every level. He accepted all my faults. He above all knew how my crazy mind works and he would expect that answer. He understands. I miss that a lot. I miss it all…

Nonetheless, 31 has treated me well thus far and I’m grateful for all those who are responsible for this. Thank you!!!

Now for the tasteless portion of the title. The Kick in the Dick…

This is a common Dave-ism. He had many. This one just so happens to be my favorite. Yeah, crude it might be. He wasn’t crude. Just honest. Much of his life occurrences were a “kick in the dick.”

He had his dream job. He loved what he did and the people he worked with. He got sick. The economy went bad. WAY bad. He went undiagnosed. He remained sick with some unknown illness for months. He got laid off permanently. He was crushed. He got diagnosed – cancer. He metastasized 3 months later. His illness was terminal. He fought the illness harder than most would have, and he still died. That is the perfect definition of a kick in the dick.

The above – a true story. Unfortunately, I can go all night with similar Dave stories. That too – a true story.

So tonight I decide to get organized. I have TONS of medical bills, hospital literature, get well cards, sympathy cards etc. that I just haven’t been able to deal with. Why I felt like today was the day? I don’t know. Anyway, I have a keepsake tote. Not out for just anyone to see, but not buried away too deep that I can’t easily get it out. Following the theme of today, I organized everything from the smallest to largest. This brings me to the end of the stack (the large end). I had my St. Elizabeth Hospice folder to add to the other folder just sitting in there anxiously awaiting its new neighbor. Curiosity got the best of me, and I had to have a little look-see at what that other folder was. I had just spent the last twenty minutes reliving all the lovely pamphlets enclosed in the hospice folder so it had to be better than that right!?! (Here comes the kick in the dick) This other folder had a label with David Dearinger 9/18/2004 on it. This was our Pre-Cana packet. This was the one day course we attended in order to be married in the Catholic Church. The very first thing (and the only thing I looked at) in the folder was a pamphlet on natural family planning (keep in mind I’m Catholic). I remember that day very well, but nothing is more vivid in my mind than that lecture. I mean come on – ridiculous! Anyway, the conversation that lecture stirred up between he and I is priceless. Here we were about to be married in less than a month. We suddenly found ourselves discussing our future, our family, what kind of parents we wanted to be and when… I just wanted to be a momma by 30. I wasn’t in a hurry. He didn’t want to be an “old dad” so he agreed that by the time I was 30 was ideal for him as well (he’d be 33). We talked about moving from our starter home he built (the home I still live in) into a larger neighborhood closer to his beloved Dixie Heights High School so his son or daughter could also be a “Colonel” like daddy. Ohhhhh reality. F*#k you reality! I close the folder and file all those dreams, all those memories behind his hospice folder. That my friends is THE KICK IN THE DICK!!!

That is what I get for trying to be organized. :/

Off to bed now, trying very hard not to feel sorry for myself.

Love ya,

Amy