Finding Gratitude in the Fog

This week.
It's not been kind.

I hate when I struggle for words since they usually come to me so easily, in fact, usually too easily and I say more than I should. But today, I can't find my words.

I was out of town last week, and Thursday night to Friday morning, I just didn't sleep due to flight plans, and then I had a 3 hour drive back to my house. So from Thursday morning to Friday night, I was awake. By Saturday mid-morning and deep sleep, I started to feel a bit more normal but still kind of dragging. But then Monday happened.

I got that call. The one every parent dreads but it wasn't the worst it could have been.
My 19 year old daughter was sobbing and rambling.
She'd been in an accident.
My heart stopped but at the same time, she was okay -- I could hear her voice so she was okay but she said her head was bleeding. I could tell she was functioning on adrenaline.
She was 2 hours from me, so I went straight into Mom-mode:
What happened?
Where's the car? Is it driveable (would someone need to come with me to handle the car)
Was anyone else with her? Who was at fault for insurance? She hadn't called the police yet -- call the police.

Then someone took the phone from her and told me the information:
The passenger with her was not injured and no other cars were involved. The police and ambulance had been called. The passerby said the rain had made the roads very slick over in those hills. I asked if the car was driveable and she said no, it was totaled.

It was.
Because it had landed upside down.
Thankfully I didn't know that at the time.
Sydney ended up with 9 staples in the crown of her head.
But she walked away. 

We are blessed.

Then yesterday happened.
A couple of weeks ago I posted this post about Keiko and her diagnoses with cancer. Tuesday night, her walking suddenly got worse and she couldn't settle down for the night, almost like laying down was too painful. She kept walking and walking and her nails were like static on the hardwood floors. I finally gave her a Xanax to go with her pain killer for the night and she laid down. But we knew. That's when we knew it was time.

I'd told her to tell me in a vibration I could understand when it was time, and by Wednesday morning, her walking was even worse but oddly enough, she kept trying to go into our bedroom. She never goes in there. So I made the call to the vet and then had to wait a couple of hours until our appointment time, feeding her more pain killers and just petting her and sobbing. I posted on a final video asking for prayers and strength and my friends gave us that and more as we said goodbye.

And now here I am today, on Thursday.
This week has taken so much from me.
From us, as a family.
I'm struggling to find my gratitude but I know I have to.
With Sydney, it's easy: my baby came home alive and in REALLY good condition compared to her car. How many parents don't have this kind of fortune?
I KNOW I'm so blessed!
And in a really neat twist, one of my facebook friends is friends with the passerby who stopped and helped Sydney, and Syd was able to thank her on my post!
I mean, how neat is that? What a small world our social media is!

Even with the sadness of Keiko, we had a great dog who gave us crazy funny memories to last us a lifetime. And one day, those memories will make me laugh again instead of sending me into a sobbing mess. But that's not where I am today.

It's moments like this when I want to pull the kids closer and keep them here, safe, but I can't.
It's moments like this that I declare I won't get another dog again and start this process over (we've lost SIX now since moving into this house 10 years ago. Two just last year and Keiko this year. They're all buried in our garden.)
We have two left: Raiden and Casanova.
Casanova is 10  and Raiden is 8 and we knew all of these dogs would be aging together.

I feel like my joy has been depleted and I need it refilled to overflowing to dilute the pains of this week. I know those moments are coming. Little by little, my joy will be refilled.

So when I'm done crying, I'll straighten my crown.
And then I'll start moving again.