After making a nice Sunday night dinner for T and I to enjoy (while K finished up her evening nap) we sat down to eat and have some adult conversation, discuss the upcoming week, talk shit, etc...Our house phone rang around 7pm and the only person that calls that phone is my MIL. I was tempted to ignore it, she had already called like 6 times that day, but decided to get up and answer. She was upset, crying, the police were there, they had found T's brother dead. I pretty much hung up on her, called my sister to come sit with K and sat down to tell T. Shocked was pretty much his response. The next few hours are a blur, they passed so quickly. I filled them with making calls to as many friends and family possible. Fearing that people would begin to learn of his death via Facebook, which many of his friends and ours did.
I went into work Monday, and made sure I tied up loose ends, then took advantage of my 5 bereavement days (how awesome is that? 5 days for any immediate family). Tues was spent at the funeral home with my MIL, florist, and planning the after service party. Wed and Thur were made up of me compiling photos and creating a slide show on flikr (for one of his friends to burn to a DVD) as well as 2 poster boards of photos. T spent the week reaching out to friends to speak, read, and sing at the memorial.
We held the Memorial on Friday afternoon. T did the entire service. He did an amazing job. A full hour was used with he (and several others) speaking about BIL, reading from his favorite poets, and it ended with a close friend Mark Mulcahy (of Miracle Legion) singing an early song "Stephen are you there" which was frequently dedicated to my BIL (whose name was also Stephen). He sang it directly to my MIL, very sweet service, very touching in every way.
Moving on from death and dying, celebration of life and all that hubub...we had to prep for a Hurricane people! Between attempting to stock up on water, bread, peanut butter, etc..we had to clean up the yard, put away the patio furniture, hammock, and the like. This took all day Saturday. The winds and rain really picked up around 11pm Saturday night.
By 5am Sunday morning I had fought with myself to get maybe 3 hours of sleep, so I got up and made a pot of coffee while we still had power. I watched the news and drank coffee for the remaining 2 hours until we lost power. Over the next 10 hours I sat and watched the trees around my house crash to the ground. Once the storm passed we went out and assessed the damage. Most of which was to trees alone (T's small fishing boat was totaled, but that is minor to replace).
We went 6 full days with no power. No power here also results in no running water or flushing toilets. K did awesome, she had a blast with the flashlights. And we were fortunate to have my sister up the road with power so we were able to keep the laptop and Ipad charged, as well as take showers and do laundry. I took an additional day off of work, returning on Wed. Quite honestly, I was glad to go back to work where I could take a Hot shower, eat a Hot meal, and interact with electronics!
So yeah, that brings us to this weekend. I really had to spend most of it cleaning, because holy shit my house was a pig sty once there was light to see it. So disgusting. I still haven't gotten through the whole place to clean yet.
I can look forward to the fact that I am only working 4 days and then I am on vacation for 9 days! My last vacation for the year though :(
4 comments:
You all have been through way too much crap. Time to relax!
You've had quite the time lately. I hope you are able to actually RELAX on that vacation of yours :)
I can't believe all that you've been through in the last few weeks, my heart goes out to you - take that vacation and just breathe and relax for a bit. Big hugs to you.
Wow...I'm emotionally exhausted for you. You're a trooper and may nothing bad happen to you for a while. You've had your fill.
Post a Comment