The Brochure on Embracing Grief: Honoring Dallas and the Healing Power of Self-Care

Today I'm going to continue sharing our journey of grief after the loss of our horse, Dallas, and update you on some things that have happened. But also don't despair. I have a bit of good news to share with you. Believe it or not, the universe never ceases to surprise me. In that respect, last week I told you about how we lost Dallas suddenly, and this week I've tried to keep myself busy. I guess this week a couple of things happened that were milestones, I suppose, in our journey of grief.

Bill and I went to the stall at the barn one night to see all the flowers and the cards that our friends there had left. This is kind of a tradition at the barn when a horse passes away, people who knew the owners and the horse leave a plant or some flowers and or a card to show their sympathy and their thoughts on the loss show their sympathy and their thoughts on the loss. Many people like myself maybe it's not your horse, but you knew the horse and you share in the grief. So we did that late one night so that we wouldn't have to also deal with people talking to us making it a little bit harder. It was already hard enough and we sat in front of the door to his stall and read the cards, which was pretty difficult. I was surprised though that it. I was surprised though that it well, I guess I thought it was going to be harder. I did cry. Bill cried, but I don't know. Maybe at some point I was blocking it out. It was difficult driving in, but it just seemed like maybe he's somewhere else. Of course he is somewhere else, somewhere else. Of course he is somewhere else, but it's just such a strange feeling to wrap your head around that he's not actually there. I've known the barn for so long. I started taking riding lessons in 1999. So I'm so familiar with the barn it's like my second home. Not seeing him in the stall and knowing that he wouldn't be coming back to it, that was pretty hard. I'm grateful to all of our friends who left cards and flowers. We left the flowers and I also took a framed photo of him and I left it in the front.

The other thing that happened this week was we received his remains back when we first dealt with the man who the lovely man, I should say that picked him up and took him away. Well, I called the next day and talked to the place that would cremate him and they said that either they would ship him to us which I didn't really feel very good about, I mean, what if he was lost or we could come out and get him. But the place that it turned out he went to was 50 miles away, and so I mean there's places that are closer, but that's just the way it happened because it was a Sunday. So one day I was not home and I got a text that the people that had picked him up actually had him and would be able to drop him by the house, and were wondering if anyone was home. So I said, yes, my husband was home, and when I got home there was the box. it's quite heavy along with a bag that contains his braided mane and tail. They're very nicely done, with a blue bow on each, certificate that it's him and a hoof print that they did in, I guess, plaster, wrapped up with a stand, a wooden stand that we can put the hoof print, on which I haven't opened up yet. It was hard enough to see the tail, so we left that all alone.

So he's here, he's home, a place that he's never been. He joins the group of cremations, cremains of all of the bunnies and dogs that we've had along with my parents. I'm going to have to figure out what to do with with all of them at some point, um, but not ready to to let all those go. Um, I think I've done, overall, better this week, but it's still. It's going to take a lot of time and I still miss him desperately. Um, I know that I'll always miss him and I've suffered enough loss of animals to know that I'll miss him for the rest of my life. But someday I'll be able to talk about him and not cry so much. I have my. I have my beloved dog, my loyal dog. Brownie is sitting here next to me and she's been trying to provide comfort and a distraction for us as much as she can, and for now we're just going to keep the stall. There's so much stuff there in our locker our saddle or supplies or things you know that we use to feed him I did get rid of.

Oh, yesterday I went because the day before he died I had bought some grain and big bags of grain, senior feed and rice bran, and I asked the gal that has the store if I could, you know, take it back, get credit for it. And she said, yeah. So I took it back yesterday and it's right around the corner from the barn and I thought I was ready for that, but I wasn't. Turns out the gal that was working there. I had already gotten the credit on my account, but the gal that was there asked me why I was returning it, because that doesn't really happen. I broke out into tears and I said, well, it's because my horse died. Then, just being there and being around the area, it was just too hard. In fact I have trouble even going back into that town, that city. I went over and got our prescriptions because we still use the pharmacy over there. I know that it's kind of about desensitizing yourself, right, but again, it's going to take time.

I've been trying to distract myself. I did get a part-time job, just something really easy. I've been a cashier. I started training the day after Dallas died and you know I've been a little bit confused about everything and kind of off kilter. But I think that overall that's been a good distraction, distraction. But then when I'm by myself or I think about him, obviously I still get upset. One of our friends sent us a lovely wind chime that has a saying on it. I forget what it is, but about when you hear the wind, it'll be me. I put that up. That's a lovely thing. I'm just trying to make it through. Every day. I've been eating a lot more chocolate. I've been watching some of my favorite comfort movies. I've been watching a lot of I Love Lucy, because I don't have to think. I can just kind of go on autopilot, but it's a good distraction. So here's the good news, because I know you're all ready for some good news. Right Back in January I think it's January 9th, my episode I talked to you about my job search and how I had been interviewing for this job part-time job, fundraising that I really liked.

I really liked, I felt good about. I was one of the final candidates. I had talked to these people for two months. Of course, you never really know. It's just like dating. You never really know how people are going to feel about you. It's all kind of smoke and mirrors to a certain extent. But they finally came back and they said that they had chosen one of the other people and I'll admit it, I was hurt. I really wanted the job. I really thought it was going to be a great thing for me. I liked everyone that I had talked to, I felt good about it. It's fully remote. It's in another state, part-time again. I hadn't said that.

So this week I got an email from them and they said that the person that they had hired didn't work out, not because of any fault of anyone, but just because he needed a full-time job. He has a family, he's younger, he has a young family. So they were wondering if I would be interested in talking to them again, revisiting that kind of crappy and down. It's like wait what. But I wrote back and I said, yes, I'm still interested, I'm still here, and so I talked to the gal a couple times and I'm very pleased to say that yesterday no, not yesterday, Friday I accepted the job. So I'm going to start working with them in a week, hit the ground running and I'm very happy about that. So I'll be talking to you more about that as time goes on, but I think it's going to be a great thing.

You know, I'm not quite ready to retire. I still want to be useful. I'm older, but I haven't given up yet and I still need to bring in a little bit of money, and so I think this is a great thing. It's a little bit harder to find job opportunities when you're older and you have a lot of experience. A lot of the jobs that I was looking at would say, you know, we want three years of experience or two years of experience, or five years of experience, or maybe even seven years of experience, but nobody says we want 20 years of experience or so anyway, I'm happy about that, because I've been looking on and off not, you know, dedicating a full-time commitment to searching for a job but I had been looking on and off since August and I had a feeling that at some point they might come back to me, because I really did feel like this was the job for me. But I didn't know and so it did happen. So that's good. So you have to find the good stuff where you can.

I try to continue to just hydrate myself and walk the dog every day that helps me feel good and to eat as good as I can and to try to sleep, because sleep is one of the great healers and it's going to make me feel better. So that's my. That's my journey so far this week, since I last talked to you. I hope that I hope this helps if you have suffered any grief or you are suffering any grief, and I appreciate all the messages that I've received and all the support, and I hope that you'll be well and until next time. That's all I've got for today. Next week I'll share more with you and I hope you'll join me.