The Brochure on Continuing Grief, Healing Gardens, and Keeping Busy

Speaker 1: 0:02

today I'm going to continue on with my discussion about my journey of grief after the loss of our horse, dallas. Tomorrow it's going to be four weeks since we lost him, but I promise this episode will not be all sadness. It will be some sadness, I assure you, but it won't be all sadness. I'll have some good news at the end of the episode and I thank you so much for listening and going on this journey with me and, as I have done in the past three episodes, I'm also not including the intro and the outro music, which I categor been more in denial of everything. I still have been grieving, but I've tried to deny the grief as much as possible. I've tried not to think about him as much as possible and I've tried just not to even think about him needed a break because my heart is so, so much, there's so much love in my heart for him that I feel like it's still breaking and it's so hard to bear right now. It's so hard to bear right now and I've gotten myself into such a bad place with that heartbreak.

Speaker 1: 2:18

I had a couple of moments earlier in the week, I guess I was falling asleep, asleep and I was kind of in that space between being fully awake and being fully asleep and I felt like I needed to go see him, like he was alive, and I felt that feeling for, I guess, maybe a couple minutes, a couple moments, not sure. And then I woke up fully and I realized that he wasn't here and I didn't need to go see him. I couldn't go see him. Go see him and at the same time, that experience was comforting, but it was also heartbreaking to me and I didn't really know what to think about that. I didn't know if it was him visiting me, his spirit visiting me or whatnot. It didn't feel like a visit. But the other part of it is that I feel like I'm forgetting him. I'm forgetting the little moments that I've had with him, even though I have videos of him and I have pictures of him. But I feel like I'm forgetting him. And I know, after my dad died in 2016, I got to the same place and it felt scary and it felt tragic, because it scared me, because I had downed my dad, my whole life, and all of a sudden I felt like he was really slipping away. I mean, not only was he gone, but he was really slipping away from my memory and my being, and that's kind of how I feel about Dallas, and it's just another part of loss and grieving, but it's not easy to go through.

Speaker 1: 4:39

I guess, as we all know, bill and I were sitting having a meal at a restaurant this past week and we started talking about I mean, we try not to talk about him, I guess, especially in public, it doesn't seem like a good idea, but we were talking about him. Or maybe I just had a moment where I looked at my phone, because he's still on my phone. My home screen is still a picture of him. I try not to look at it. I don't want to take him off because it's him, but I don't want to look at it either, if that makes any sense.

Speaker 1: 5:38

I had a moment and I started to get upset. I started to get upset. I try not to get upset around Bill, even though he knows that I'm upset and you know, because I feel like I don't want to, I don't want to remind him. I don't want to remind him that I'm grieving and I, because I don't want to remind him, I don't want to remind him that I'm grieving because I don't want to make him feel any worse than he does. I know he misses him too, but it's like I don't want to remind him. Right, it's stupid in a way, but it is what it is. And so we started talking about him and I just you know, I didn't know that I had verbalized this to Bill, but I told him that, you know, I, I, and it's true I loved him so fully every moment that I was with him and I appreciated every second that I was with him. I tried to suck up every moment because I knew, certainly, that it could be the last time that I saw him healthy. We had gone through this with so many of our friends at the barn People had lost their horses suddenly to colic or injury, and I had seen so many people go through this before me and I knew that it was what happened.

Speaker 1: 7:28

And you know, back in 20, let's see, it was 2007, I believe when Dallas got sick. He got really sick at the barn. It was really hot this summer and I think it was 115 for several days and he got really, really sick and he had to go to the hospital and the hospital was about. This hospital was about 40 miles away and I would go out there every day and sit in front of his stall in a chair. I had to take a chair because they didn't have any chairs, didn't have a place to sit. I could have sat on the ground but that wasn't very comfortable. So I took a chair and I would go and I would sit in front of his stall every day in the heat and just be with him. And they didn't know, they couldn't put a name to what he had, but they said that they would treat the symptoms. He had a high fever, he had a high white count in his blood, some sort of infection, and he did get better and he came home.

Speaker 1: 8:44

And that's when I got my Dallas bracelet, which a lot of people think is a watch. It's a bracelet with a nameplate that's on it, a leather bracelet, and it's a nameplate that you would put on a plate, that you would put on a bridle, and so I've worn it ever since. I had to replace the leather a couple of times, but I was so grateful that he came home and I could ride him again and we could be together and grateful for every second that started for me when I had my dog Mocha back. She died in, I think, 92, 93, and she died of cancer. She was my heart dog. I was devastated when I lost her and I remember my parents saying that they were so. They didn't. They wished that they had appreciated her more and they were so sad that she was gone. And I remember thinking how could you not have appreciated her, you know? And I realized that I had to appreciate things that were here now. I had to appreciate my pets and my friends and my people and the things that were around me now here now. I had to appreciate what was here now and not wait until it was gone. And that's what I started doing. But certainly with Dallas that was a different story, because he was so special and his heart was so big and his personality was so big and my heart was so big for him big and my heart was so big for him.

Speaker 1: 11:10

We still don't know if we're going to get another horse. It's hard for me to imagine living the rest of my life without having another horse in it. Specifically that's mine. I know that it would be hard to be around horses and not have the control of one, because if I fell in love with a horse and it was somebody else's and then they took it away for whatever reason, they moved or something. I would be heartbroken, but the idea of the worry of having another horse I just I don't know. I think it's too early for us to make that decision.

Speaker 1: 11:55

We did put an application in to Red Bucket Rescue, which is a local equine rescue group. It does really tremendous work rescuing horses, rehabbing them and adopting them out when possible, and I had a conversation finally with the gal that that the founder today, who said that you know they they've been full up with horses that are unadoptable because there have been so many horses that have been dumped because they haven't been rideable, they haven't been functioning, and they haven't been functioning and people have just said, you know, I'm not going to put the resources into this animal anymore, and so they don't have any horses that they can adopt. And I told her that's okay, you know, when the time is right, if the time is ever right for us, we know that the right horse will find us, dallas will send us the right horse, and so that's okay. I'm willing to let the universe play out with what it has to play out for us, what's in the cards. I know that I'm still too heartbroken to really fully accept another horse and I'm sad that there's so many animals that people just abandon like that. I could never do that, no matter what would happen.

Speaker 1: 13:48

Yeah, so last week I told you how distracted I was, that I took our cat, bubby, to the emergency vet and I tripped in their parking lot and fell, did a wonderful job, hurting myself, Fell over, fell on my knees, my knee replacements, which was and still is pretty painful. My knees are pretty swollen, especially the left one. I went to the knee surgeon his office this week and I had my knees x-rayed. They also x-rayed my elbow, because they're just like that, because I fell on my elbow too. They wanted to make sure that there was nothing brewing, which is good that they're complete about that and they said that everything looks fine, just that the bruising and the swelling. I could have a bone bruise. I think she called it a bone contusion. I saw the PA, um, but she said that you know, keep icing and taking my ibuprofen and Tylenol and elevating ibuprofen and Tylenol and elevating, and hopefully that will resolve in a month or so, if not sooner. So that's good.

Speaker 1: 15:24

I also went to the dentist because I chipped a tooth, because when I do something I do it full on and I felt somehow I knocked my teeth, I don't know but and I felt somehow I knocked my teeth, I don't know, but I chipped a tooth. So I was there for over an hour and a half. I didn't expect that it was going to take that long, but they didn't just file it down, they decided to fill it in, and then they had to fill in not just that tooth but the other front tooth, so that I was even. So, that was a little bit more involved than I had hoped, and I don't really like to go to the dentist. This was not the most fun I've had all week, but they were very kind and I, you know I've come a long way. I really I look at where I started when I cracked a molar and I was absolutely terrified to even walk in the door and I I think I did pretty good. So, uh, but still don't like the dentist. But still don't like the dentist.

Speaker 1: 16:34

And I started my job this week, my part-time, remote job. Now I'm in California and the organization is in Oregon, and this is just a testament to how the world has changed. I'm doing the work here in my house, remotely, and it's fundraising for an organization. I'm not going to talk about it right now because I'm not going to give you the name of it, but we'll see. Maybe we'll talk about that down the road.

Speaker 1: 17:12

But, very happy, everybody that I've talked to so far has been very kind, very nice, very enthusiastic, and it's a great thing for me talent and my experience to use for a cause that is different from the causes that I've worked for in the past. It's kind of a fresh start and it's a much smaller organization, but it just it's. I guess it's more of like an entrepreneurial thing for lack of it, I can't think of the word but it's more of an entrepreneurial journey. It's really kind of starting more from scratch, uh, and and building something, and I'm really happy about it. Uh, it's really a good thing for me and it's a good time, it's good timing for me. So you know I had, uh, they had turned me down. I talked about that previously. They had turned me down and picked somebody else, and that was early January and you know, maybe there was a reason why the timing worked out that way. I, you know, I I don't know there's forces that are beyond what we can imagine in life, so maybe that's the case here, and I'll just end with talking about my garden.

Speaker 1: 19:09

Gardening for me has been very healing and very therapeutic, and today I saw a bit on the local news that was about an organization called Meet Me in the Dirt, and what a great concept. The woman that started this business was talking about how she had suffered loss and, you know, had some things that she needed to heal from. She realized that gardening was really a good way to do that and she started this and she was talking about different gardening programs and classes for kids and I'm going to look more into it. But I really liked the idea of the name Meet Me in the Dirt and I really thought, okay, it's not just me. I know it's not just me, but I was telling somebody the other day that when I was in my 20s and 30s I bought a lot of shoes.

Speaker 1: 20:32

I was one of those women, mostly because I loved shoes, but also because for a while when I worked in retail, I worked in the ladies' shoe department and so I would be privy to some of the sale merchandise early and there would always be some special oddball pairs of shoes that maybe we wouldn't put out because we didn't have a full range of sizes, so they'd be in the back and they'd get marked way down because nobody was going to really look for them, and so I'd pick them up. So I had a lot of shoes. Okay, I had maybe. I think I counted once and I think I had like close to a hundred pairs of shoes.

Speaker 1: 21:25

Yes, I did. I mean, I wore shoes for work. When I worked at the department store May Company. I wore shoes. I wore dress shoes, high heels, I walked around. I did great. I don't know how I did it now looking back on it, but I did. And when I went out I wore different kinds of shoes. I had all kinds of shoes. I had tennis shoes, whatever. Okay, but that was in my 20s and 30s. I bought shoes that had, you know, tennis shoes, whatever, okay. So, but that was in my twenties and thirties. I bought shoes. That was my thing, that was like my therapy, buying shoes. And now that I'm in my early sixties yes, I can't believe it.

Speaker 1: 22:07

Okay, now that I'm in my early sixties, my early 60s, I buy plants. Yes, I buy plants because it's therapeutic. And I've got this little garden bed in the front yard. That's under one of the windows that I've been working on, one of the windows that I've been working on for a while. I'm so proud of it. It's come so far.

Speaker 1: 22:40

I've got the existing shrubs in there. I've got a big gardenia bush. I've got some of the ornamental garlic with the purple leaves. I've got some jade plants that my friend Dolly gave me. I've got a slavia plant that's come back every year and the bees love it. I got a new one this year, so I'm hoping it does as well.

Speaker 1: 23:16

I got an Iceland poppy plant that the gardener hasn't completely destroyed with his blower yet. I've got the iris bulbs that came up that are just absolutely gorgeous. The rain has done a tremendous job with the plants. I bought a freesia plant that doesn't look so good but smells great and it's just this really potpourri of different succulents and flowers for the bees and the butterflies, trying to keep the squirrels from digging into everything. And it just makes me so happy to go out there and pull some weeds and make sure everything's looking good. And I've got some other parts of the yard in the front and the back that I'm working on my Japanese maple tree.

Speaker 1: 24:29

You know, shot garden is so healing, so it's my new, uh, it's my new shoes, it's the, it's the shoes of the, the new decade here. So, anyway, I'm rambling, but, um, you know, life does go on and, uh, the earth keeps spinning and, um, it's keeps spinning and it's just. You do the best you can with every day that you have. So, still very appreciative of everything that I have and that, folks, is all I've got for today. I hope that you're well. I wanted to remind you that this week, april 12th, was National Only Child Day, and I'm really excited. We have some new countries. We're now in 31 countries and 31 countries, and that includes Pakistan and Ethiopia. So welcome Pakistan and Ethiopia, and I hope you're all doing well. And next week we'll tackle another topic, or another week of journeys. I hope that you'll join me.