Where do I start? Ever have one experience after another that just seems impossible to be happening? Well, 2023 has been that year for me.

Last January my dad’s wife who had been living in a memory care situation suddenly fell ill with pneumonia and a secondary infection. My dad was at her adult family home to pick her up as he usually did every week or few days to take her back to their condo and spend some time which she normally always enjoyed. But that day in January was different.

Patti was very shut down. I spoke to my father that day in the afternoon and he said he was taking her the ER as she just wasn’t right.

Once there she refused any kind of treatment. It’s like she was checking out. The best option offered was for her to receive hospice care.

She was gone in two weeks.

My father and Patti had been married for 29 years.

One thing I know that no one should have to live with is losing adult children before oneself. Patti unfortunately had dealt with terrible loss in her life. Both of my step brothers are deceased. The youngest in 2012 and the oldest in 2016.

It’s hard to talk about it, as how do you explain suicide? You can’t. To me there is no doubt after David passed in 2016 that the light went out of Patti. That’s when her memory and self care problems loomed. My father did his best to care for her, but he also had some of his own health concerns to deal with. Eventually he found an excellent adult family home which is where Patti lived the last three plus years.

Following Patti’s death I thought my father would rally and do better now that his phone wasn’t ringing constantly with Patti calling every three minutes because she forgot she had just called him. I thought my father would be able to finally put his energy into his own care.

When March rolled around that would not be the case as neighbors found my father in the condo lobby by the mail boxes. He had fallen down.

Things started to go south from there.

My father fought Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) for many years and in 2021 a benign brain tumor was discovered and removed. My poor dad had a huge metal plate in his forehead after that surgery. Some things he didn’t tell me. Like I didn’t know the benign brain tumor would come back. It was the kind of brain tumor where you have to get all of it, but it spreads out little roots everywhere and if you don’t get them all, it will grow back.

After some hits and misses my father ended up in the hospital for two weeks mid to late March. I remember being in the room as the neurologist laid out the situation. Basically the brain tumor had come back rather aggressively and on top of that his body was not managing the leukemia anymore despite weekly transfusions. Both issues were not good. His body would not survive another brain surgery due to the leukemia.

I remember talking to my dad’s yoga teacher who came to see him at the hospital and is a personal friend of mine. We both looked at each other and knew he was dying.

My father chose hospice and after in-home care was coordinated he was able to go home to his beloved condo at the end of March. No one could really give us a time frame, but things most certainly were not looking good on paper. I was very happy to see him be able to be home, but we all knew how it would end.

He passed away on April 27^th.

You would think the Universe would stop there, but no, more things happened after that.

In June my husband and I lost our beloved rescue Beagle named Daisy. She was only 9. She was exhibiting a lot of pain and we thought it was her IBD that had acted up, but after taking her in we found out she had a large tumor on her liver. There was no choice but to let her go.

Ugh.

On top of all of this loss my job was difficult. Due to a huge pull back of spending from customers the market was not good. In September my company did a massive reorganization and I unfortunately was on the receiving end of a layoff.

Yep. More loss.

So what is my point in sharing all of this loss? My point is to use it to do better and to do more. Sure there is a lot of grief to process and feelings about my job, but despite the losses I know that there are always gifts to find. I firmly believe the Universe puts stuff in our way or takes stuff away from us in order to show a better way, or a different path, or an opening of some kind that leads to a better, healthier direction.

I am really glad for all of the experiences I had and the things I learned in my job. I look forward to taking those with me into the next adventure.

I am still in the process of “processing” everything that has happened this year. I am cherishing extra time with our remaining dog, Zip and enjoying some very long walks with him. I am continuing to work on his training. I am enjoying more yoga classes and time at the gym. I have reached out to a lot of friends old and new. A lot of these things were being ignored when I was still employed and dealing with my father’s care.

I have drawn inspiration from the movie about Diana Nyad, who tried like five times to swim from Cuba to Florida and she was able to do it at the age of 64. Mind blowing. I highly recommend watching the movie Nyad. It’s on Netlfix. Some of the things she has said is to never, ever give up, and you can’t do it alone. It is amazing to think the nearly impossible actually became possible for her.

So despite all of the losses from one hell of a year, I know good things are on the horizon. I am really enjoying taking the time to explore myself differently and to really find the things that inspire me. One project I am working on is developing the spiritual and energetic skills to learn how to help heal and communicate with animals. Stay tuned on that one.

I’ve restarted this blog as I always want to try and help if I can, and if someone reads this and gets something out of it that might help, then that was the whole point.

The other point is I can’t let all of this loss get me down. There is too much work to do. Of course I am still working on the loss part of this year, but in doing so I know more will be revealed and I’ll find the next cool thing.

If you’ve read this far, I appreciate it. I hope it was helpful.

As my step mother always used to say, “make it a great day!”