Questioning
I haven’t written anything here in a long while. I’m entirely out of the practice of writing, having drastically reduced my online activity—in part out of respect for my children’s need for privacy and partly because my job took up all my spare energy cycles.
I’m not sure what I want to say here—whether it’s a good idea to start writing again, whether this is a start at all.
I’m questioning how to process all that has happened in my world in the last few months. So much has changed. Asher is now away at college and Lucas lives in another town and attends graduate school. I’m immensely proud of them both, cheering them on in their adventures, and missing them more than … well, more than I want to miss them.
In December my father died. I am devastated. It sounds so dramatic and yet it’s true. I am doing my best and by most objective measures I am doing fine. But I am not OK.
Last Saturday night our precious Solstice died. His health rapidly degraded and after a full day of holding him and not succeeding in coaxing him to drink water, we made the difficult decision to let him go. A kind veterinarian came to our home in the evening and helped him on his way. We loved him completely for 14 years, 3 months, and 1 day—and as hard and fully as we could through this passage.
He was a miracle for our family. He joined us by surprise at the end of 2011 and adventured with us nearly everywhere we went for many years.
As hard as it is to write about Solstice, it’s even harder to write about Dad.
I’ll just let this moment here be just this, a simple, tentative update with no promise or grand plan.
