Tuesday, March 24, 2026

Tuesday, March 24, 2026 --Mattie died 838 weeks ago today.

Tonight's picture was taken in March of 2009. I will never forget this day! Mattie was on this bone scan machine for two hours! Keep in mind that Mattie was unable to eat or drink anything from the night before, in order to prepare for this scan. For two hours Mattie had to sit still and manage this machine coming close to his body. His reward for all of this was he got a vanilla frosted donut and trip the restaurant on the hospital campus for a special lunch! Which included shrimp.... a Mattie favorite!

Quote of the day: At the end of the day, we can endure much more then we think we can. ~Frida Kahlo

In between caregiving and other tasks, I continue the hard task of retrieving files, data, and photos that were lost on my shared drive. I try to do a few folders a day. Today I worked on finding photos from 2022. I would be very unhappy if I lost this photo of Sunny! Sunny loved his home and he was a devoted companion to the day he died. 

In this photo, Sunny was sitting on our front step. He loved checking things out while we were outside and he was so well behaved that if we called him, he listened and complied. After Mattie died, life was absolutely grey. It was hard to interact with the world, and then I rescued Sunny. The greyness of Mattie's death was still all around me, but Sunny had a way of breathing new life into my world. When we lived in the city, each day that I walked Sunny, someone would stop me to comment on how beautiful Sunny was! With Sunny by my side, I reinvested back into the world. Now without Mattie, without Sunny, and without my other half, life is bleak. 

On my wedding anniversary in July of 2022, I received this card and this 

Willow Tree figurine of a married couple. The front of the card reads,

"I've said it before and it's still true.... I don't know what I'd do without you"

As you can imagine I have great commentary about this, because a year later, I found myself separated!

When I look at this photo of myself from July of 2022.... yes I looked tired from caregiving, but I looked much happier. When I look at myself now, all I see is a  shell of my former self.