Lori's Rambling

While this has been a life changing and incredibly difficult year, I still have many, many things to be thankful for.   I am beyond thankful for the incredible love and support from my parents, Scott’s parents, Scott’s sisters, and our extended families.   I’m not sure how Jaelyn and I would have gotten through the last couple of months without our family and friends.   So many people have prayed for us, provided meals, sent cards, shared words of encouragement, shared listening ears, helped with lawn care, etc.   We have truly felt so cared for.   I am thankful for the love, support and prayers from our church family.   At times I have been in awe of the strength that God has given us in this difficult time.   I know that the prayers that have been and continue to go up on our behalf is where that strength has come from.   The words or cards of encouragement always seem to come at the moments when I need them the most and give me the stren...

Some days feel so “normal.”   We are so busy getting through our day, especially during the week with school and work.   Then reality hits.   Scott isn’t coming home.   No sweet or normal texts throughout the day when I’m at work or in the evening when he was at work.   No normal, ordinary conversations snatched at break times or while driving.   No wake up kisses when he would get home after working second shift.   No warm body to warm my cold feet on at night.   When reality hits, it is accompanied by a sick feeling in the stomach – you know the feeling when something bad is happening and there isn’t anything you can do about it.   I remember in the days after Scott’s death, the nausea and loss of appetite.   That same sick feeling still hits from time to time.   Now when reality hits, most times it feels like sadness and of being unsettled.   I think the unsettled feeling comes from a hesitancy to really want to plan ...

I’m really feeling sad and down tonight.   I feel like my thoughts are all over the place.   They keep jumping from replaying Scott’s death, to missing his companionship, to thinking about all the changes.    It is still so hard to believe that he isn’t going to walk in the back door.   It is funny that the things that use to work on my nerves the most are some of the things that I miss the most – his socks laying all over the house, papers with his scribbled notes on the table, end table, and counters, dirty dishes sitting in the living room (after he just “yelled” at Jaelyn for doing the same thing), his pile of clothing on the floor next to the bed, a dirty sink after he finished shaving.    The list could go on and on, I’m sure, since we were so different.   Yet now those things would not work on my nerves, those things would just mean that this was all just a bad nightmare that I had woken up from.    A sudden death such as S...

I have to start by talking up Buse Funeral Home and Donna Buse in particular.   My family has used Buse Funeral Home in the past when we planned my brother’s funeral and various other extended family members have used Buse Funeral Home as well.   I always had a lot of respect for them, for their professionalism, their compassion and sensitivity, and the overall work that they do.   I have to say that my respect and appreciation for them has increased exponentially since Scott’s death.   You may wonder why I am talking about this today, three months after Scott’s death.   Today Jaelyn and I both received mail from Donna Buse and Buse Funeral Home.   Buse Funeral Home sends out little booklets on grieving periodically during the year following the death.   Today I received my second booklet and I will talk about that a little bit, but first wanted to talk about what Jaelyn received from Donna Buse.   When I received my first booklet, Jaelyn rece...

Today I put in my leave slip to have off work for the week of Christmas.   I have gotten a few Christmas presents.   These are things that I usually look forward to and enjoy doing.    This year there is no joy in planning for Christmas.   Usually I try to have all my Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving as I hate fighting the crowds between Thanksgiving and Christmas.   This is why I am already thinking about Christmas.   Maybe that is why I have felt down and just “blah” lately.   I don’t want to think about Thanksgiving and Christmas without Scott.   I just want to avoid the pain, but that isn’t possible.    Usually I look forward to hearing the Christmas music on the radio nonstop.   Scott use to complain about the nonstop Christmas music.   He would get sick of it quickly.   I loved it, I think since it was only for a short time.   This year, every time I hear Christmas music in the stores or rando...

Not an easy day today.   Sitting in church looking around when the veterans were asked to stand made me miss Scott.   Although Scott was a veteran, I think that he was always somewhat embarrassed to stand up and be recognized as a veteran.   I’m not sure he really considered himself a veteran since he wasn’t on the front lines or outside of our country when he was activated during Desert Storm.   He used to joke that the worst war injury he received was a paper cut.   Scott was in a finance division that was stationed in Georgia during the war.   In my mind, any person voluntarily serving in the military should be held in very high regard, as in today’s world there is a very good chance of serving overseas in a war zone.   These men and women put their lives on the line in order to preserve our lives, our way of life, and to fight for freedom around the world.   I respect Scott’s decision to enter the military after high school.   I’m sur...

There are days when I am exhausted and want to say I am done with this grief thing, I am done with being a single mom, I am done with being a widow.   This never happened, it is all a bad dream and I am ready to wake up now, this is dragging out too long.   But I don’t have that option.   There are times at work that it makes me angry to see absentee fathers by their choice when I know that if Scott was given the choice, he would be here for Jaelyn right now. These are my “pity me” moments.   Thankfully they are not frequent.   I have to remind myself that I am not the only one who has ever lost a spouse at a young age and I am not the only one who has to parent alone.   I remind myself that there are many people in this world worse off than we are.   Sometimes it takes time to pull myself out of these pits. I am feeling pretty emotional tonight, really missing Scott, but even more I am angry and grieving for Jaelyn for what she has lost.  ...