November 28, 2015

Yesterday was the first I ever went black Friday shopping- Kath and I headed straight to Tractor Supply and picked up bird seed, chicken scratch, goat supplements, paint brushes, stall mats, a metal garbage can, and a bale of pine shavings.  

When we got home we walked out to the stable and began painting the new repairs that our carpenter had made to the sliding doors and stall window last week. Then Kath cleaned out the tack room while I walked back towards the house to the goat pens to rake them out.

It was mid afternoon when Kath tacked up Zip for a quick walk around, and I lazily rode the old man (Lou) around the pastures to keep his creaky bones exercised. Not to leave Pat out, I put him on a lead and took him up the drive where the grass is still green and let him feast for a bit.

Life isn’t too complicated. It might not be easy, but it sure beats the traffic of cars and money.

November 9, 2015

“Its not me behind the wheel this time”.

It was 6 months ago yesterday that our family was at my father’s side when he let go of his world, his life, and his pain. During the days that he laid in the ICU and later in hospice, I went off by myself to an empty stairwell and listened to the song, “O’ City Lights”, by Gregory Alan Isakov. It is a song about dying, but it is also a song about learning to let go and understanding that there is so little we can control.

Whenever I start thinking of my dad, I turn to this song and listen to it again and again. There is nothing more I could have done, and there is nothing more I can do, no matter how many times I replay the lifetime of memories and of those final days ending with the moment he found peace. Yet, the emptiness grows more empty, coming on with stronger thoughts arguing that maybe I could have done something more. But,

I had no control.

I am still hopelessly wrestling with this reality, trying to get the wheel back, even though it was never in my hands all along.