Leveling Out

I have absolutely nothing of substance to talk about this week.  It's not that I've had a bad week.  Or a great week.  It's just that nothing spectacular or important is going on right now (at least not anything I want to share with the interwebs).  We're just plugging along, working and spending time with friends and living life.  I guess this is what they mean when they say that you find your "new normal" after a loss.

So since I have nothing important to say, I thought I'd share a few pictures instead.  We went to a wedding last weekend of a good friend of my brother's.  Pat was in the wedding party, as well as Cody.  Here's some pics.

 {Sibling love}

My Canine Therapist

If you're not a huge pet lover, feel free to ignore this post.  I'm about to get real sentimental about my dog, and not everyone can get down with people who love their pets as much as I love mine.  Fair warning, what you are about to read is sappy and a little cheesy, but oh-so-true.

For those of you who haven't met our dog, this is Scrappy.  

Scrappy Von Groff.  

We adopted him the day I found out I was pregnant (happy coincidence).  Our journey with Scrappy has not been a walk in the park.  He's part Doberman and part Corgi, and he very much has the Dobie temperament.  He thinks he's about 4x the size he actually is (which is all of about 18lbs, by the way).  He's very much of a watchdog and he's incredibly protective of me.  It probably didn't help that the first 9 months we had him, I was pregnant, because some of his protective behaviors intensified during that time.  We took him to extensive training ("Doggy Boot Camp", as we refer to it) over the summer, in preparation for introducing a baby to our household, and the training was life-changing for him and for us.  During training, he learned some basic obedience stuff (although he's a pretty smart dog and already had the basic commands down), as well as some new habits for calming his anxiety around strangers.  The trainer also taught us some important skills for redirecting him and regaining his focus when he gets worked up.  The training was as much for us as it was for him, since we both grew up without dogs and were ill-prepared to deal with such a "high needs" dog.  After training, the trainer emphasized the importance of consistency, being firm with him, and giving him the structure he needs to prevent some of his problem behaviors.  We were on the right track and doing a really good job with that.  And then we lost Virginia.  And poor Scrappy lost his firm yet loving parents for a brief amount of time.  Consistency and structure went by the wayside.  Chaos became the new normal.  I especially became quite detached, and Pat took on a lot of the responsibility of caring for him while I was lost in my deep grief. During that time, Scrappy did a major backslide.  He fell back into his old protective behaviors, which were intensified even more because he could sense that something was not right with both of us being home all the time and rarely leaving the couch, let alone the house.  Yet he was still faithfully there everyday, wagging his tail and jumping on me, excited to see me every morning when I opened the door to his crate.  And when we started to venture out of the house a little more, he was still my loyal pal, excited as ever when I'd come home from running errands or walking to the mailbox.  Everytime he'd see me after us being separated was like the happiest moment of his life; he would sometimes even tinkle a little bit (which he hadn't done in months).  Slowly, as life began to return to a normal level of functioning and Pat returned to work, I began spending more and more time with Scrappy, playing and rolling around on the floor, throwing the ball for him to chase, and taking walks through the neighborhood.  There were days I wanted to just stay in bed (more often than not, that was how I felt).  He would sit next to the bed and just stare at me, or curl up in a ball on the floor next to the bed.  Sometimes, he'd rest his head on my lap while I cried.  Or he'd sit at my feet while I bawled and screamed and got angry at the world.  Other times, he'd sit and stare at me and just cry himself.  I began to realize that Scrappy needed me to do more than just exist, he needed me to start living again.   He needed me to engage him, even if that only meant petting his head or playing tug-of-war for a few seconds.  Eventually, I began to emerge from my haze.  He pulled me out of a really dark time. There are so many days that, had it not been for Scrappy, I would have stayed in bed, curled up in a ball and shutting out the world.  He gave my life purpose and meaning during a time when I wasn't sure my life would ever have either again.  He was my reason for getting up, for putting on clothes, for getting out of the house.  He was like my own little canine therapist.  Just by being him, he brought me back to life.  I am certain that my grieving and healing process would have been much different if it wasn't for him.  I have since had many conversations with my friends who are fellow pet owners about how intuitive and therapeutic pets can be, and although Scrappy still has his problems (one of my friends calls him "misunderstood", which is very fitting), he has helped me in a way that nobody else in my life could have.  

To my Scrap-Nasty,

I promise I will spend the rest of your life being the best pet owner I can because you deserve that for what you've given me.  Thank you. 

 

Jamaican Me Sick, and a Little Sad. (Picture-Heavy Post)

Our Jamaican Christmas vacation didn't turn out quite as planned, for a few reasons.  First of all, two days into the trip, I came down with a flu-like bug.  Fever, body aches, joint pain, etc.  Luckily, I was able to take some Advil to keep the symptoms at bay so we could still make the most of our time there.  But it was a bummer to be on this long-awaited (and expensive) vacation and not feel well. 

Second of all, as it turns out, when you run away somewhere to escape sad feelings, the feelings follow you.  Wow, what a revelation, right?  From a rational standpoint, I get that.  You can't run away from feelings.  But I guess I thought it would be impossible to be surrounded by sand and sunshine in a place that we've come to know as our "happy place", and yet still be sad.  Guess what?  It's totally possible.  The first night of our vacation ended with a long, tear-filled discussion about Virginia, and how completely different our lives are because her absence.  We are often able to talk about her from the perspective of how blessed we are for the time we did have with her, and how lucky we are to be her parents.  However, this was not one of those conversations.  Nonetheless, it felt good to have that time together, completely removed from the distractions of daily life, to reflect on our loss in a very real way.  The people sitting near us (we were sitting around a fire pit on the beach) probably thought we were having some sort of serious marital disagreement, and we got all sorts of weird looks ("Who comes to Jamaica to sit around and cry?").  Little did they know that quite the opposite was true.  Although we shed some tears over the missing piece in our lives, we also reflected on how grateful we are to have each other, and how much stronger our marriage has become as the result of facing such a devastating loss together.

Our trip wasn't a complete bust, though.  There were some great things that came out of this little getaway.  As usual, we met some amazing people while we were there.  In fact, we spent the remainder of our trip hanging out with one couple that we hit it off with immediately.  This is Kiki and the Monkey Man (also known as Staci and Joe). 

They're from upstate New York and they are AWESOME.  Staci is a social worker, so there was an instant bond between the two of us from the very get-go.  I opened up to her about our story (which I don't often do with strangers), and despite being pregnant herself, she was wonderfully compassionate and very sensitive to my situation.  We spent a few days hanging with them, relaxing on the beach, swimming in the ocean, and just sitting and talking.

I only wish I had pics of all 4 of us together.  

We also had a great time reconnecting.  We needed to come together again, in the absence of all of the "real life" struggles.  We needed time to just be us, and to remind ourselves why we fell in love and what we love about one another.  We spent time being goofy, joking around and laughing at each other.  We spent time crying, talking about how we had never imagined our life together would take the drastic turn it's taken over the last few months.  We talked about future plans and goals.  And mostly, we just enjoyed each other's company.  I think that's very evident in these pics:

(Totally cheesy, but I love it!) 

Here are some more pics:

 (The view from our room.  I did not mind waking up to this everyday.)

 The four of us deemed this little piece of coral our Christmas tree (which is why it's anchored standing up in the sand).  

And a few more panoramic shots:

Overall, I think we both agree that going away for Christmas this year was the best decision we could have made.  I only hope that the next big vacation we take is with our children, probably quite a few years from now, and that we're able to celebrate that time together under more happy circumstances.

Here's to hoping 2013 brings with it many holidays worth celebrating.

A Jamaican Holiday

I'll be honest.  I'm having a difficult day.  I just pulled out Virginia's baby book to start working on it after not looking at it for about a month.  And it feels like the sky came crashing down again.  This really is my life.  My daughter is supposed to be here, and she's not.  And that hurts like hell today.  So I don't have much in the way of profound insight, just pictures of our Jamaica trip.  When I'm feeling up to it, I'll write a post about how our vacation went, along with more pictures.  But for now, this will have to suffice.