I had hoped to have more downtime this week, but it didn’t happen. Oh well, here is this week’s Friday Five.
- My face began to swell over the weekend, on the side of my face where the lousy tooth is. It was then I started to panic. I got in first thing on Monday morning; sure enough, it is infected.
- Next week I go in for dental surgery. I blame my mother for this. Although she was good in so many ways, dental care was not one of them.
- The “Oh, so simple” signing up for Medicare and Social Security was not so simple. So I gathered all my documents and headed to the nearest Social Security Office, where I got both done in less than an hour.
- Next week is a crazy week. The biggest pain is I have an appointment with the VA to fill in a 40-page document so that I will receive my Widows Pension. The thing that frustrates me the most is that they already have this information.
- Lastly, as I have thought about Jack’s passing, I realize that there were several phases of his life with me.
The first was when we were both younger, healthy, and running mini-road races. We did so much, and we traveled the world. Life was one big adventure. That’s the Jack I am missing. That’s the Jack I wish would saunter in the door with stories about his flight patterns and jokes he’d heard along the way. That’s the Jack of my heart.
As one of my mentors shared with me “Grief changes shape but never ends.” It has taken me almost 4 years to process the loss of my daughter and wife. Last January I finally let go and began moving on.