I wanted to go back in time a few months to share what has happened in my life over the past 5 months since my husband's death. It's been crazy! A few weeks after the funeral and the "gut kick in the stomach" eased a little, it was time to pick up our puppy. Yes, I said puppy. What was I thinking, you ask? My husband, Phil had purchased an Australian Shepherd puppy for our children at Christmas. He was just a baby and not ready to pick up until after the funeral. So I loaded my kids and Mom up in my car, and drove 3.5 hours in a threatening snow storm, to pick up Stetson. I figured this distraction was just what my kids needed. As most of you know, a puppy is basically like having another kid. To save time, I will only tell one of the many destructive stories. One such day, I had come home from making a run to Sam's. Unloading all of my goodies, and my package of nice new white socks dropped to the ground. Stetson takes his chance, and grabs them running around the yard with his prized possession. Not wanting a bunch of holes put in them, I run around screaming at him to put them down. I looked up to see why my kids were not helping me only to see them laughing at their mom's predicament. Being the adult here, I looked up at the sky and yelled at Phil. "This was supposed to be your dog, not mine. I didn't even want another dog". I finally caught the little rascal and retrieved my socks without harm.
Another crazy time I screamed at the sky was trying to fix something in my house. Moving into a brand new house, there were a few things that needed to be done. I realized one job was cutting closet rods for my coat closet. My Mom told me what I needed to get and I went out to my husband's stash of tools. Now, my husband's hobby was building houses so his stash isn't normal. I opened up my storage building to see a bunch of tools. Which one did she tell me to get? After looking for 10 minutes, I finally just got what I thought would cut the closet rod and walked back to the house. Not without yelling at Phil again. I was never able to enter his tool area because he was very picky and locked me out. Probably due to the fact that I kind of put a screw driver back in the wrong place, but I didn't mark where it was and just put it in the general vicinity. Gee! Anyways, I looked up at the sky and held out the tool I had just retrieved and said, "I am sure this isn't the right tool for the job, but I have the keys and they are my tools now". Unfortunately, my sister saw this go on, and looked at me very oddly as I came back into the house. If she didn't think the grief of loosing Phil had made me loose my mind, she definitely knew I had now. So, if you need to yell at the sky or get a little frustrated at times, it's ok, just make sure you are alone. It is difficult to go from having your set of jobs in a marriage, to doing both. Believe me, I have done some things he probably would have shaken his head about. Like using one of his nice paint brushes to stain my posts on the porch. It dried frozen in place and I had to throw it out. You learn by doing, right? Stain doesn't come out of a brush by just using soap and water, at least this stain. I also realized that I did know how to do more than I thought. Even if you do not actually do the job with your spouse, just watching them gives you the knowledge to try it yourself. I have prayed many times asking God to give me some of Phil's wisdom. I even started up his bulldozer and used it for a job, but I will tell that story later. Do not give up. It is harder to get things accomplished, but slowly I am checking things off of my to do list. One of Phil's favorite verses: Philippians 3:13-14 "…forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
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