It's been a rough 36 hours in my world.... A lot of deaths. Again. This year has been a lot of deaths among those near and dear to me. 

Yesterday afternoon Tara shared that Chris just died yesterday and the funeral is tomorrow. (My friends in Kentucky, he developed very aggressive bowel cancer of some sort this summer but they didn't know for certain until August.) Last night another friend shared that her mother (who was very old and ailing) passed. And Morgan's grandma just died (she's the one whose dad was best friends with George Winston; she's also had a hard year with deaths and loss this year.)  Just now Sarah shared that their family made the hard decision to put down their 12.5 year old dog Cooper (he's been refusing to eat and his BUN numbers indicated kidney failure.)  None of them were completely unexpected, but it's still hard when it happens even if you know it's only a matter of time. 

Deaths within my family/friend circle this year:

~My 14.5 year old doggo Audrey Pupburn in January

~Amy's mom in February

~George Winston in June (Spock yowled when I told him then went to go snuggle with my bear that has Audrey's second jersey on it to console himself....)

~Rain (one of Mikaela's two pet rats) in July

~My great-uncle Frank in August (when I went down to Chicago for the funeral and to sit shivah with the extended family instead of to the Seo Linn show at IAHC like I had planned that night)

~my cousin Ry & Sarah's dog Cocoa in Oct (Cocoa was older than Audrey and was a big part of the time I've spent with Ry & Sarah over the last 15 years or so.)

~Aoife's dad in October

~Stephie J's mom last weekend (Steph was one of my best friends in elementary school, high school, and through most of college so I'd known her mom a VERY long time.)

I feel like there are some other pet deaths I'm not thinking of right now -- I know both my college friend Chelsea's dog and Jenny one of my former Irish dance teacher's family dog both died within a week of Audrey so I talked to them a lot as we were all going through it at the same time. I didn't know those dogs, but I know what my friends far from me were going through at the same time as me. And sometimes (most of the time) it's the grieving hurting of those who remain that is harder than the death reaching it's finite time's up..... because you grieve as deep as you love. Always.  It's why my grief is so deep it always threatens to drown me if I don't go to the hollows where I can't feel anything at all for a while. Whenever the grief breaks through the hollows, and it does sometimes though it can take a while, I will curl up in bed and drown in tears until I can get a hold on myself and get back to the hollows again so I can keep going forward instead of drowning in all the feelings. "Grief is all the love inside you with no place to go" (I don't remember where that quote is from, there's more to it and it makes it's rounds as a popular meme from time to time. But it's one that I particularly love because it's true.)

I also have an uncle and an aunt whose cancers have returned aggressively and all care is palliative and my grandma in Oregon (state) is having a lot of gi issues as is my da's best friend Brian who just went into hospital this week for emergency surgery for intestinal perforation and my da hasn't gotten to see him but he's at least in his own room of the ICU now..... Those are all "not sure when the shoe will drop but also may not have much time remaining" that will hurt but not be unexpected, y'know? Just a lot of death this year... A lot of deaths.... And of course, I always lose a family member on my Jewish side of the family whenever I experience a Christmas without snow on the ground -- so I'm hoping for white Christmas snow in Seattle area while I'm out there... though it's expected this El Nino year will make snow very rare in WI this year so I may actually have better luck to get a white Christmas in Kirkland than Madison....

Anyway. It's just been a rough year and another rough 36 hours in my world...

I've been doing physical garden before the snow prep to not dwell on it. I finished laying out the remaining mulch before the temperatures (FINALLY) drop later this week and I'm snacking while dming with Mikaela (this is her third pet death this year including my girl Audrey who she grew up with as being a n extended family dog who was with her all through her childhood whenever she was spending time with me; 3 pet deaths in one year when you're only 18, the two dogs having been a part of your life for 2/3 (Cooper) and 3/4 (Audrey) of your life,  is just a fucking lot. For anyone. But she takes deaths deeply to heart so it's extra hard on her to have lost three beloved fur babies this year...) Anyway. I'm currently taking care of some other peppers/tomatoes that I put back outside because it warmed up enough to get the fruits off them but they had either scale or white fly. (I have one pepper plant and four tomato plants still inside, but those aren't sick and if/when they run out of fruits or get sick they will be going outside.) I'm trying to figure out what to do with the remaining herbs in the herb box if I can transplant them or not. Both Crissy and my maman want some for Thanksgiving but the box is too big to move inside and the  nights are going to get too cold starting Tuesday night but it's too early to cull them for Thurs to have them still be fresh... So I'm thinking I might transplant them to try to get them through the week. because even if they hate the transplant and die on me, I can still have the last of the fresh sage and parsley and thyme for Thursday. 

Anyway. It's just been a rough day or so of deaths. I know that all mortal things are finite and that's why it matters to love them while you have the opportunities. (Because even when you are lucky enough to find each other again in new bodies, you both grow and change and you'll never have the chance to love THIS version of them again. Never ever ever.)  It just never gets easier, saying goodbyes to the versions of them that they were in THIS particular life in THIS particular body. And there's just been a lot of it woven through my year this year, the endings and deaths of those whose finite time has ended. And the last 36 hours has once again had a LOT of them all clustered together....