Sometimes too many coincidences aren’t coincidences

October is my favorite month of the year.

This year… October has colossally sucked.

It has also been one of the hugest blessings that has ever come into my life.

I will never be able to move from this house.

Friday, Bear died. I wrote about that already… I don’t know when I will be able to go an hour without feeling like I’m going to throw up… but I’m getting through hour by hour, day by day, doing the next right thing.

Monday we (Monkey Butt, Squirrel and I) went to my mom’s. We took the pug and the bulldog along because the smush faces are the ones having the mostest issues with Bear passing. Yes, I know shush and mostest aren’t words. I don’t care today.. my Miss Stuck have mercy on my soul.

Monday should have been cremation day 1.

Monday Squirrel wanted to have some retail therapy. It was Monday. It was mid-afternoon. Salvation Army should have been open. It was not. Not a single second hand store was open within about 20 or 30 miles in the wrong direction. So, no one went.

Money is going to be tight the next however long so… if they had been able to go, it would have been the only one that could have been done for a while. But since they didn’t… and they needed to pick things up out and about yesterday, they went to Goodwill yesterday. I told them what I could swing for them to spend right ‘now’ and said if anything really speaks to you, go ahead and buy it within the bounds.

A couple months ago, one of our McDonalds glasses (2000 Disney) took a header off of the hospital tray table in the living room onto the ceramic tile floor… needless to say it didn’t go well… I didn’t loose my shit because I knew Bear didn’t mean for it to happen and for the longest time he had been so emotionally fragile that if I had made ANY reaction he would have cried hard and made his breathing and cough worse.

Yesterday, the ‘kids’ went running around… the order of operations they did didn’t matter to me… they did what they needed to do… what they wanted to do… how they wanted to do it. Max (bulldog) is now on gabapentin because he’s having such a hard time with the change/loss.

Goodwill… Monkey Butt didn’t want much. Maybe a movie or two. He really doesn’t do much retail therapy. But he found something… He called me and asked if I had dropped anything off at Goodwill any time recently… nope… okay good…

This came home with him…

Not only the one that got broken (of the set that had one broken) but the whole set. It felt a lot like that Bear was sending the message that, it’s okay… he is okay now and here… I will replace what got broken so you can know it’s okay.

Wink

Wednesday, last week, Nurse Dave came to do his weekly visit. Bear was really worried about cold weather coming and not being able to sit out on the porch in the cold let alone go for a walk in the cold. Dave said… you know they have those propane heaters with the fire up high… that would help with the porch. I commented that Monkey Butt and I had talked over the last year or so that having a kerosene heater like we used to have years ago when the kids were little would be really cool… but kerosene has fire close to hose level not ceiling level… which is way way way too scary.

That was Wednesday… one week ago today.

I looked on market place YESTERDAY to see what the heaters run. There were only a couple and they were from farther away (one Wisconsin… how did I get a search return from Wisconsin???) and none were closer than 30 miles and it was kind of heavily used. Bunches were plug in… bunches of them were torpedo heaters for outside way way too hot. That was the closest one in the search I did YESTERDAY (Tuesday)…

I talked to Monkey Butt yesterday about trying to get a kerosene heater… maybe when we could scrape together enough extra money he could go to one of the home improvement centers and get a heater… and one (no… maybe two) kerosene cans and we can use it to heat the porch so we can sit out on the porch more over the winter. I figured I knew what I would end up spending… I wasn’t sure when it would be okay to get it.

I searched again this morning. I expected nothing.

There was one that showed up today that was not in the list yesterday.

Today is Wednesday (one week from our discussion on the porch).

The heater was posted 5 days ago.

That was Friday… The day he died.

I found it at about 5:20 am… The time we learned that he passed.

The heater came with two extra wicks and two FULL kerosene cans (not one… two like Monkey Butt and I were talking about yesterday)… FULL cans…

It was not in my list yesterday. It was reduced in price this morning.

The heater is as close to brand new as anyone could be selling without being brand new. The seller showed him how to start it (and that it starts). It works. It will heat at least the whole front porch.

We don’t have to keep it warm for Bear to sit out not trapped inside the house… so it actually wasn’t as HOLY COW critical to have one but it also doesn’t have to not be near the O2 hose that isn’t there any more…

Wink

He’s still taking care of us. He is still looking out for us and making sure that we know that he is here… he is listening… and he is here with us/for us.

Just when your heart is breaking… there are reminders that it is going to be okay…

AprilJoy
October 21 2020