-JUST DEALING-

I’ve dealt with loss a lot in the past year. And you’d think it’d get easier with the more practice you get. But I’m learning every day that that’s not the case. There’s something unique and special about every experience we have in life that makes it different from the next or last. So dealing with things the same way as you did the previous…it doesn’t work. I’ve lost a grandfather, naturally…two of my closest cousins, tragically…a college teammate, tragically…my boss’s wife, tragically…and most recently, my girlfriend’s dog, tragically. And I’m starting to realize a couple things about myself that don’t really help me in the “coping” phase of all this.

I think I can deal with death. I made my peace when my grandfather died. It took time, but I did it. My hang-up is that I don’t know how to deal with tragedy. I understand that my Pappaw (grandfather) lost a battle to cancer. I get that. I don’t understand why my 21 year-old cousin would die in a car wreck as the designated driver. I don’t understand why my other cousin can take 2 years to beat a drug addiction, and relapse just one time and not survive it. I struggle to understand why an only-child/full-of-life Christian/proven college athlete/influential middle school teacher would take her own life on a Sunday morning leaving herself to be found by her own parents as they return from church. I don’t get that shit. Can anyone?

I don’t understand why at a time when Darci is struggling with one of the toughest times of her brother being sick…that things have to go from bad to worse. I won’t get into the details here, so to make a long story story short, Slater died on Thursday night. He got hit by a car hauling ass in my neighborhood. We buried him behind my house this morning. And like all other tragedies in my life, I don’t know how to deal.

More so than dealing with my own emotion of seeing a pet that I love die in front of my face, I don’t know how to handle telling and seeing the person I love and care for so much hurt so bad over something I could have and should have prevented. I don’t get it. I hurt for me. But I hurt for Darci so much. And all I want is to make her feel better.

I loved Slater. He was a nutty. And he had some crazy doggy-gas. But he was sweetest cuddler and a damn good kisser. I’ll miss him like no other. Darci will miss him x 10. Tanner already misses him.

I’ve never had to do this before, and I hate it.