We Made It...(Belated)

I finally have my life to the point where I can sit for a few minutes at a time and actually get on Facebook, or send an email, and this morning I am trying to think of something to write on my poor neglected blog.  So I guess I will write about the past month of our crazy lives.
Shelby and I survived the trip out here, as did my dear dad and stepmom, mice, and Buick.  The plane trip went exceptionally well considering I had a 6 year old, two suitcases, two carry-ons, and two unsedated cats with me.  The cats had to be removed from their carriers at security and carried through.  Shelby took the smaller cat, I took the big fat one, and they both cooperated beautifully.  One cat cried during takeoff the whole time, and the other cat just kicked back for the flight like he does it all the time.  He was so confident in himself he didn't even listen to the safety speech they give before takeoff.
Wayne met us in baggage, and when Shelby spotted him she took off at full speed to jump into his waiting arms, and got shy once she got 5 feet away and hit the brakes.  The whole shy act lasted about two minutes though.
My dad and stepmom Lori drove my car out here with Shelby's mice.  The car did great, and the mice saw some beautiful country.  I would receive a picture of them now and then, their cage sitting on a rock in the petrified forest or on a ledge overlooking the painted desert.  It was usually followed by a picture of a bird and a text from my dad explaining that the bird is what came by and ate the mice.   My favorite was when he called me and gave me a mile marker number and interstate, and told me there was a small cross made of sticks and a shallow grave that he dug with a Subway cup to bury the mice, etc etc.
I let Shelby take that first week off from school, but she started the second week.  When I took her to register her, the school was very different than her school in Indiana because it is about 1/4 the size.  There weren't any formalities...they called a teacher up to the front office, who came out, squatted down in front of her, asked her a couple of questions and then he stood up and said "This one is mine."  It was love at first sight, I'm pretty sure.  Shelby blushed the whole time he was talking to her, and he doesn't seem to be much older than her.  I also found her the daycare of her dreams, complete with a huge indoor playground that looks like a little town for when it is too HOT to play outside.  She has adjusted amazingly, she actually seems happier these days than she's ever been.  The daycare employees absolutely adore her and her freckles.
I got a job and started working a couple of weeks ago.  Wayne works for a small plumbing company, owned by a husband and wife team.  He and the husband are the only plumbers on staff, and they hired me to do the bookkeeping and dispatching.  I work out of the house.  No new clothes had to be purchased, I work out of their house!
It really is beautiful here...we are surrounded by hills and mountains.  Over by my office, some of the mountains even have snow on them!  I've always loved mountains for some reason. 
Do I miss Indiana?  No.  Do I miss my peeps in Indiana?  So bad it hurts!

6 Years Later...

Six years ago I remember everything about that day.  Bruce had the day off work and was home with Shelby, and brought her to my office to see me.  She had a little bit of poop on her sock from when he had changed her diaper earlier that day.  I remember being kind of annoyed by that.  I made hamburgers for dinner with Grandma Brown's brand baked beans.  A friend Bruce hadn't seen in a while was supposed to come over to visit and he was pretty excited, bustling around cleaning the house and fidgeting at the computer while he surfed the net.  I remember weird details like the shirt he was wearing that night, the beer he had in his hand, and how unbelievably cold it was outside.  But I had never dreamed that it was going to be the last night I ever saw him alive.
It has gotten easier to deal with over the years but this year has been a little hard because there is so much different going on in my life right now...not really anything familiar and comforting like there was in Indiana, and most of all my mom isn't here.  We don't like, sit and re-live it, but she was there living through it with me, and quietly in the background taking care of the things I couldn't.  And the rest of my family, too, at a time when all I had the energy to do was cry and lash out at everything and everyone around me.
I have to work tomorrow, it's life as usual.  It still hurts though in a different way.  Like I told Wayne earlier...it's not so much the missing him as it is the unfairness and the memories of how I felt that day and the months afterwards.  I'm at peace with where he is, as Shelby's gaurdian angel, hangin' out with Jesus.  But I will never be able to erase the way I felt, the guilt I felt for not calling an ambulance sooner, for the constant nagging and griping I did the last two months he was alive about money and anything else I could think of to nag about.  I will never be able to erase the memories of the morning that he died, the hope I felt when I saw him that maybe he had just fainted, the terror when I realized it was more than that, and the absolute disbelief when a nurse confirmed what I already knew deep down.  I will never be able to understand why he has to miss out on this beautiful, mischevious, drama queen, comedienne of a little girl.
I don't have a grave to visit this year, so this is all I've got.  Once again, just as last year...Rest in Peace, Bruce.  We will never stop missing you.