My Letter

Dear Boomer,

What I have always wanted to tell you is how incredibly proud I am of you. You got your GED and then started at the very bottom and worked all the way up to owning your own business! Not many people have the dedication and grit to do that, but you did and your business was built on integrity and working hard.

What you never understood was I never blamed you for any of the abuse. Yes, it hurt me incredibly when you didn't believe me at first, but I never once blamed you for leaving us with them (grandparents). I know if you thought for a second that he (my grandfather) would hurt me, you never would have let me stay there.

I miss not being able to call you with 'hypothetical' situations and total random stories. I loved calling you and saying, "I have a question but you can't laugh..." and you would be chuckling before I even asked the actual question.

 I need you ask your forgiveness for being annoyed with you on the day you died because you couldn't/wouldn't tell me what was happening. I know you were probably scared and confused and didn't know yourself. Sometimes I think that if you had told me exactly what was wrong, I could have gotten you help sooner and you'd still be here but I know that's not true.

 I feel sad that you won't be here for all the every day moments - the 4th of July parade, the hot air balloon launch, waffles and ice cream on Tuesdays, trips to Casepr, our Arizona trips, going to Walmart, working on my car...all the simple moments I took for granted. I thought you would always be here.

My most special memory of you is our Christmas Eve dinners and last minute shopping trips. We were ready to get out of the house and try a new restaurant. I always looked forward to those few hours so much.

What I miss the most is that no matter what we did, I always felt safe when you were around. Everything would be okay as long as you were there.

You made me proud when you started your own business and always gave every single job your very best work. You never cheated anyone out of anything and you always did your best work. That's so rare today. You make me want to always give my best.

I love you because you're my dad. You taught me so much and I will live the rest of my life trying to make you proud.

 If you were here now, I would tell you to get your business stuff organized so it would be easier for us to go through! :) I know you worried a lot about finances but, it makes me proud to tell you, you did okay. 

I think if you were here now, you would tell me to keep living my life and that it's okay to be sad but not to let it keep me down for too long

I am grateful for the relationship you had with all my littles. From Ryan Joe to Michael, you loved them all so much. I loved watching how excited Nora was when you would come down and how Eowyn thought you could fix anything. Lizzie told me once that the fact that you didn't charge them anything for work meant that they were family. You have already missed so many milestones and you will never meet Leah. I think those things sting a little more than others. Because I didn't have my own kids, the littles I watched became my kids, and you loved them as if they were your grandkids.

I am going to carry you forward by giving my best to everything I do and to being generous to others. You were always helping other people who couldn't help you back and I want to always see those people and help them

I feel good knowing that when you died, I had no regrets and have felt no anguish over things I can't go back and fix. There was nothing left unsaid and no grudges that needed resolved. Grieving without regret is such a wonderful thing!

Thank you for loving me, even when I was unlovable and for providing for us even when making ends meet was a struggle. Most of all, Boomer, when I was a little girl, you stayed. I will forever be thankful for that.

I will love and miss you forever.

Letters to Your Loved One

I have an appointment with my therapist this week and for my homework, he asked me to complete a couple of exercises. One is a list of questions meant to serve as a letter to the loved one you lost. I thought I would share the instructions and directions for others that might find the exercise helpful.

Writing a letter to your loved one can be a powerful medium for expressing your emotion. Complete all or some of the prompts, then choose to share, save or shred (some people find the latter to provide a sense of release). Speak deeply, from the heart, about what is important in the relationship. Consider what the other has given you, intentionally or unintentionally, of enduring value. Fill in the prompts below or use a blank sheet to delve deeper. 

Dear _________ 

What I have always wanted to tell you is...

What you never understood was...

What I want you to know about me is...

What I now realize is...

The one question I have always wanted to ask is...

What I want you to know about my life is...

I miss not being able to...

I need to ask your forgiveness for...

I feel sad that you won't be here when I...

My most special memory of you is...

What I miss the most is...

You made me proud when you...

I love you because...

If you were here now, I would tell you...

I think if you were here now, you'd tell me...

I am grateful for...

I am going to carry you forward by...

I feel good knowing that...

Thank you for...

 Another exercise my therapist asked me to do is answer prompts to serve as a letter about the loved one you lost. I thought I would share it as well.

(The directions are the same as my previous post)

What did knowing your loved one mean to you...

How and when did you feel close to them...

Are there particular, times, places, or ways in which you recall their importance to you...

What were their moments of greatness in life...

Are there any special stories about them that they would want others to know...

What did they teach you about life, and about how you could manage the challenges you now face...

What advice would they have for you about how to handle loss...

What Is Wrong With Me?

 Being a psychology major in college, the stages of grief are pretty well etched in my mind: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These stages aren't linear and a person can go back and forth between stages for as long as it takes to work through grief. I've always heard the anger stage is anger at God for allowing your loved one to die or at the person themself for dying leaving you alone in this world. But...what if the anger is towards yourself?

I've always thought of myself as a fairly emotional person. Empathetic, loyal to a fault, slow to anger (but once I'm there, I'm pretty steamed!), and one of those people that can't hold back tears. The more I try not to cry, the faster the tears come. It can be super annoying! 

When I was a child, starting around the age of ten (that I can remember) I would go visit my mom in Arizona during the summer months. Sometimes I would stay a few weeks, sometimes a month or so, but I never wanted those visits to end. I don't know if it's because I knew I wouldn't see her again until the following summer, if I even saw her again (even as a kid, my mind tended toward the worst case scenario), or what but I would literally start crying days before I was scheduled to leave. At first, I would just cry in bed at night, counting down the days I had left, but by the actual day or two before, I would just flat out cry at the drop of a hat. I couldn't help it. The morning I was to leave, I would start crying as soon as my eyes opened and my mind registered what was happening that day. I would hardly be able to eat because of the knot in my stomach, and I would cry up until I boarded the plane or drove away in my dad's car. When flying, I was able to wait with my mom until the very last minute to board and I would just cling to her the entire time. When the final boarding call was announced, it took every bit of my will to put one foot in front of the other and find my seat. My head told me to keep moving while my heart screamed to run back to my mom, throw my arms around her, and never let go. It. Was. Brutal. I would cry the entire flight, during my layover, throughout the second flight and then I would try to pull myself together when getting ready to land because I didn't want my dad to think I wasn't happy to see him. I was. But gosh, I missed my mom so much already. After being met with hugs after getting off the plane, I would give an excuse of needing to use the bathroom so I could go in a stall and cry some more. The tears continued after I returned home, lessening as I got back into the familiar routine of my life in Wyoming. I know it hurt my dad's feelings that I cried so much about wanting to go back to my mom, but I just couldn't help it. I never understood why my older brother and stepsister never cried when it was their time to leave, I was always in awe of their ability to give a hug and a wave and walk away, dried eyed. I felt like such a baby and completely pathetic.

Fast forward to being an adult. I still cry at goodbyes, probably more than I should. But now, for some reason, my tears are sometimes delayed a day or two. I remember saying goodbye to a good friend and even though she cried, I was so proud of myself for giving a hug and walking away without a tear in sight. Then I woke up the next morning, the realization would hit me, and the tears would start. I cry on the last day of school every year, saying goodbye to the kids. Heck, I even cry sometimes when my littles go on vacation and I know I won't see them for a few weeks!

Knowing all that, I'm having the hardest time understanding why I can't cry about my dad's death. Sure, I've cried tears here and there, but never for more than a minute or two. I think about movies where someone finds out their loved one has died and they collapse to the floor or begin to wail loudly. I had none of that. I've not cried so hard and so long that my throat hurts, my eyes are all puffy, and I'm out of Kleenex. A few weeks ago, I was reading the end of a sad book and bawling my eyes out. I'm talking can't-hardly-breath, snot-flowing kind of sobbing and afterwards, I had the thought, "I never even cried that hard about my dad dying." I've not had the experiences of waking up in the morning and living in that blissful few seconds before I remember he's dead like others talk about. I recorded his voicemail message before turning of his phone, I can look at pictures of him and watch videos he's in and I feel absolutely nothing. For the first month or so after he died, I would sit in the back row of church on Sunday and cry throughout most of the service. I've not cried like that since. Was that the extent of my grief? I know it sounds stupid, but isn't he worth more tears than that?

Is there something wrong with me? Am I emotionally stunted in some way? My therapist and I have talked about how I look back at my relationship with my dad and don't have many regrets. We were on great terms when he died. He knew I loved him and I knew he loved me. So I don't have that grief that comes with wanting to go back and fix things or make amends. But I miss him, I miss him a lot. So many 'firsts' have happened without him and so many everyday events he would have been a part of. Isn't that worth some tears? 

Why is it, as a child, I felt like such a baby because I couldn't stop crying but now, as an adult, I feel like a horrible person because I can't cry at all?

August 10 - Part 2

(One thing that sticks out about this whole situation is how calm I was. I didn't cry, I didn't panic...nothing)

When I arrived at the hospital, I went into the waiting room. Things are a little harder to remember from this point forward. I'm sure I filled out some paperwork and answered some questions at the desk, but what I do remember is sitting there, waiting with Tyler and talking about moles! I know, I know. Totally random! But I was teasing Tyler about the stitches on his head and he told me he had gotten a mole removed. This turned into a whole discussion on how to know when to have a mole checked out. I'm sure we made other small talk but it's the moles I remember! At one point, we heard 'Code Blue' from the overhead speaker and we looked each other, and I said something about there probably being another person in the ER besides just my dad.

I made a couple other phone calls while waiting but at some point, the doctor came out. He told me he was sorry, that there was nothing else he could do and that my dad had died. Tyler looked at me and said, "Oh my gosh, I am so sorry!" but I still didn't feel anything. I asked, "What's next?" and the doctor asked about organ and tissue donation. I knew my dad would have been all for that and told him to use whatever they could. I remember calling my brothers and telling them our dad had died and calling one of my dad's friends, telling him the news, and asking him to let their other friends know. I asked Tyler to send out a prayer request on our church's prayer chain. I remember being in the emergency part of the ER, not in the waiting room anymore. The doctor asked if I wanted to see my dad's body and after thinking for a second, I looked at Tyler and asked if it made me a bad person if I didn't want to. I explained that we had just had a wonderful lunch together just a little while ago and that's how I wanted to remember him. Tyler and the doctor assured me that was fine. I remembered a grief advocate asking if I wanted to go to their memorial room or something like that and I told her I just wanted to go home. The entire experience, from the time I called the ambulance until my dad died was less than 45 minutes. It happened that fast.

Once I got home, Tyler and I cleaned up from the EMT's and my friend Rachel showed up with flowers. She is the mama of my llamas, the oldest (who was 9 at the time) I had watched since she was an infant, and her sisters and brother after her. All I could think was I needed to tell them about my dad because he was a big part of their lives. So Rachel drove me to her house and I made some more phone calls on the way. Even in telling multiple people that my dad had died, there was no emotion, I was just matter-of-fact. When we got to my llamas house, I sat with them on the couch and told them Tim had died. I asked them if they knew what that meant and explained that his heart was sick and the doctors couldn't fix it and that they would never see him again.

The friend I had visited with at the park when I dropped off my dessert before going to meet my dad for lunch came to Rachel's after reading the text that had gone out. We hung out for a little bit as I took a phone call from the hospital telling me I could come pick up my dad's items and from the funeral home, where we set up an appointment for the next day. My friend drove me home, where another friend was waiting. She hugged me and cried and I just remember feeling awkward that it was my dad who died and I felt nothing while she was sobbing on my shoulder. 

Another friend showed up shortly after that and at some point, Tyler brought me leftovers after asking me earlier if I wanted to go to their house for dinner and I declined - I just wanted to be alone. I spent the rest of the afternoon/evening making phone calls, answering the many texts that came in, and cleaning because I knew people would probably be stopping by in the coming days. I had to do an interview over the phone about my dad's health history for the organization in charge of the organ/tissue donation. I answered so many questions, some of which made me laugh - "Has your dad been exposed to mad cow disease in the past 6 weeks?"

I thought about taking some melatonin before I went to bed so I could sleep but I was pretty wiped out after the day and decided against it. That was a mistake as I was wide awake at one, after sleeping only a couple hours. I went in the livingroom and turned on the tv, hoping it would distract me. My phone rang and I recognize the number as being from the organ/tissue donation people. The funeral home had told me these people would be in touch throughout the whole process - once they got my dad to Colorado, once they removed all usable tissues (they were not able to use any of his organs as he was a heavy smoker) - once the body was back in Riverton, etc., so I let the call go to voicemail. I listened to the message and it was a lady telling me she had an urgent matter she needed to talk to me about and asked me to call her as soon as soon as I was able. I called and it turns out some one of my dad's heart valves was in great shape and she needed permission to harvest it. Weird, I know. He died of a heart attack but his heart valve was able to be donated! 

Morning came and some friends came over. I had asked Tyler if he would go with me to the funeral home as an extra ear and he agreed. I forgot he used to work for a family funeral home growing up so he was a wealth of great information. He was also good at breaking up the tension by saying something random or funny. I will forever thank God Hazel sent him flying my road the previous afternoon. He was a huge help and a steady, calm presence through everything. My dad would have wanted to be cremated so the process was fairly simple and fast. 

In the car on the way home, Tyler answered some questions about a couple of things that hadn't made sense to me at the funeral home. He told me he had already talked to my pastor, Ian, the day before and the church had offered to cover the funeral home costs. Yet another 'God thing!' I once read something that said "Long before Zaccheus couldn't see Jesus, God planted a tree to meet his need." (Zaccheus being a tax collector in the New Testament that wanted to see Jesus but couldn't see over the crowd because he wasn't tall enough and he climbed a tree to be able to see him) In that moment, talking to Tyler, I was reminded of those words - before it even occurred to me that I would have need of the funeral home, God had already provided a way to meet the need. I will forever be in awe of how God was present and at work in those days.

August 10 - Part 1

Sunday, August 10 2025, started out like any other Sunday. I got up, got ready for church and headed out the early service. The one thing that sticks out about church that morning was seeing a man who had collapsed in our lobby and needed an ambulance the week before was back in church, looking as if nothing had even happened. I remember being in awe of the way God heals and restores.

After church, I went to the store to grab some kind of dessert. Our church was having a fish fry at a local park and I had signed up to bring a dessert. My dad was going to come down from Dubois and we were going to lunch, but I still wanted to take a desert because I had signed up and didn't want them to be short. I talked to a friend of mine there and she asked why I wouldn't be staying and I told her about my dad coming. 

We talked for a few minutes and then I headed to the restaurant to meet my dad. He had texted that morning and said he wanted fish tacos so I headed to a local Mexican restaurant. As much as I don't like fish, my dad loved it. Fish tacos at La Luna were his favorite and we ate there often. Most weeks we were Sunday-after-church regulars. Nothing about lunch sticks out, that's how ordinary it was. My dad was supposed to come down the day before to help work on my car but hadn't felt good so he stayed home and came Sunday. He assured me he was feeling much better and ate his whole lunch without complaint. 

When we finished, we decided to meet at my house. I was going to stop at the house of my littles and bring some of them home with me. One llama in particular LOVED helping my dad work on things and we knew she would get a kick out of 'helping' him work on my car. Once I got to their house, however, none of them wanted to go with me. It was the first of a handful of 'God things' that would happen that day. That was the first time ever that they didn't want to come to my house and I'm so thankful. If they had, they would have seen everything that was to come. 

Since I was kidless, I decided to stop at a local coffee shop to get my dad and myself iced coffees. I drove home and pulled up to find my dad sitting on the steps going up to my door which I thought was a little odd because he usually would have already had the garage open and started on my car. He told me he didn't feel good and said he needed to lay down on my couch. I got him settled on the loveseat and he asked for some Aleve. He said his chest hurt and I remember scolding him not to take the Aleve with his coffee! He laid on the couch for a few minutes and then moved to the floor where he could stretch out. I asked him what was wrong, specifically, and he wouldn't tell me. All he would say is that his chest hurt. I asked him if he wanted me to call an ambulance and his response was, "I don't have insurance." If you knew my dad, you would understand why that would be on the forefront of his mind. 

Meanwhile my dogs, who were outside, started barking like crazy. Feeling a little frustrated with my dad since he wouldn't tell me what was wrong so I could help, I went outside to see what was going on. I found a German Shorthaired Pointer I had never seen before over by my chicken coop. As I got closer I could see he had killed a couple of chickens. Normally I would have been irritated and mad but here was another 'God thing.' Because he was a bird dog, he ran over to me and dropped the chicken at my feet, SO proud of himself! I couldn't help but laugh as his little stub of a tail was wagging crazy and he had that smile on his face that dogs get. I grabbed his collar and saw his name was Drake. That also made me smile as one of my favorite littles I watched in years past was a boy named Drake. I chained him up in my front yard and called the number on his collar. I went back inside and my dad was still laying on the floor, conscious and alert, but still wouldn't tell me what was wrong. So I went outside and met with the Drake's owner. He apologized profusely and paid me some money for the dead chickens and then took his pup and left. 

I went back inside and tried again to get my dad to tell me specifically what was hurting and how I could help him. I asked him if he could get up and walk and I would drive him to the ER. He didn't answer and a motion he made with his hand that made me think he was having a seizure. I rolled him onto his back (I know, I know. You're supposed to roll them on their side but I wasn't thinking clearly.) I told him I didn't care what he wanted, I was calling the ambulance. After speaking to the dispatcher and giving her my address, God impressed upon my heart to call my friend Hazel and ask her to pray. She prayed over the phone with me and said she could hear the sirens and told me they were coming. 

I went outside to wait for the ambulance as I heard them turn on my road. As the ambulance was backing into my driveway, I noticed another car speeding up the road with dirt billowing everywhere. Not recognizing the car, I wondered if it was an off-duty deputy that heard the call come over the scanner and came to help. When the car pulled in my driveway, I realized it was Hazel's husband Tyler. In another 'God thing,' she must have called him after hanging up with me. He gave me a hug and then helped the EMTs as they worked on my dad. While he had looked normal to me, they took his outer shirt off and I noticed he was sweating profusely and looked clammy. By this point he was still conscious but not really responding. He was fighting the EMTs and they had to keep telling him they were trying to help him. Tyler helped them get him outside and onto the stretcher. I tousled his hair and told him he was going to be okay.

As the EMT was getting him settled in the ambulance, I asked Tyler if he had been at the fish fry. I told him he could go ahead a leave since there was nothing else he could do at that point but he said he would go to the hospital with me. After the ambulance pulled out my driveway, I called my brothers to tell them what was happening. My older brother, who lives in Arizona, asked me to keep him updated as did my brother who lived locally. 

As I followed the ambulance to the hospital wih my hazards flashing, I called my grandma, a former EMT. I explained what happened and told her my biggest fear was that he would be Life Flighted and I didn't know how I would get to wherever they took him. I told her I would keep her updated and continued the drive to the hospital behind the ambulance. 

(Part 2 will follow soon...even though I've replayed the events of this day in my head a million times, I didn't realize it would take so long to write out!)

How I Got Here

It's been 10 months since my dad died unexpectedly on normal Sunday afternoon in August. 10 months of trying to make sense of a new normal. 10 months of happy, sad, exciting, and stressful moments I didn't get to share with him. 10 months of growth and milestones in his grandkids and the other littles in his life that he loved. 10 months of living without him.

I want to share how the idea of this blog came to be. I work at a school and usually once May comes around, I start to think about a summer job. This year, however, it wasn't even on my radar. Literally, until someone would ask me about it, the thought would never cross my mind. I would be okay financially from school and my second job, and I started to wonder if God was telling me it was okay to take this summer and just be still. I have to admit the idea didn't sit easy with me at first, and even today, I still wrestle with it some. As much as I loved my dad, the part of his life that was hardest for me to deal with was how much he worked. He worked ALL the time. In summers past, I would have to convince him to schedule weekends with no work so we could do other things. From what I understand, he started working a job as soon as he was able as a teen and never slowed down. His work ethic was definitely admirable, don't get me wrong. Growing up, I never had to worry that my dad couldn't provide for what we needed and even as an adult, he was always happy to help me and my brothers financially when he was able and I know that came from working so many hours. That being said, his mindset has always been that if someone can work, they should, and he made that known to me from the time I was a kid. So, the idea of not working this summer doesn't always sit well with me but I just remind myself that he really would be okay with it if he knew the reasoning behind it.

So, as I'm trying to discern if God really was telling me to just be still this summer, I went to a therapy session, having no idea of what we would talk about. My therapist usually started our sessions with an idea of an exercise or activity we could try and if I was okay with it, we would go from there. That day, he talked about something called The Dual Process Model of Grief, which I had never heard of. Basically, it's two coping strategies of coping with grief. One is Loss Oriented and the other is Restoration. Loss Oriented is dealing with the grief itself while Restoration is engaging in things that distract us from grief or contribute to rebuilding our lives. It is natural to go between these two strategies, but it's also possible to get stuck in one.

My therapist helped me to see that I've been stuck in Restoration. The first words out of my mouth when the doctor told me my dad had died were, "What's next?" From then on, I was in 'doing' mode - making lists of who to call, questions to ask various peoples, and working my way down the list of things I knew needed to be done. As a 'doer,' this all just seemed the right thing to do. School also started the next week and while it was a glorious, wonderful distraction, it was still a distraction that kept me from focusing too much on my grief. While I have had moments of sadness and tears, they have been fleeting and somewhat 'shallow' if that makes sense. 

After having just told my therapist I thought God might be telling me to take it easy this summer, and talking about these aspects of grief, he suggested that God may be giving me the summer to focus on the Loss Oriented side of grief and truly mourn, and accept, the death of my dad. Sometimes I doubt what I think God may be saying to me and it's always a relief to have another person looking in on the situation see the same thing and validate my thoughts.

So I decided to start a blog.  A grief blog. I honestly have no idea how often I'll write or what I'll write about or even how this whole journey will go. As someone who likes to have a 'road map' of how things are supposed to go, not having any kind of schedule or agenda is completely out of my comfort zone. I bought a Bible study and have some other ideas in mind so I'll just see how it all goes. Join me, if you will and if you want, for this journey of Missing Boomer.