It has been awhile since I put thoughts to words.
At the close of each year, I reflect on the past year and look forward to the coming year. How would I sum up the year 2024? Simply as Death. 2024 has been the year of Death and Change. I have never wanted a year to end so quickly, since September I have been wanting the year to be different, to put this year behind us and move to a better time.
Death – a hard, dark word, evokes many negative feelings. Negative feelings of anger, bewilderment, sadness, depression, anxiety, fear, loss and even hate are part of the definition of death in my dictionary today.
The beginning of 2024 looked promising, a year of positive change. I was working as a meat cutter in training, with hopes of finally being a full fledged meat cutter. We were working on the barn, to create a room in order to sell all natural lamb meat farm to table. The sheep were doing well. Things appeared to be good. Then a date arrived that would be branded into our lives and our being like a hot brand placed on a calf’s hip to mark the hide for life – April 26.
The day started as each working day, me getting ready to go to work in the meat market, my husband doing chores with a trip planned to see our daughter to assist with some legal matters concerning her decision to divorce her husband. We were going to assist in paying her attorney. On the way to work, I receive a vision.
The visions I receive are not pleasant. I am on an ocean beach, my granddaughter beside me. A sunny day, I feel the warm sun, the sand between my toes as we walk into the warm, yet cool water. My daughter loves the ocean. In the vision, my granddaughter and I were placing her in the ocean and saying goodbye.
Well, this mother starts praying. I do not know about other mothers, but I was busy praying for protection, for legions and legions of angels to surround my daughter and grandchildren. I even went so far as to demand Michael the Archangel to be by my daughter’s side. Even today I am not sure if demanding something of God is wise, but I would still demand Michael the Archangel to protect and keep my daughter and her family safe on that day. I prayed as I continued to work, and a few hours while working. Then there comes the time in pray when you have to let go, I made my petition, it was time to trust my faith and put her and my grandchildren into God’s hands.
I worked my shift, plus an additional hour, then went home. My arrival was not met with happy news. Upon arriving home, my husband was hustling to finish feeding animals. His words were confusing, my daughter had called, there was a gun, police and a gunshot involved. I quickly changed out of my wet, dirty work clothes, and I started driving toward my daughter’s home. On the road, I phoned my other daughter to pray giving her the confusing words and letting her know I was driving. A trip that takes me two hours to drive, was accomplished in an hour. She called during the trip to say she and the kids were safe, an ambulance was there so she had to go. As we drove we learned she and children were at another person’s home, but trying to find a place to stay the night. Then the address to a stranger’s house on where we were invited to stay the night, and possibly the next day. As we arrived in town, following GPS to where she would be staying, we arrived minutes after she did. At one point we were following here, only I missed a turn.
The first thing I wanted to do was hold my daughter close, but first I was made to promise “No vengeance”. See my children know me, anyone hurt my children and I am on the fight. I promised “No vengeance”, and went to hug her. She asked me not too tight as she hurt. She did not want to be touched her whole body hurt. We held and settled children into bed. Uncomfortable staying in a stranger’s home, with so many emotions and questions going on inside. But one piece of information was missing – where was her husband.
They needed someone to stay at her house as the cleaners came in to clean up the “mess”, so people could safely go into the home again. My husband said he would go. He was informed that some items might not be cleaned and saved, mostly pictures on the refrigerator. My husband said to just do the best that they can.
After a few hours, when the children were asleep, except one, my daughter holding and praying for peace and comfort, I managed to ask the question – where is ****? She looked at me, with tears and a strained voice “funeral home. I did not want this, I just wanted peace. Not this.”
The plan for the next day was not to slip where he was, but to say he was in the hospital. My daughter would tell her oldest after the final soccer game, with her pastor and his wife there. There were a few things needed before the soccer game, my husband and I returned to the home to retrieve items needed for the soccer game. Opening the door, a huge curtain sealed off the area. Then we returned to our temporary housing, to watch the three little boys, while others went to the soccer game. My other daughter and her husband arrived just before they left for the soccer game.
The people who opened there home to a distraught family, the wife was a real estate agent. That morning my husband and I were discussing with her to find a rental for my daughter to stay in, as we knew she and the children would not be able to live in their home. We had the finances to pay the deposits, and two months rent. But God already had a plan, a much better plan.
One of the people cleaning the site, noticed while taking down the pictures to clean on the refrigerator, in the soccer team picture the coach was his sister. He called his sister that night, saying something terrible has happened concerning one of her athletes. After the soccer game, the coach wanted a private conversation with my daughter. My daughter was keeping everything quiet, giving no information to anyone on what had happened that night. The coach said she knew what happened, and she had a house she was flipping, not ready for the market, but ready to be occupied that was big enough for her family. She could stay there as long as needed, no rent.
After the soccer game, visit with the Pastor and lunch to inform the six year old about her dad, we went to see the house. My husband and I went to her home to get some items for sleeping, clothes, and children items needed to start staying in another house. This time when we went to her home the curtain was removed, we walked through the door to see a hole where the ceiling and wall were removed, items placed, jumbled and random on the table.
Emotions, there were so many. Anger for what he had done to my daughter, leaving his children that way. Sadness for the loss of a family member. Relief that there was not going to be a long ugly divorce, and no peace for my daughter upon obtaining the divorce. Thoughts of grandchildren without a father, my daughter being a single mother, and the hardships I was well aquatinted with.
We gathered the items, and headed to another new address. The home was very large, luxurious, in the country yet close to town. Quiet and Peaceful. Located on 15 acres, with trees. A good place to start healing from the trauma and all that would follow.
Sunday, tomorrow, we would all go to church together. The church was bring food for lunch. After lunch a group of college students would meet us at the house to start moving what my daughter wanted to their new place of living. So, my husband returned home that evening to feed animals, and get our stock trailer to load and move house items in after church.
Sunday, there were plenty of help. The college students knew a tragedy had occurred in the home. There were plenty of boxes and packaging tape and two more trailers to move my daughter to a new location. I divided people into teams, a team per room. In four hours we had moved my daughter and the items she wanted to take to another home. Upon arriving at the new location, the same teams unpacked and set the rooms they had packaged up. Before dinner arrived, from the church, she was set up to start in a new home.
This tragic event created a complex emotional issues for me. Dealing with the threat to my daughter, and the fact that he wanted to kill her, and the loss of a family member of 11 years was difficult. On top of working for under an abusive supervisor, my phycological issues arose, I had a major panic attack at work one day. In June, the owner of the grocery store chain and his main office people were coming to the store. My supervisor showed up late, was in a bad mood when he arrived. Was having me do jobs that should have been done days before, while I was off. Then when I was to start helping cut meat portions for the counter that was empty, I asked what to cut. He stated whatever, so I started cutting a piece of meat into portions. Over half way through cutting the piece of meat, he slams his fists down, and asks my why I was cutting another piece of the same meat he had already cut. He had been criticizing me and telling me I was too slow all morning, and now I was cutting the wrong meat. I said I needed a break was going to take one. He followed me and said we needed to talk tot he manager, I said we are going to talk to the area supervisor when he gets there.
People have panic attacks in different ways. For me the world starts closing in, the walls start moving towards me, fear arises and my response is to run, and I do run. He continued to follow me out of the store stopping when I went outside the doors. When I got outside I sent a text to the district supervisor that the person was being a “jackass”. The walls had started moving in on me, breathe, just breathe I kept telling myself. No, too late, it was open, no walls outside, I took off as fast as my feet would hit the ground. Where was I going, I was going home, not my house, but the home in my heart. I was headed to Colorado. About two miles from the grocery store, I texted my husband and asked he wanted to go with me to Colorado. He knew I was in the middle of a panic attack, asked where I was. Three miles from the store he picked me up and took me home. I quit the job. Got into therapy.
About two months later, I have to get a job to meet the financial demands of our household. I start working for Wal-Mart. Only after a two and half months, once again, I quit. I can not handle the pressure to work with other, the physical demand on my 61 year old body. Taking over the counter pain pills every four hours to keep working with less pain is not good.
In September, I had to make the choice to put my beloved Bonnie Jo down. She did not know where she was or who I was, in extreme anxiety. She had been my emotional support pet for 15 years. I dug a hole in the front yard, where I could see her each morning as I start my day.
Two weeks later, I had to put my beloved show mare and kids horse, My Sweet Victoria down. She had injured and dislocated her shoulder, no way for it to heal. Could no longer walk. I dug another hole.
Three weeks later, I was digging another hole. My appaloosa stallion, Stolen Night, had cancer and I made the decision to put him down. Only in this hole I buried the dream of ever showing a horse again, or having anymore foals, into this grave as well. Burying what I had done most of my life, raise, train and show horses into a grave. I am too old to being doing that lifestyle anymore.
October also brought my daughter-in-law and four grandchildren living with us in a now cramped home due to the increase in occupants. She was moving closer to us, so she would have family support network and get counseling for her mental illness. In December, just before Christmas, she and my son found a rental for them to live in near us.
During the year, I also had two uncles pass away, a several friends. I no longer get the paper hand out a funerals, I do not want to look at or keep a reminder of a funeral.
We are still negotiating the tragedy of April 26. The real estate agent we stayed with that first night, became my daughter’s real estate agent in purchasing a new home, and selling her old home. All within October. So in October we were moving her to a new home again, this time a permanent home. My husband and I along with some people from the church once more moved her to her new abode. We go down once a week to help put things together and care for the children. Most important to just be with her, as she needs family with her. She and her daughter are in counseling weekly. We are careful in our conversations and answering questions with our granddaughter as she is still processing what happened April 26. She saw and heard more than a six year old should have been exposed to. We learn each week a little more of what happened that night.
Where am I at the end of this year. In counseling, getting back on my feet. Struggling with finances, trying to figure out how to get income into the household. Feeling older. For the first time, I feel old. Before I knew I had years but did not feel I had years. Now I feel the 61 winters I have seen.
What will 2025 be like? I do not know.
amtolle
Me, Myself and I 