It’s been a long time, luvs.

I wondered for several days on whether or not to write this journal. Indeed, if I should ever write anything again. It’s been a bad, bad week filled with far too much death and too many losses for me, and quite frankly, I was afraid to write yet one more lot of dire news here.

I’ve already lost so much. I lost all my friends, my husband, my marriage, my job(s), my home, my faith, my spirit – just to name a few things … Some things I recovered, and some things I got explanations for... and just when I start to find something to hold onto, something carring hope – it too gets taken away from me. It’s a pattern I can’t say I blame anyone from running away from me for anymore.

Hence my fear of writing once again about the events in my life that are the cause and effect of my life here on DA .

…But before I get into all that, there are two things I realized that eventually shaped my decision to continue to write and inform whomever comes across my pages of dribble here. The first is that even though it may not be “art”, it is art related in two ways: It is a written form of art in words and expression. DA has categories for writing, and though this is not a submission as such, it is a story! My story. My very real, very personal story. And in sharing it, it is as much like art as anything can be. If I do my job right, it will connect some people, it will inspire or invoke SOME sort of feeling or thoughts in others perhaps. Good or bad, it’s a part of me I am giving to the public to do with as they please because I have little or nothing else to give at the moment.

The second reason is for those of my watchers, net friends, and fans who have been loyal and have been following my life these past years… those who have been so supportive and caring through all my ups and downs… and downs… and dowwwwwwwnnnnnns… and really downright damned cataclysmic events into the levels of Hell even Lucifer didn’t know existed! … I continue this for you. You deserve to know it all for sticking with me through everything, and I won’t let fear get in the way and shoving me so far into the shadows I get forgotten somewhere along the way.

So that’s the “why?” for writing this…..

Now comes the question of Why? from/for me. I wish someone somewhere could tell me the answer…

I can finally write this – though as I said I contemplated whether or not I SHOULD, once I physically could… You see possums, my eyes were swollen almost shut for a day from all the crying I had/have been doing. Now it’s not the depression alone – I’ve been working really desperately hard with all I have in me on that. And every time I find something to hold onto…..

Well… It brings me to this past week. I was doing fairly well. I have been working hard to get through all the downs and trials life keeps throwing at me. I helped Glenn (my still husband) through the first death in his family that hit him very hard, specially being so far from home (being English and living here in the US) and not being able to grieve with the rest of his family or to say goodbye, etc… I kept my focus and pushed through a lot of crud my mind has a tendency to wallow in anymore, and tried my best to keep him focusing on what he needed to, to keep him from sinking in his grief. Somehow he managed to pull through and all was ok and stable again. He completed training for his new job, graduated (from training), and on the night we were celebrating with a HUGE sigh of relief that he, at least, now has a good secure job and that is at least one less thing to worry about for the moment…. ...And one more “gift” from Fate fell into our laps. Well... Actually, it was a “gift” one of my dogs brought in for us and left it in the corner where my other dog was guarding it and desperately trying to get our attention to see it. So she peed on my bio-breeder man’s (aka: Dad) chair!! He wanted to kill her, and as addled as his mind is now, he went after my other dog thinking it was him until my Monster (aka: Mother/bio-breeder female) started yelling that she had a critter she was protecting in the corner… a newborn rabbit. My Bio-breeder man started tossing about statements about it being “half dead” and basically being as hurtful and morbid as ever (remember, this is the man that told me in a very matter-of-fact way, that perhaps I should commit suicide when I had informed him that I was deeply, deeply hurting and his actions and words were pushing me over the edge).
But I digress. I was terrified. I couldn’t take another loss and I did NOT want those monstrous people touching that poor creature. I panicked in-between my dads horrid statements and Glenn’s frustrated and angry confusion as to what I was trying to ask him to do… He eventually took the baby bunny and much to our relief discovered it was perfectly fine! No wounds, heartbeat was fine (he’s had rabbits before)…. But we didn’t know where the nest was, if we should put it back, or what to do. It was still so newborn his eyes hadn’t opened yet. Since it was very late (he works the night shifts) on a Friday night, we tried calling our animal hospital, to which we were told they don’t do rabbits. Try a rescue center… of which none were open on weekends!! So we kept the bunny and did the best we could with what we called “Glenn’s graduation gift” from the dogs. He did beautifully. We got attached (inevitably) and thus Glenn’s twisted sense of humor and compliance to my wanting to name him from something out of my favorite book “Watership Down” (which happens to be about rabbits), but not wanting to name him one of the rabbit names, he chose to name him the Lapine (rabbit language) word "Hrududu" - which essentially means “car” (or man machine/ mostly in reference to cars or tractors). *rolls eyes* Figures, right? Well at least I won out in forbidding him from naming him Harka (Lapine for crap/droppings).

Anyhow… for 24 hours he did very well. Adjusted right away to his new home for a while at least, until we decided what was best to do with him. All was happy until the next day when I heard a horrible squealing outside. I thought maybe the squirrels were agitated… then I heard two squeals and something in me sank. I ran to find my parents had let both dogs out and one was “guarding”/protecting/investigating a cornered baby bunny who ran blindly (or was carried – I don’t know) and was in danger of running into our pool. I screamed for Glenn, who came out, examined the baby and looked for the nest since I had heard them near by and I know I heard two babies…. Once we located the nest (which had the second baby near it) he put the lost bunny back straight away and we watched to see if mummy bunny would come and still take care of it with the scent of human on it. If she did we were going to try to put Hrududu back in the morning, so we kept careful watch. At almost exactly the 24 hour mark of when we were “given” the gift of the first bunny…. I was taking the dogs out (on leashes) when I discovered one of the baby bunnies laying stiff and still at the base of the stairs onto the pool patio. I was terrified it was dead, but I quickly checked to see if it was alive and it slowly started responding to my strokes and curled up in my warm hands (it had been raining that day). It was wounded. It has a large gash in the face. Glenn said the one he put back wasn’t wounded as far as he saw (but he has the observance skills of a doorknob), and since I didn’t know if mummy rabbit kicked him out, if it was from my dogs, or if another predator got to him, or he got wounded when he fell off the steps/ledge onto the patio… I took him in and did the best I could to care for him.
I grew very attached to this one. Wounded animals always grip my heart deeply. Specially when placed in my care (like the three kittens I rescued and were told were too sick to live through the week – they are doing brilliantly, btw. Going to be celebrating their first birthday next month). Rescuing animals has become somewhat of a life-saver for me this last year… When I haven’t been able to find the strength or reason to keep fighting to survive all the hell that has been dealt to me – PLOP! Here comes a reason. Someone needs my love finally. Helps me focus and remember what I have to give that at least SOMEthing is willing to take or need. But again, I digress…

Long story short, Thlayli (my wounded bunny… whom I named after a strong hero bunny in the book, whom oddly enough my bunny had a tuff of fur on the top of his head that was the reason and literal definition of the characters name – “fur-head”/“big wig”[nickname].)… Thlayli was doing wonderfully. I stayed up all night and all the next day just keeping an eye on him. He was eating brilliantly (kitten milk at first, then warmed cow milk seemed to go over much better). Both bunnies opened their eyes and loved to cuddle in my hands. Hrududu didn’t eat as well, but loved to hop around and explore or was content and calm in my hands. I had placed a beloved plushy bear in their box for them to have as a surrogate mummy to sleep under and feel safe. Thlayli started having fits of going tharn (stiff/ literally scared stiff or death like state) and as panicked as I was at all that, the long and short of it was we got into a routine where when it happened or started to happen I would caress him calm and we got it down to him only being tharn or starting to be for only just a few moments at worst… so after hours of worrying to close to hysteria and not letting him out of my sight, once a pattern was recognizable I calmed down and figured that it was either probably some form of weaning anxiety or Post Traumatic Stress syndromes. When I finally though he was safe enough to allow myself to stop fighting the crash of almost no sleep for over 24 hours (or was it 48 by then??)… I kept him in a small box right next to me on my nightstand right by my head and I fell asleep in the wee hours of the morning after Glenn got home from work and crashed too. I kept waking to check every sound though. Thlayli was finally over the fits of the night and sleeping well.
I woke up later that morning… and he had died.

I was completely devastated.

I blamed myself. He died alone. I could not process that.

I died again with him, I think. It was mighty hard not to sink into urges of harming myself, but I somehow remembered I had other animals who needed me… It was all a blur. I buried him beneath a Princess Diana rose bush (she was another Hero of mine), and made him a little plaque for a grave marker, and a nice circle of stones surrounding it. I focused on the other baby bunny…. Who was thriving, it seemed. I knew I would not be able to give this one up now. We got him supplies to make him a good life with us ,though we still were torn as to what was best for him … it was clear we both were too attached already, and I latched onto caring for the remaining bunny with a renewed desperation. He was doing so well. Eating like a pig, growing like a weed, and seemed happy and so well adjusted to everything – even was calm with the attention of both the dogs and all the cats! He loved the attention, but nothing compared to how much he just loved hopping into my hands and just being held and stroked. Like a cat, he let you know under no uncertain terms that he wanted more, please! He looked like he felt safe and happy, and I was glad I was finally doing something right and being useful to something that needed me.

A little over a week from his joining our lives… he suddenly and unexpectedly died for no apparent reason.
I won’t go into details… It’s too hard. But he was next to me almost all day in his cage on my bed… and …. He went tharn and I couldn’t revive him. He died in my hands.

I went hysterical with grief and shock.

This on top of a week filled with shocking and hard deaths to deal with… Thlayli, Michael Jackson, and now… my only other thread of hope was taken away from me yet again. And I was alone and furious in my grief as to “why?”.

Why does this keep happening to me?
Why does everything I love get taken away?
Why does every bit of hope I manage to fight to find get ripped away?
Why… why should I keep living through all this pain that never ends?
Why?
…Why?

And I let fear rule me when I looked over to my sick and ailing beloved dog with diabetes, and wondered when I would be facing the unimaginable loss of him… then over to my youngest dog who is so full of life and energy – whom also has a potentially life-threatening medical condition (a heart murmur). My life still felt like a living nightmare that I couldn’t wake up from.

Why? Why? WHY???

I don’t know why. I guess it wouldn’t matter if I did know either because it wouldn’t change anything.
So here I am… shuffling through the ashes once again trying to make something out of them and my tears as glue…

I am angry and hurt and numb. I barely made it through burying him… When he died I held him in my arms for around 3 hours before I could put him down. I had him “sleep” next to me in his spot attached to my bed for one last time as I tried to prepare myself for letting go. I buried him the next morning next to his sibling under the Diana rosebush and made him a special plaque marker as well. It took me a few hours, and given my swollen eyes and shaky hands it probably wasn’t the wisest idea to wield a hot soldering iron (wood burning tool) that is hot enough to burn your skin off just by being close to it, let alone touching it… but I did it, and I didn’t hurt myself, neither by accident or on purpose. I had another friend I needed to make sure was properly honored and remembered, and that was more important.

So there you have it my dears. This is just another typical week, sad to say. I hope it offers an explanation as to why I have been absent from my DA life as of late. It’s a small miracle I have been able to do any “art” at all in these last few years, when you think of it. But I plod on.

Somehow. “Why?” gets set aside and I plod on.