Suddenly....it was August

You have to imagine that title being voiced by the Rickster doing his best (which is awful) Jacques Cousteau impression.  It's been his go to sentence when imitating the French explorer for as long as I've known him.  First time he did it, we were canoeing along the Little Manatee River, nearly 20 years ago.  And it's always brought a smile to my face.

Still does, but it's a bittersweet little smile now because August has become a month I rather dread.

Pop's birthday is August 5, and while I will always cherish that last birthday that I tried so hard to make special (not really knowing, but feeling that it would be the last) it was the last.  Only a few weeks later, he went into the hospital for his radical neck dissection (thyroid cancer) and while he came through that surgery like a champ and went home in 4 days, it was only for long enough to get his wish -- to die at home. 

So, I was alone, the Rickster tending to our house in NM while I worked and tried to hang on to normalcy while feeling that everything had just broken in me.

Thankfully, that summer my good friend, Stretch, came to stay with me for a few days just after Pop's funeral.  It was sanity for me. 

Now, while I am temporarily Rickster-less for the summer again, the Auburn Amazon is coming for a visit tomorrow.  Both Stretch and the Amazon are amazing friends whom I originally met through an online chat group on a weight loss website.  Over the years many of the folks in that group have met in real life and become a very large support network, and a smaller group of them have become good friends, and even smaller group the very best of friends.The first example of the amazing support of that group was actually put together by the Amazon.  She called it "Project Hand" and had a bunch of the folks in the group make decorative hands as a symbol that I had a hand to hold onto.  It meant so much. Still does.  I'll be talking more about these women later. 

Stretch, who has become one of my very closest friends -- ever -- is also slated for a return visit in a couple weeks and I imagine she'll provide a now very lean and well-muscled shoulder for me to cry on while I miss the hell out of my Pop.