Originally posted on 10/8/16
Today I drove a 26 foot U-Haul truck. While driving it occurred to me that I would never have done this when Patrick was alive. To be fair, I didn’t have to drive it today. The plan was for Denny to drive it but it made more sense for me to since it needed to be parked at my house tonight. And Denny was hosting our monthly “First Friday” get together so it made more sense for him to get home. He will be driving it to Burrough Valley tomorrow so we can move my mom and Ernie into town. He doesn’t really want to do it either but that’s what brothers are for! Lol
There have been a lot of things I have learned that I never had to do before. I have cleaned the pool filter at least 10 times and I have spent many hours brushing the sides of the pool and skimming leaves off the top. I changed the handle on the toilet. I cleaned Aggie’s ears. I drove the bus. Ok, I didn’t actually drive it but I pulled it out of the garage and back in.
I have also done things that I knew how to do but never had to before. I am now the scooper of dog poop, a job he hated and complained about regularly. And yeah I probably should have done it sooner but I never had to. I do the grocery shopping, occasionally, lol. I still don’t cook much but I’m making an effort to cook more. There are countless other things that I just never had to do but there is no reason why I can’t do them now.
Today I also put registration tags on my car and his bus. I’ve done this before but usually, I just had him do it. He really could do just about anything. And I’m amazed that I’m even able to function without him but I know he is my guardian angel! I think that is why I feel I can do just about anything now. That doesn’t mean that I don’t occasionally dissolve into tears if I can’t immediately figure something out. The pool has made me cry several times and I felt pretty helpless when the smoke alarm in the attic needed a new battery (thank you, Denny, for climbing up there to replace it). At the same time, I like it when I can figure things out for myself. I think it makes me feel like I am going to be okay.
We will really miss him tomorrow. He was very strong and would have been a huge help. Plus he would have spent the day joking around with Denny and Tom and made the move a lot more entertaining. And I know he would have driven the U-Haul for us!