Weekly Workout – darkest of days

I’m finding it hard to put together a cohesive post on the events of the past week. There was a lot of heartbreak. This is generally a running/fitness blog, but in the past week all of the fitness details seem to be silly compared to what was happening in my life.

Mon – 4 easy miles, treadmill. Since it was MLK day, it was a day off work for me. I ran on the treadmill and then focused on putting Christmas stuff away. As I mentioned last week, my cat Zoe has not been doing well. I tried many things to get her to eat today, and even gave her subcutaneous fluids (IV bag) hoping that would help her out. Not much progress. Here’s my other cat Luna helping with decorations.

Tues – 5 miles with fartleks. I was tired after this one, but it felt good.

Shortly after I started working remotely from home I got a call from my Mom. My Dad had passed away. The rest of the day was spent with my Mom. My Dad has had medical issues in the past few years and even spent Christmas 2022 in the hospital, but since that time he has been home. In fact, my Mom said he had a good day on Monday. So his death was unexpected. He passed away in his sleep in the early morning, just 15 days before his 86th birthday. As you can imagine, it was a heartbreaking day. This was the last picture of him I have, from Dec 29th. It was a good night and the family was all together.

As if this wasn’t enough for the day, my daughter got in to a minor car accident in the evening. Her car was scratched when someone turned into her car. Luckily everyone was OK, but it was stressful.

Weds – Just when I thought I had no more tears to cry, we made the tough decision to put Zoe to sleep. Her breathing had changed over the night and she refused to eat and drink. Again, another very painful, heart breaking day. She was 14 years old. Zoe was mostly my daughter’s cat, and we all took her to the vet that morning. A tough thing for anyone to go through, even more so seeing my daughter hold Zoe as she passed peacefully.

The rest of the week was kind of a blur. I spent most days wondering what day it was! Final arrangements were made. I’ve spent a lot of time looking through old pictures getting ready for the visitation at the funeral home. My dad used to take us all over the country camping when I was young. Now you know where I get my sense of adventure! He also taught me the value of a dollar and instilled a strong work ethic in me.

I will miss his weekly calls asking for my assistance with his computer and to chat with me. Although his travel was limited in the past few years, he did join us for camping last year. He regularly looked for webcams to view the places I was traveling to, and give me a report on the weather and news about what was happening there. I’m pretty much still in shock from the events this past week. I can’t believe this has all happened. 😢

I hope you have had a better week than us.