You never know when the time is the last one....

 I pulled up some Facebook memories today.  I found this post from 2019:

The livestock barn was so peaceful at 5am, steers were passed out, I swear some of them were snoring. Almost hated to make any sound at all to disrupt the peacefulness before the busy day begins.

This year is the last although it is much different from the rest.  This year there won't be a week long stay for show animals in the show barn.  There won't be a wash rack to wash them on.  The smell of fresh wood chip bedding won't waft into the air jarring the memories of county fair.  There won't be any sitting around in front of large fans with friends and family while your show animals settle in their stalls.  

My daughter thought the summer before her Senior year would be as it always has been.  We take for granted the fact that this time will happen again.  The moments are cherished nearly enough until we know there will be none.  And then we realize they were more important than they seemed.  We will be at the fair this year with two show steers as we have for the last five years but the memories of before will not be repeated.  

When you think, oh, we'll do that again, we'll do that later, we'll do that next year, remember this moment in our history where nothing is expected to ever be the same.  Enjoy the moments now and really enjoy them for you might never get a chance to repeat them.

Some people say we will never be the same and maybe it's a good wake up call to really appreciate the things that we hold dear.  

However, it's not the way I thought we would say goodbye to 4H and FFA.

Breathe in!  Breathe out!  Just Breathe.

Those are the words from a friend of mine who happens to work in behavioral health as a counselor.  However, it's easier said than done these days.

Today, July 20th, 2020 marks exactly 5,229 days since I opened my eyes in the Emergency Department of Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs, Colorado.  That day was a Thursday, March 23, 2006.

"You have NINE pulmonary emboli!  NINE!"  the nice little ER doc with the University of Oklahoma scrubs said out loud over my bed to me.  My first thought was oh he's from Oklahoma too.  It's hard to find an Okie out here in Colorado but they do drift northwest every now and then.  Then, he had a serious look on his face.  "One can kill you, one pulmonary embolism.  That's a blood clot in your lung, but you have made NINE of them, " he stated again.  "So I'm an overachiever!?"  not funny, apparently but true if you look at it that way.

I was feeling woozy from the good fall I'd taken.  I blacked out and was caught by my fellow police academy recruit friends.

"Ok, just fill my prescription and I'll be on my way, " I followed up with an air of confidence. 
Nope.  It was straight upstairs to the fourth floor for me.  I was headed to ICU.....without a change of underwear.  Thank God for girlfriends who brought me some.

I grabbed the oxygen mask off my face to exclaim that I had a test I needed to study for and be in class for the next day. 
Nope.
Sometimes life has other plans for you.  However, researching the severity of blood clots in the lung I realize now that God had other plans for me.  I was supposed to be here for a reason, a purpose. 

I think of this day often and the weekend and few days I spent in the Intensive care unit.  I have been able to run again, live again and breathe again. 

Life is too short to put off telling those you love that you do!!  And to appreciate the little things people do for you and what they mean to you. 

Sure, there are awful, greedy, mean and selfish (let's not forget stupid) souls out there but I think getting to know them makes me appreciate the good as much as I should. 

Friends!  Listen up!!  I love and appreciate all of you so much.  And we'll get through this asshat Governor's stupid mandate four months into a pandemic somehow.

 I might lose friends but if you've been able to click in and read this, you're still here.  Thank you for your support in everything.

A

April is......Challenging at best!

April really sucks! 

We were kinda conditioned to feel as if it was some sort of sacrificial suffering for rewards in May.  Remember the saying "April Showers Bring May Flowers?"

What a cruel and crass way to begin a blog, right?
But let's look at some reasons why I might say such a thing.

Historically, it's true.  April is the month in which Abraham Lincoln was assassinated as was Dr. Martin Luther King Junior.

April is the month the Titanic sank, the month of the Ludlow Massacre, the Hillsborough disaster of 89, the fire at Notre Dame.

I remember watching the events of the Waco Branch Davidian compound unfold on cable news.  And later as a reporter I covered the Oklahoma City Bombing April 19th where 168 people lost their lives as the Alfred P. Murrah building was bombed.  It was truly terror in the heartland until we knew what was really going on. 

Of course April is a terrible month for tornadoes.  The conditions are just right to make a whole bunch of them when cool spring airs collides with warmer air or something like that. As a reporter I've storm chased more in this month than any other.  Kinda like sleep with your clothes on, that was the feeling anyway when I worked in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Fast forward a few years to the Columbine High School Shooting outside of Littleton, Colorado.  I don't think that needs further explanation and I'm sure we all remember.  The Virginia Tech school shootings also occurred during this fourth month of the year. 

The Deepwater Horizon explosion goes down in the history books this month, in fact, it was this week.  You might remember that BP oil spill.  Several were killed and injured. 

The Boston Marathon bombing was April 15th, 2013.  A fertilizer storage and distribution plant north of Waco, Texas exploded this week in history.  The ammonium nitrate explosion killed 15 people and injured 160 others.

Now, I know all of this COVID-19 stuff started happening earlier in the year, but I'm going to go ahead and put it in the April category for suck as well.  After all the stay-at-home orders, everything closed, everything cancelled, changed, postponed, re-designed, moved on-line stuff is really starting to wear on us.  I think we need to understand that there is light at the end of this tunnel of trauma.

I didn't even mention TAX Day but that's bad and goes without saying, for most hard working Americans anyway.

Just some nerdy news thoughts about this month for you.

Come on MAY!

~Anne,
anneboswelltaylor@gmail.com