The deed has been done. Chance is asleep.

I have been crying since I got home yesterday, and I still don't know if the hurt will ever go away.

God, why did you have to make dogs, the one animal that seems totally capable of unconditional love, live so shortly? It's not fair.

I got the call from my mom this morning.

It's the end of the road for Chance this Saturday. I am besides myself with grief, and maybe just a touch of guilt. Mom told me she feels the same, but at the same point, I'm still not exactly happy with the outcome. So, I'll be in KC this weekend, but I'm not really going to feel like doing much, more than likely.

Mom's told me that he's not sleeping, and he's having more and more incontinence issues, and won't even eat on top of that, so maybe this is for the best. It still doesn't stop the pain. That's the problem. The pain is still there. And it hurts.

Sixteen years with Chance, at times, seemed like it was forever. Times like now, I realise how very little time that is.

I really should be in bed, but instead, I'm here.

Grandpa's funeral was the balm to my Uncle Tom's fiasco (which, that it was, even if I didn't post it. It was downright inappropriate, the things his pastor said, and that I may go over in a later post). It wasn't a traditionally Catholic service (my Uncle Ham's father is a Baptist minister, and he did the service, and he did the service as a friend of my grandfather, and with that, came things like, "Well, this is what he would want me to say," and he'd hit the nail right on the head), and Uncle Ham and his brother Gary played "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," on harmonica and guitar. A simple service, yes, but a good, solid, balm to those who mourn.

It's the first time in years I've seen my mother be welcomed back to that side. My cousin Matt kept calling her Aunt Betty (she hasn't been his aunt for over ten years), my Uncle Ham referred to her as his sister-in-law countless times, and my father and my mother actually hugged. I'm still shocked. My Uncle Paul was cordial to my mother, and even introduced his partner, Will to her.

Full reconciliation may never occur, but I rejoice when I see this. There are things I understand now, and there are things that I may never understand.

Grandpa was cremated, but instead of being interred into a columbarium, he was buried in his plot at Mount Olivet. It was a military funeral, as he was a part of the Navy during WWII, as an Electrician's Mate. My cousin Matt and I are the worse off, I think, as we're the two oldest at 32 and 24 respectively. Grandma was strangely composed, although, this is the second funeral fro Grandpa and the third Ost funeral since November 2005. She doesn't look good: she's losing weight, she didn't eat much at the reception afterwards, and she isn't the Grandma I know, personality-wise.

I'm not going into work for the next two days, though I'm still torn: do I go back and try to get back to normal as soon as I can, or do I try and finish mourning? Considering I've been an absolute wreck, I'm hedging my bets towards the safer side and will take my remaining two bereavement days. I'm not sure I have to call in further, but I probably will. I'm tired of crying, and it even hurts to cry, but that's all I feel like doing. I know I'm depressed, and I know that this is an even harder time of year to feel this way, but I do. It's not fun, and I wish I didn't feel this way, sometimes.

However, if I didn't, I'd be a robot, totally incapable of any kind of emotion, and that's not the way that God made me. But this depression thing sucks. I hate it, and I hate feeling that absolutely gut-wrenchingly powerless feeling that goes along with it.

At the very least, I'll get a head-start on my Christmas cards, and I'll be able to get things out in the mail that I haven't been able to do so yet.

Just something I've been working on, and something I believe strongly in doing.

Let me know what you think.

Meanwhile, the funeral is this weekend, and I'll be out of town again. Please pray that we all get home (Anti, Jake, and me) safely, considering it's supposed to get rather nasty in terms of weather.

In reading the obituary, I got very angry, as I'm missing the services in Colorado...and not thinking that "hey, there should be more services in KC." I'm a little scatterbrained right now.

Anyway, I panicked, called home a gajillion times (thanks for asking the right questions, rogh_sensei and Tina), and then called my Aunt Rose, who has all of the right answers in this case (she would...she's the executor of the will, I believe), and we talked a bit about how Grandpa wouldn't want us to worry about things, as God will take care of them.

In short, "consider the lilies of the field." God has a funny way of making His truths known, even in these nasty-stressful situations.

Meanwhile, my maternal grandmother told me about something that Grandpa had told her when my maternal grandfather passed away, and she told my brother the same thing. "We do not grieve the death. We celebrate the life."

I'm still struggling with the difference in grieving and celebrating, but I'm getting better.

I'll be packing for the upcoming weekend soon, and while I'm still not in a place of comfort, at least emotionally speaking, but every day is a step in the right direction.

Grandpa, you've touched my life in amazing ways, and I will always hold you in my heart.

November 14, 1926 - November 18, 2007

Richard James “Dick” Ost, husband, father, and over 25 year resident of Colorado Springs, CO, died on November 18, 2007. A funeral service will be held at Shrine of Remembrance at 10:00 a.m., Wednesday. Visitation will be held one hour prior. Interment will be at Mount Olivet Cemetery, Kansas City, Missouri.

Mr. Ost was born in Kansas City, Missouri on November 14, 1926. He served his country as an Electrician’s Mate in the Pacific theater during World War II and was honorably discharged in June 1946. Upon leaving the Navy, he studied engineering at the Missouri School of Mines at Rolla. He was registered as a Professional Engineer in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado. After serving a four-year apprenticeship in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Mr. Ost was recognized as a Class A Journeyman. He was a member of Local Union #124 of the IBEW since 1950. Mr. Ost enjoyed a successful career as an engineer, designing and supervising the construction of numerous power plants in the U.S.
Mr. Ost was recognized as a Senior and Life member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. He was a Life member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Post 4051, a member of the National Rifle Association and a certified NRA Instructor for Personal Protection and for pistols and revolvers. He was also a member of the Law Enforcement Alliance of America.

As a youth, Mr. Ost was active in the Boy Scouts, achieving the distinguished rank of Eagle Scout/Mic-o-Say. He was actively involved with the Scouts as a leader with his sons’ troops and with Scout Headquarters in Kansas City. He was an avid swimmer and tennis player.

On October 7, 1950, Mr. Ost married Mary Catherine Duggins, and to this union, seven children were born. Mr. Ost was preceded in death by his parents, his brother William, a daughter, Theresa and son, Thomas. He is survived by his wife, Mary of Colorado Springs, daughters Catherine (Hamilton) Kirkland, Shawnee, KS and Rose Anne Ost, Colorado Springs; daughter-in-law, Lisa Ost, Linn, KS; and by sons Stephen, Roeland Park, KS; Edward (Sheila), Overland Park, KS and Paul, Denver, and by close family friend Will Biles. Mr. Ost also leaves eight grandchildren: Matthew and Alexander Kirkland, Rachel and Jacob Ost, Natalie and Nicole Ost and Nicholas and Samantha Ost.

Surviving brothers are Jack (Genevieve) Ost of Pompton Plains, NJ; Mark (Carole) Ost of Pineville, Missouri; sister, Patricia (Frank) Regan of O’Fallon, Missouri and sister-in-law Patricia Ost of Kearney, Mo. Also to miss him are many nephews and nieces.

Mr. Ost was locally known as a “Curmudgeon at Large” and took great delight in making people smile and laugh every day with his enormous repertoire of humorous stories and anecdotes. He had a great love of the writings of Mark Twain. He did not suffer fools lightly, but was a protector of the elderly and weak.

The family requests no flowers, and instead suggests memorial donations to Pikes Peak Hospice Foundation, 825 East Pikes Peak Avenue, Suite 600, Colorado Springs, CO 80903-3624, or Care and Share Food Bank, 2520 Aviation Way, Colorado Springs, CO 80916.

It is one of the mysteries of our nature that a man, all unprepared, can receive a thunder-stroke like that and live. There is but one reasonable explanation of it. The intellect is stunned by the shock and but gropingly gathers the meaning of the words. The power to realize their full import is mercifully lacking.
- Mark Twain's Autobiography (on Suzy Clemen's death)

Well, I still don't know when/where any of the arrangements are. It's almost typical by this point, as my brother and I still remain the outcasts in this family and the communication systems always seem to bog down the worst here.

I'm sorry, but after eighteen years of this behaviour, things are a little old. I understand that this family is really dysfunctional, but, for once, could we all just flippin' get along and try to understand that it's a situation that everyone is hurting over? It's not that hard. Besides, there are enough family members with the knowledge of the events that happened nearly two decades ago.

I would be over it, but it's really hard to be when after the divorce was finalised, everyone scattered like rats from the sewer. At least, that's what it felt like. And, as a result of this, the only cousin I feel relatively close to is the eldest one, Matt, but we've got a few more years on everyone else, and even then I don't get a chance to talk to him often. Hell, I'm closer to my mother's family than I am to my father's. It's not something I necessarily agree with. Granted, there's five of you and two of them, but good Lord, people! How hard is it to send a Christmas card to let us know that you still care? I really resent the fact that instead of family reunions, we have funerals. Not cool.

Osts, you need to step up. You need to realise that what you've done for the past fifty years isn't working. Learn to take control of the situation, even in your grief, and move ahead. I'm grieving. We're all grieving. However, we need to come together as a family, and support each other. After all, what a family is supposed to do.

It's what Grandpa would have wanted.

Grandpa died at ten o'clock this morning.

I've just edited my last post. At least everything will be in KC, so that really is a relief.

And to think that I wanted him to walk me down the aisle, too. Life is too fragile, Lord. Too fragile for any of us to realise. One day, we think we're totally invincible, and then the next day, someone close to us dies, and we're reduced to a pile of nothingness.

Right now, I'm trying to think of what I want to place in his coffin. I know he can't take it with him, but I want him to have something (and it'd be an odd anthropological thing, too). I am planning on taking the wedding proofs from his wedding to Grandma (which was almost sixty years ago), but I want to keep those close by, so I can display them at a table at my wedding, whenever the hell that is. (That's my big thing, family history. I really want to have wedding pictures from as many close family members as I can so that they have a part in my day)

Anyway...I don't want Grandpa to go like this, but then again, I don't want him to go...which is pretty selfish, but it's true. It's not like it was out of the blue like Uncle Tom. This one, I have warning for, and it's not fun.

My grandfather is in a bone-cancer related coma right now.

The doctors have given him twenty-four hours to live.

I'm shaking, literally, and am even wondering if I need to pack to hop on the plane to Colorado to work on the final arrangements with my family.

Please pray for my family. This is too much at once. Uncle Tom, Great-Uncle Bill, and now Grandpa.

If I disappear for a few days, I'm probably in Colorado.

EDIT: I just got a call from home. Services will be in KC, so it's a lot closer to home (it -is- home), so it will be easier to drop everything. I might ask Anti to let me take his computer with me so we can keep in touch.