Journal

Friday, March 7, 2008 1:26 PM CST

It has been way too long since I have journaled at all, but in my defense we have not been online in months. Finally we are back online with a new email address for all sanpatsunni@usawide.net if anyone is interested. I know not too many people visit anymore, but I thought I would keep you up to date anyway.

Dakota is doing wonderfully, he is so tall, and he is getting such muscle from all of the fresh air and running and playing. You can see the maturity in his face now. The boy has been through a lot and that shows in his eyes. Wow, it seems like not so long ago I was talking about him losing his first tooth, and now he is just so different. He misses Justis like crazy, everything we do, we all feel this hole, we miss his presence. Just this morning we were eating at IHOP and out of the blue Dakota said "I miss Justis" (uh-hello-lump in my throat now, don't think I can eat those eggs anymore). He is looking forward to Camp this summer, and I am hoping and praying that there will still be room for him to go. This year Cheyenne can go too, and she is excited about this, and here again I hope and pray there is room for her. Dakota gets such healing at camp. Your average individual just doesn't understand what we have been through. This is a place that "gets" it. It is so good for him. Anyway, he is studying out of sixth grade books and Cheyenne is learning to read and write. I am rounding that out with learning responsibility for the animals, and the like. We are still enjoying Montana like we did when we first got him, he has turned out to be very healing for me too, when I get relaly blue I find myself in the pasture - did you know horses have wonderfully absorbent manes? Montana's has sure absorbed a lot of tears. I am still having a very hard time. See I got through the anniversary of Justis's passing thanks to my friends who came out here just to be with me. Not too long ago I lost a very good old friend to lung cancer - I HATE CANCER! He was one of the good ole boys, do anything for you, and he had a quiet sense of calm, he was one of my best friends for the past 16 years or so and he is gone. He had a deep voice (kinda like Josh Turner the country singer) and he would always tell me "Hang in there girl" I can still hear him, but it is hard to think I will never hear him again. He loved to fish, maybe he is up there teaching Justis to catch the "big one" on some golden body of water. I know, that like Justis he put up one hell of a fight, and he never quit, he said one thing that I like to think about, and that was that he was in a "win-win" situation, if he beat the cancer he got to stay here with his loved ones, if he didn't then he got to go to Heaven - well, Randy - YOU WON **I love you Randy, you and Justis take care of each other until we all meet again, maybe we can all throw a line in the water together.

Anyway, back to the kids, Tucker is the biggest ham ever, he is so goofy and silly, he has Justis's personality, he likes to see us all laugh, and he can fall, tumble, scrape, stub toes, and there is barely ever more than an "ow". He is so busy and getting so big - oh and he is potty trained!! woo hoo! My big boy. He does the funniest things, the list is so long. He really loves the horse, and like me will spend lots of time standing at the gate, he has to give him a smooch on the muzzle every day. Every time I ride (usually on the weekends I take Montana for a nice long ride to keep him in shape 3-5 miles) I have to put Tucker in the saddle with me and we ride around the property, and it takes a lot to get him to get off, he loves to ride. All of the kids do really. Dakota is learning to ride solo - with no one leading the horse, he does pretty well. There is a pasture near ours full of cows and sometimes they come right up to the barbed wire fence, and Tucker yells at the top of his lungs COW! There is one bull and Tucker knows the difference, when it is the bull he will yell BULL! Even when we are in the enclosed space of the car and he sees one he will yell and I mean YELL out when he sees one - to the point that the driver taps the brake and the kids seated next to him plug their ears and say "ow".

Well, many of you know that the anniversary of Justis's diagnosis (March 23) is fast approaching, please keep me in your prayers, I am falling apart and am liable to drown the horse in tears (hopefully he is a good swimmer). That was the day that changed my life forever, it changed who I am, it changed my kids, it changed my family. I know one thing is true, my heart is ripped in two so much so that every memory is a double edged sword, sweet for the fact that I was given that memory, bitter for the fact that there will be no more like that one, I so wanted to see my son graduate high school, fall in love, get married start a family, become a pilot, whatever it was I wanted to see it all, that is something Justis and I will never get. I also know that the more time passes the further I feel from Justis, I can't imagine living a whole lifetime with this pain. More soon, I promise.

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