The pulling us out of the trenches has been a respite for me. Our daughter received beautiful scarves from Etsy's and other places and thank you all so much for that.
She bought herself a cute bathing suit and she carried us all out to a nice dinner.
She had to take some courses and getting her Drivers License ( Required in florida) and
she was welledup with tears as was Jack and me to get our rings and place them on
our fingers. He has been hospitalized twice since the rescue and the rescue thanks to all of you and Kitsap River put us on a bit of a small cushion that we have not had since...ever that I can remember....maybe 2002.
We managed to take a 3 day trip 60 miles up the road for some beach time after the hospital time as Jack fell and had a heart ( stress related incident) and needed the book and beach at the little quaint motel court. Not fancy but suited our needs.
When I returned home I had to get busy with a congressman to take up a situation of a paper pusher at the VA taking Jack off transportation pick up ( overriding a doctor,,three actually) and spent most of yesterday on the phone taking names and making noise.
During our little three day away...one of our best friends, who happened to help me start up UVA and was responsible for my starting advocacy for vets died from agent orange....on my birthday....A fan called and told me that he had wanted her to sing Happy Birthday to me if he didn't make it. He had done that for years. She did.
I spent one day..my birthday.June 18th..trying to help his wife in Texas via email and phone set up a military funeral with honors.. Scotty Decker was his name and an awesome musician and singer who lived in Nashville when I got all involved with getting his benefits and ADA accountability..which led me to DC.
I paid us out of major overload behind bills and cannot thank you all enough for caring for this famiy so very much. I have been not very active online as I have been significantly busy with bill paying, hospitals, mini vacations and yet another funeral of a dear veteran. I also wanted to start trying to take better care of me and stop and smell the roses and you guys were responsible for that.
God Bless you all and thank you......You guys made sure my birthday was less stressful.
We knew Scotty was fading and he called me when Daddy died.. Imagine that...one with brain cancer worrying about a person and they are on their death bed. I see all of you as good friends much like Scotty.. he came up with the slogan, " We really care".
DaNang was watching events play out on my FB as the news was coming in about arrangements and just like a regular Kossack here was standing by in case I needed extra help in arranging for that funeral.
You guys are the best. I wanted to get pics up of the scarves an gifts but don't have that ability right at the moment tech wise. Love you guys and from my family to this community of dear friends..Thank you so very much for EVERYTHING. I love you all.
This is kind of two diaries in one as I wanted to take this time to also remember Scotty because as I am still an advocate, yet another voice in the org. has passed so the organization will need handing off or extreme tweeking so it kind of began and ended with the work I was doing for a Nahville vet. His funeral is tomorrow. Goodbye Scotty, and the inspiration that you gave Jack and me reached across the nation and hope I will be able to continue on as a strong veterans advocate without having the burden of keeping up a little 501 that has seen it's time. I hope you all enjoy a song I found by Scotty three days before he died as I knew he probably would not be singing to me on my birthday anymore and it is odd as we never heard him do this song but there it was on you tube and very appropriate for Jack and me.
It is called The Last Song..