{"id":7,"date":"2008-10-07T13:40:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-07T19:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/msdomesticdarling.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/the-ties-that-bind\/"},"modified":"2008-10-07T13:40:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-07T19:40:00","slug":"the-ties-that-bind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/msdomesticdarling.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/the-ties-that-bind\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ties That Bind"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_88J31rokkCk\/SOu_VmXKvEI\/AAAAAAAAADA\/NDPC2Jkz08w\/s1600-h\/thunderstorm.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_88J31rokkCk\/SOu_VmXKvEI\/AAAAAAAAADA\/NDPC2Jkz08w\/s320\/thunderstorm.jpg\" alt=\"\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5254503768053693506\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><br \/>My grandmother passed away last week. I flew to Florida to attend her wake and funeral. I was accompanied by my mom, who hasn&#8217;t flown in 10 years and was scared beyond belief. We made it though, without incident I might add.<\/p>\n<p>It was a tough weekend. I was happy to see my grandpa (Papa) and my Aunt who I haven&#8217;t seen in five years, and spend some time with my (step) sister. It sucked that it came this way, but life has it&#8217;s subtle reminders for you. Take time, or live with the regret. I get to spend the rest of my life wondering what kind of relationship I could have had with my grandmother (Gramme) had I picked up the phone and called or written a letter. All I have are the memories of an 8 year old girl, blurry though they are, they&#8217;re special to me.<\/p>\n<p>The grandmother I remember was not the frail body I saw this weekend. I don&#8217;t know what they did to her, but she was not there. I&#8217;ve never done well at funerals. I don&#8217;t handle bodies very well typically. This time, however, I was ok. I cried and hugged family, but I also said goodbye, something I can&#8217;t normally handle. I&#8217;m so grateful I could do it this time, I think I really needed it.<\/p>\n<p>After the wake and funeral, we shared stories and memories of days that have long passed, it was nice to wake up in a house that I had only a childs memory of, and it was still the same. The furniture, unmoved, pictures still hung in the same place, the toast and tea for breakfast, everything just like it &#8220;used to be&#8221;. Though, I am older now, I reverted back to feeling like I was that little girl again.<\/p>\n<p>It was the hardest trip home I&#8217;ve had to make, I cried more in the last 4 days than I have in months. Real, genuine tears. I have promised myself I will not let years pass by again before my next visit and I will pick up the phone and call my grandpa more often. He&#8217;s such a sweet man, I miss him already&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>On my way to Orlando Airport yesterday, my husband called with some grim news of our dog. Apparently he couldn&#8217;t move the back half of his body anymore and was dragging himself around. The prognosis was a herniated disc (most likely). He&#8217;s on steroid therapy for a few weeks and they are hoping it will heal itself and he&#8217;ll be fine. If it doesn&#8217;t work, it means surgery and no guarantee that it will help at all. The thought of having to put that poor puppy (he&#8217;s only 7) to sleep breaks my heart, but it hurts more to see the sadness that has consumed my husband. Rocky is literally one of his best friends.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s hope this is the end of my thunderstorm and I get to see the sunlight soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My grandmother passed away last week. I flew to Florida to attend her wake and funeral. I was accompanied by my mom, who hasn&#8217;t flown in 10 years and was scared beyond belief. We made it though, without incident I might add. It was a tough weekend. I was happy to see my grandpa (Papa) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-death","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/msdomesticdarling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/msdomesticdarling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/msdomesticdarling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/msdomesticdarling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/msdomesticdarling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/msdomesticdarling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/msdomesticdarling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/msdomesticdarling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/msdomesticdarling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}