3 years ago I wrote my first blog about my former boss who made my life miserable and ended up killing herself. It got an E.P. and I was hooked.

3 short years later and so much has changed, while so much has stayed the same.

When I first wrote at my desk at home overlooking Pearl Harbor, my husband was relatively healthy, although dealing with M.S., I was employed full time in my profession and we were enjoying living in Paradise; my son was a teenager still in highschool.

3 years later: we've moved to Colorado, my son is in South Korea in the Air Force and my husband has cancer. 

One songwriter says that for the privilege of living each day, we will be given our heartaches, our hardships. Our choices. One cousin just points out that after the age of 50, there's a lot of shit to put up with. Parents aging, getting sick and dying.  Our grown children on their own in harms way. Our own mortality on the front burner.  

Tonight I got home from my little office in town and my husband said, "let's go on an adventure." He and the dogs had found a buck, dead and decomposing, with a beautiful 3 point rack, on their daily hike. Killed by coyotes and being eaten by them, the head and antlers were still good and in the tradition of True Blood, he wanted to bring that home.  Did I want to go and get that in 30 degree weather in the dark? No. I did not. But I said okay and off we went, bundled up against the cold.

We hiked one mile in the sunset; I'm afraid of coyotes, mountain lions, vampires, werewolves and the neighbors large mongrels. In the tradition of Anne Lamott, if a deer looks at me, my nerves are so shot I think it's going to lunge for my throat, instead of mildly chewing tall grass.

But I went. He got his deer head. And we walked along the railroad tracks in the snow, me with the saw, him with the head and antlers. He wanted to take a short cut to our house, being cold and exhausted. But I said, "will you walk all the way with me because I'm afraid?" And he said yes.  

And later, in the dark he said, "will you walk all the way with me because I'm afraid?"

And I said yes.