loss – Xine's Pack

In the Blink of an Eye

[Note to the reader: This is a post that I update from time to time. The original post was started in 2013]

In the blink of an eye, half a year has passed, and my world and the world at large have undergone significant changes. Over the past five months, my family and I have been bidding farewell to my father, packing up and clearing out two homes, and preparing them for sale. My sister and her husband deserve a round of applause for seeing everything through till the end – my father couldn’t have asked for a better farewell. But with goodbyes comes grief, and it seems like death has been a recurring theme lately, whether it’s losing loved ones or our furry and feathered friends.

But as they say, there’s always light at the end of the tunnel, and for me, that light comes in the form of spring finally arriving on the mountain, albeit with a bit too much rain. In the first week of May alone, we’ve had more than five inches of rainfall, which follows the six inches we received in April. The ground is soggier than a wet sponge in some places! Particularly down by where we had a couple of beavers dam up our culvert right before all the rain! However, it’s time to embrace the season and start planting our garden now that the fear of frost has passed (we hope).

On a brighter note, I recently received my first royalty check from the sales of my memoir, Xine’s Pack of Stray & Others. The fact that thirty people purchased and read my book in the first three months is a thrilling feeling. I’m working on promoting the book and brainstorming ideas for my next project, whatever that may be. Despite the challenges, I’m grateful for the changes and the new beginnings that come with them.

The stream flooding over our driveway thanks to the beavers damming up the culvert before all the rain

In the blink of an eye…it’s November 2022…We just celebrated 7 years living here on the mountain. So much has gone on in these last four years. I sold the house in Connecticut when Covid turned the housing market around two year ago. The last few years have been unsettling for more reasons than just having to quarantine. We all have caught Covid despite being immunized and careful. Everyone’s lives have changed one way or another. Our lives have been turned upside down these last couple of years, beginning with my mom’s death twenty-one months ago. Then there was my DBXH’s fatal heart attack four months ago. I wouldn’t care so much but he was the father of my children. Both children have relocated to new cities and states working at jobs they enjoy. It’s been a rough year for them, so it fills my heart with joy that they are happy in their new environments and beginning to make their ways in the world. In this brave new world, Mark and I have been caring for chickens, we have three beautiful Rhode Island Red Hens. Plenty of fresh eggs daily. Until there weren’t. But production has resumed it seems for the time being. In May, we celebrated 11 years together. These last few years , we have given up some old habits and started a few new ones. We have been been living more mindfully and mediate every morning together for 20 -30 minutes. And with all this stuff going on, I managed to write and publish a book, Xine’s Pack of Strays & Others – A Memoir. It’s been a busy bunch of years.

Cover Artwork that I did for my memoir.
All the shadows used are silhouettes of my dogs in the book.

In the blink of a eye…it’s 2019…We have been living in New Hampshire on the side of a mountain 1500 feet up with a spectacular view for a little over three years. A simpler life, yet we work all the time, trying to build our two businesses. Our puppy Marley is now 5 years old and all our beautiful Brittanys have passed away – God bless their souls. They all lived long and wonderful lives, Winston and Artemis being able to come and enjoy our new home in the mountains. Now our two mini-goldendoodle brothers, Boomer and Gunner are going to be turning 2 in May! Where did the time go?!

Yesterday I hugged my 25 year old son and his 3 year old goldendoodle before they left to head down to the Connecticut house. He has been living there for the last 15 months after leaving college in Vermont. It wasn’t working out for him – he is still struggling to get on the right track.

In the blink of an eye…it’s 2018…yesterday I watched my daughter receive her college diploma and make the Dean’s list. It seems like yesterday I dropped her off for her first day of school and drove her to endless hours of tutoring. Now she’s living with her one-year old puppy in Portland, Maine and trying to find that first foothold in her graphic design career.

There is no waving the Mommy magic wand and making things all better for them – they are in the big, bad, world now and I can’t protect the from everything like I once was able to. I tried my hardest to give them the skills to fly on their own – I pray I did enough. I probably did too much – coddling to make up for the divorce. I hope I didn’t do too much. That would be a disservice to them ultimately. It’s a fine line we have to walk as parents.

In the blink of an eye…it’s 2016…yesterday I hugged my son and his new puppy goodbye after setting the up their new apartment in Burlington. I pray he is able to move forward from the tragedy and get his life back on track in this new environment.

In the blink of an eye …it ‘s 2015…I hugged my son’s 21 year old girlfriend good-bye after seeing Dead & Company with them on Halloween night. She wasn’t feeling well and was coming down with an ear infection. A perfect storm of a bacterial and viral infection in her inner ear would cause sepsis. In a blink of an eye – 11 days later – she was dead.

In the blink of an eye…it was 2013….Yesterday was my son’s 20th birthday. It amazes me how certain things seem like they were yesterday but at the same time it was a lifetime ago. Twenty years ago I lived in Rochester Hills, Michigan; I was married and a brand new parent to baby boy. I had a Shetland sheepdog and I was approaching 30. Today, I live in Connecticut, I am divorced almost for 10 years, have two grown adults for children. I have four dogs, all Brittanys and I am approaching 50. I also live my boyfriend of three years. Yet it seems like yesterday I was in Michigan having my first born.

“A little consideration, a little thought for others, makes all the difference.” Winnie the Pooh Peace – Xine S.

In the Blink of an Eye

[Note to the reader: This is a post which I update from time to time. The original post was in 2013]

In the blink of a eye…it’s 2019…We have been living in New Hampshire on the side of a mountain 1500 feet up with a spectacular view for a little over two years. A simpler life, yet we work all the time, trying to build our two businesses. Our puppy Marley is now 5 years old and all our beautiful Brittanys have passed away – God bless their souls. They all lived long and wonderful lives, Winston and Artemis being able to come and enjoy our new home in the mountains. Now our two mini-goldendoodle brothers, Boomer and Gunner are going to be turning 2 in May! Where did the time go?!

“A little consideration, a little thought for others, makes all the difference.” Winnie the Pooh Peace – Xine S.

Angels Needed

This week as I gazed upon my Christmas tree, I cried a river of tears for the victims, their families and their friends who are faced which such a tragic loss at this time. My tree has an angel on the top, she’s a beautiful angel with a porcelain head, pretty wings and dress made of netting. She’s holding two candles and a light from within makes her glow. I grew up with a star on our Christmas tree. As I recall it was a fairly cheesy looking thing too with tinsel and colored lights. When I was old enough to get my own Christmas tree, I used a star at first something similar to the one I grew up with.

The angel came about by perhaps divine intervention. I had stumbled upon a late night Christmas movie, The Bishop’s Wife starring David Niven, Cary Grant and Loretta Young. It’s a fabulous classic Christmas movie and as late as it was that night sucked me in immediately. Cary Grant plays an angel in the movie sent down to help David Niven who plays the Bishop.

The movie originally came out in 1947 shortly after WWII. It was a time when many were trying to rebuild their post-war lives and their was still a great need for stories of nostalgia, hope and faith. Our world is vastly different than it was in 1947, but the need for stories of hope and faith are just as great today if not more. Today’s world is a very frightening place where we are no longer safe at college, a movie theater, a mall or even a elementary school. A tragedy of the magnitude of Sandy Hook brings people together. It touches so many people beyond the victims and their families because most everyone has been a first grader at some point, or are a parent who has sent their children off to school, or may have a teacher in their family and because of this all wonder my god what if that had been me, or my child, or my sister or mother?

The pain and grief I have felt this week is eerily similar to the way I felt after 9/11. I was born and raised in New York City which caused me to feel the attack on my birthplace as very personal. A friend’s husband lost his life that day and many of my friends who worked in the financial district had been devastated by their experiences of what they witnessed and tales of escaping the city. I knew our world would never be the same after that. Misuse of religion, power, box cutters and airplanes caused that tragic day. In Newtown, Connecticut a young man who was mentally ill killed his mother because he was afraid she was going to have him committed. He decided to misuse three guns and because of it there are now 26 new angels who no longer walk this earth.

Shortly after reading this news it reminded me of the Boomtown Rats song, “I Don’t Like Mondays”. In 1979, Brenda Spenser shot 9 people, 2 adults and 7 children from her house which was across the street from her home.

The silicon chip inside her head gets switched to overload
And nobody’s gonna go to school today
She’s gonna make them stay at home….

The more things change the more they stay the same it seems.

I don’t consider myself to be a very religious person. I was not raised in a religious household. I do not go to church regularly. I used to be a “submarine church goer”, only surfacing at Christmas and Easter – but eventually stopped doing that since it felt hypocritical. However, I silently speak with the Lord and Jesus Christ regularly – at times before bed, sometime in the car or while traveling on a plane. I do have hopes, dreams and wishes for myself, my children, my loved-ones. I try very hard to have faith in myself that I continue to raise my two children safely in this very frightening and dangerous world. I hope and pray that somehow they will be able to raise their own children one day in a world which hopefully will have learned some lessons from the past and changed it course not to repeat the fateful mistakes.

Life is filled with challenging moments. The holidays are a time when people are supposed to be happy; making it a thousand times harder for those who are not. The last eight years I have been divorced and forced to share time with my kids on holidays or not see them at all. The pain the first Christmas day that I had to say goodbye to them in the morning and watch them drive off with their father was agonizing for me. I felt like a part of me had been ripped away and I just wanted to cry all day and stay under the covers of my bed. Instead I was supposed to go to my parent’s house to share Christmas dinner with my parents, my siblings and their kids. It was awful. I think one holiday I actually did stay home and wallow in my self-pity. The rest, somehow I found the strength to join the festivities despite my broken heart. As the years have marched on holidays remain challenging, although each year a little less so. I have been blessed these last two years for I have been able to share them with my new love, my boyfriend, Mark.

Life goes on and time helps to heal most of the wounds which have been inflicted on us. The scars left on us by life should be worn on us with pride for they help make up who we are and how we came to be there. Some people’s scars are bigger than others and some may have wounds that never fully heal; for how can someone every fully heal from the lose of their own child?

It’s three days before Christmas and I will close my thoughts with a speech the Bishop gives to his congregation Christmas morning reminding us to remember what Christmas is all about.

Tonight I want to tell you the story of an empty stocking.

Once upon a midnight clear, there was a child’s cry, a blazing star hung over a stable, and wise men came with birthday gifts. We haven’t forgotten that night down the centuries. We celebrate it with stars on Christmas trees, with the sound of bells, and with gifts.

But especially with gifts. You give me a book, I give you a tie. Aunt Martha has always wanted an orange squeezer and Uncle Henry can do with a new pipe. For we forget nobody, adult or child. All the stockings are filled, all that is, except one. And we have even forgotten to hang it up. The stocking for the child born in a manger. Its his birthday we’re celebrating. Don’t let us ever forget that.

Let us ask ourselves what He would wish for most. And then, let each put in his share, loving kindness, warm hearts, and a stretched out hand of tolerance. All the shinning gifts that make peace on earth.

“A little consideration, a little thought for others, makes all the difference.” Winnie the Pooh
Peace – Xine S.


Angel