Saturday the 3rd will be the 8th Birthday of as we say, my second double bilateral lung transplant. I had spent 12 years of my life carrying around an oxygen bottle, over a combined 90 days in ICU, 2 years dragging my leg around after a 90 liter blood transfusion into my groin blew up and they had to cut out the lump the size of a German sausage, sew it back up with a vac drain. I could have fit my fist in the hole. Spent a lot of the time doing rehab and getting back into martial arts and have tried to make as much use of my time as I could. All I had to do is out live my animals. My two cats and two dogs and I made sure I pushed myself to a level I never thought possible to make sure that happened and that my animals were taken care of. All of them were pretty much my shadows. My tortoiseshell passed away in 2020 and Tashy my brindle staffy a few weeks ago. I feel lost with out them. The calmness they brought to my life is leaving me. Tashys ashes are returned to me tomorrow so she can finally join my tortoiseshell. They were inseparable and will be scattered with my ashes in turn. Ill be sitting by the fire pit with Tash in her favorite chair around the fire drinking a few beers with her one last time. Time is fleeting , make the most of it.

“The Purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson