I’ve always used the color blue to denote when I’m speaking to you, as me, and black when it was from anyone else, but to me, blue is a happy color, and I can’t do that right now, so if this is confusing to any of you, I apologize for that.
I have to keep writing.  It’s either that or go absolutely in-fucking-sane.  I’m still a writer at heart.  Always have been.  Even though, over the years, this has become less about my voice and more about your voices and your memes and our laughter together.  Well, for the next little while, if you’re willing to stick with me and ride along, this is going to be about my survival as a living, functioning human being.  Because, you understand, that human beings can’t continue to live and breath without a functioning heart and right now, mine is gone. It has been taken away.
But maybe, just maybe, by screaming when I need to, crying when I want to, talking to friends and family when they are available, having long thoughtful arguments with God at convenient and inconvenient opportunities, and then writing to rid my veins and arteries of the pestilence that builds up and thickens and hardens them … there is the slightest of chances that I can come out of this as a real live boy.
Write or die Mr. Dragon.  It’s your choice, sir!
Well…
If I HAVE to choose…
I guess…
(Sigh)
I will fucking well write.
Yes, that is indeed what it sounds like in my head, at least right now, anyway.

First, before it gets TOO crazy in here, let me PROFUSELY thank Leah and Don for your amazing gift/donation.  Yes, expenses are getting crazy already and yours will be extraordinarily useful.  Thank you very, very much.

Next, to the many, many of you who have sent me comments and emails of encouragement and sorrow and kind words and sympathy, I wish I could take the time to thank each and every one of you individually and give each of you a moment in time to wrap you in big dragon wings and hug you all because you have all touched me so deeply.  But, there have been so many of you, that I can’t do that and still have time to do anything else.  Please, keep writing to me and telling me your own stories, they all help, truly they do, because they show me that someone else has made it out the other side when I’m still trapped in the darkness convinced that there is no way out.

And  to show you that I’m not being done fucked with yet, (the hits just keep on coming) now continues the …     …     well, I would say the REST of the story, but I’m not 100% sure that they are done fucking with me yet.  Anyway, our story continues…

I  wake up Monday morning, 38 hours or so after the death of my wife, 60 hours or so after the death of my car, 80 some odd hours after the death of my mailbox, portions of my fence, etc. (you see where I’m going with this, right?) and I hear a strange noise coming from my basement.  What lives in the basement that you need in the wintertime?  Silly question, why your furnace, of course!  So, that, of course would be the next thing that would start to give our intrepid dragon trouble.  It’s making a very strange sound every time the blower motor kicks on and come to think of it, the blower motor is kicking on quite frequently, don’t you think?  I certainly do!

Long story short, I make a call to my dear, wonderful colonel, cry on the phone, she says, “It’s just stuff, we can get stuff fixed.”  And within 2 hours there’s a guy at my house working on my furnace.

For 3 fucking hours.

We’ve only lived here for 6 years and the furnace was just about new when we moved in and the guy said it has not been working right since it was installed, but it picked this particular day, in the midst of EVERYTHING else that’s going on, to finally give up the ghost.  I’m giving you a VERY simplistic explanation as to the problem and the solution for literary effect, trust me, it makes sense.  It could have broken down last season, it could have waited till next season, why did it pick THIS season, in the midst of all the rest of this crap going on, to break down?

I     just     don’t      get     it.  I don’t understand.  What in the hell have I done to deserve this abuse?  This pure hell?

Mary’s family have started calling me Job.  (Job, not job.  Like from the Bible.  The guy that God kicks his ass with all the trials?  Job?  As in the Patience of Job?  Oh, come on you heathens!)  Oh, and to add insult to injury, the tow truck showed up to tow the car at the same time as the heater guy and the heater guy had to wait.  Nice, right.  The guy rushes over, doing my colonel a favor and now he has to wait cause there’s a tow truck in his way.

So, now we’re going to talk about blessings for a minute then I’m going to let you guys go for the night cause I’m starting to run out of steam.  I’ve cried WAY too many times today.  Anyway, the Base Chaplin brought over dinner tonight that his lovely wife made for Izzy and I.  Wonderful meal.  So very thoughtful.  One of the things I’ve discovered is that I would have already been dead by now if it wasn’t for Izzy Dragon reminding me to eat.  I don’t want to eat, I don’t feel like eating and the actual thought of eating makes me feel sick.  So, anyway, Chaplain…dinner…and he stays and talks with us while we’re eating, keeping us company and I decide to talk to him about my anger with God because, you know, hey, Chaplain, he’s like God’s rep here on earth, right?  And I tell him about the whole furnace thing breaking down and how it could have been ANY time since it’s basically been broken since it’s been installed, why did it have to be RIGHT NOW when I’m already in the midst of so much other CRAP going on in my life, that it HAS TO BE RIGHT NOW.  WHAT KIND OF BENEVOLENT FUCKING GOD WOULD DO THAT TO ONE OF HIS ADORING CHILDREN!!

And he said the oddest thing to me.  He said, “But maybe this is the perfect time.”

What the fuck?

And after some discussion and some thought, this is the best way I can describe it to you.  See if you can follow along.  God says, “Impish, I have this truly horrendously shitty thing I have to do to you.  It’s gonna happen, ain’t nuthin’ I can do about it.  Deals already been struck.  Mary’s time is up.  AND, I’ve got a bunch of little shitty stuff to do to you that I can spread out over time to give you a break, but I’m not going to.  Now, I’ve been preparing you and Mary for this for quite some time.  Every year on your anniversary I’ve given you a little taste, and I’ve had you care for Mary’s health over the last couple of years, you know this.  So, this is what I’m going to do.  I’m going to give you the really bad shitty thing.  That’s going to gather you this HUGE support system around you and give you strength and friends and family and love and support and everything you are going to need to get through this, then I’m going to throw all the rest of this shit at you, one right after the other after the other because you now have all these wonderful people gathered around you and they are going to take care of you and make sure you get through it and that is going to be the biggest testimony of MY LOVE IN YOUR LIFE.

and…

and…

see Mary what a wonderful thing it is we have?          Mary?          Honey?

Mary?

DON’T YOU SEE I DON’T GIVE A FUCK WHEN YOU TOOK MY HEART AWAY FROM ME!!!!!!!!!! 

I feel as though I should apologize because of how hard that made me cry to write.  I sobbed so loudly I woke Izzy up and she ran down stairs and hugged me for 5 minutes.  But that last part just poured from me.  And now I’m wiped out, so, again.  Thank you all for your love and support.  It’s going to be what gets me through.  Love and Happiness to you all.  I.D.