In loving memory.

I've tried multiple times to write a blog entry, but I haven't been able to bring myself to do it.  But now I'm forcing to, if only so I don't forget about this blog and let it wither and die like all my other blog/journal attempts have done.  It's hard, though, to sit down and write about something such as this, but it needs to be done.  It's not like I can come back to the blog in a month and act like nothing has change when in reality everything has changed.

Assuming all of my readers are friends with me on Facebook, everyone who is reading this knows that my uncle, Robert Rushing, passed away on August 7, 2012.  He suffered, not only from cancer, but the effects from a massive stroke that left him mostly paralyzed.  It is a comfort, however, to know that he was not in pain when he died nor was he in pain during the last days of his life.  I wish I could have gotten to know him better, I wish we had gotten along better when we lived with him when I was eleven.  We did grow closer as I got older, and he and I talked on the phone almost every time he called, and we got to know each other more.  Although I will always regret that I never got to hear him play his guitar.  It is very comforting to know that, when he died, he knew how much I loved him and cared about him.  It was hard to be so far away from, not only him, but from my mother, aunt, and sister while all of this was going on.  But I know he was surrounded by wonderful, lifelong friends who were like family to him.  But it's still hard to believe that he's not here.

My uncle, Robert Rushing.

A memorial should happen around October, and, from my mother's and my points of view, there won't really be any closure until then.  I keep expecting to wake up in another time in which none of this ever happened, but I only ever wake up in tomorrow.  I'm still in shock about it all, and I want nothing more than to be in Kentucky with my family.  

However, I can't.  Life has proven over the past few days that it goes on.  A couple of hours after my mom called me to tell me that my uncle, her brother, had died, I had to go to work.  Thoughts about what had happened would hit me like a slap in the face, and I would have to stare directly into the fan until the tears dried.  I felt nothing but aching in my chest all throughout that day, and I was relieved when it was over.  But when I woke up, I realized I had to do this living thing all over again.  And again the next day.  But today, three days after my uncle's death, it seems like I'm finally opening my eyes and still managing to see the sun hiding behind the clouds.  Life does indeed go on.  We're moving out of the apartment in a few days, we're going to St. Louis to celebrate our birthdays next week, and then we'll move back into the dorm and I'll start my sophomore year of college.

This summer has been very, very difficult and full of various challenges.  But life goes on.  And even though it hurts, I'll keep living it and making the most of it.