Anger is a powerful emotion, it can be both productive and a hindrance, depending on the situation. I am angry at the lady that hit me, she wasn’t paying attention, going well over the speed limit, and was negligent.

I paid for all those things. I paid for them with the destruction of my car. It looked like it had been through a shredder. I paid for them with my bruised and battered body, granted nothing was broken, but the bruises were worse in many ways. I paid for them with the Level 4 Concussion that I sustained, like someone put my brain in a Mason Jar and shook it. My short term memory is shot, my temper is super short, I get overheated super fast. My vision is compromised, and my favorite past-time of reading has been ruined. My whole left side has been compromised, my balance is off, and at times if you saw me walk…you might think I was drunk.

I paid for them with the emotional trauma that set me back years. I was finally to an emotional place, after Connor died, that I could close my eyes and not see his shattered car, and his broken body. In one rear end accident that resulted in 4 roll overs of my car..all that was gone.

I have become a terrible rider, every time someone quickly merges in front of us, or I see an accident. I become a nervous wreck, gasping and grabbing onto the door handle. Panicking about what could happen next. Now remember I am the person that taught 2 teenage boys to drive, I rode with them for most of their “at home driving hours”. And yet now I am afraid of a merging car, that just doesn’t make sense. I am also not cleared to drive very far on my own, so she stole that part of my independence.

This has cemented the belief, that “your life can change in an instant”, and it doesn’t always have to be anything that you did to cause it. I was minding my own business and going to get an Inspection Sticker, Connor was coming home from work. Neither of us did anything wrong. But yet our lives were changed completely. Connor lost his, and we all lost him. My life has been changed drastically, and I don’t know if I will ever get back to where I was.

2020 has been a nightmare to say the least. On January 15th we lost Steve in what can only be termed as the most freak accident that has ever been relayed. Then by early March COVID-19 had made its presence known on US shores. It was ravaging us, like nothing we had ever seen before. One camp proclaiming it was deadly and dangerous, the other saying it was no worse than the flu.

By late March I was laying my guys off, the Stay at Home orders were being issued in one state after another. I had one guy “sick”, but we still don’t know with what. Most of my customers were very understanding, but there are always those few…

Then came the final blow, that made me hate everything. Our Spring Caribbean Vacation was put on hold. The resort was closed due to it, as well as their was no airline travel between here and Jamaica.

With my vacation on indefinite suspension we focused on what we could, getting our camper set up. We moved it to its permanent home in the campground. Put up a shed, that Mother Nature took down. We built a deck, and some snazzy steps. Hopefully the part to repair the shed will be here this week. So we can put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

What I have learned so far this year

1. Take absolutely nothing for granted.

2. COVID-19 is not just the flu.

3. Most jobs can be done from home, in our PJ’s.

4. I am truly hi-maintenance. I need my hair, nails, toes and waxing done on schedule!!

5. I do not social distance well.

6. Change can be good, no one flourishes in stagnant water.

I want my old life back, the one that I had planned. The one full of happy moments. The one full of celebrated birthdays without tears, and holidays without the missing chairs. The one without the “STUGS” that catch me at the worst moments. Like sitting in the doctors waiting room this morning, and the CNA calls out the name “Connor”, my heart drops and my eyes get watery all of a sudden.

I want the life with Connor working hard and buying that damn noisy truck. With him and Jordan going on long drives to nowhere that I could track with his Ez-Pass. With him getting lost (because he had a terrible sense of direction) and having to wake her up to figure out where they were.

I want the life with him clunking in the house with his noisy half tied chips, and big voice. Always giving me shit about something, but always being my baby no matter how old he was.

Not the life where to see Connor means I have to go visit a big slab of black granite at Calvary Cemetery. That slab of granite can’t talk to me, can’t interact with me. It doesn’t make the half tied chips noise. And it sure doesn’t scold me when I cry, and I certainly do cry when I’m there.

This unplanned life really sucks, it is not what I had in mind. The grief that overwhelms me just when I think I have it under control. The intense pain in my chest, for no apparent reason other than my heart is broken. Broken in a way that people who haven’t lost a child don’t understand. I miss you, there is no way to explain it, your laugh, your smart ass comments, your alarm clock that you could sleep through, and that went off even when you slept at Jordan’s. I miss every part of you, until the day that I die. #3Connorstrongforever⚾️❤️💙🦅⚾️💙

It has never been a secret that my boss is a super important person in my life. I have worked for S Keyes Electric, Inc. for 9 years. I have been with Steve through good, bad and ugly. Through his disappearance in the Florida Keys, through he and Tracy’s multiple separations and finally their divorce. Through his head injury caused when the guy from G&S sucker punched him in front of Holiday Pizza, stole his food, and rendered him unconscious. Through a couple of brushes with the law, and one pretty serious car accident. Where he thought the Silverado has wings, or at the very least was the winter version of The Dukes of Hazard.

Through the coolest and craziest concert I have attended. When 15 of us went to see Tom Petty at Xfinity Theatre in Hartford, CT. In a rented 15 person van, with 5 coolers and 3 blankets. 10 minutes into the Xfinity parking lot. Steve tried to jump a Jersey barrier. He missed, ripped his knees all up, by the time he found us he looked like the walking wounded!!

In 9 years my office has been in 5 different locations. That isn’t counting the little tiny temporary space between his garage and kitchen. It has no heat, and was the size of a Shaquille shoe box.

In every location but 5 State Road a Baby Grand Piano has been part of my office furniture. Now at 13 State Road it is at least in the upper space.

In Miller’s I used it as huge file space, or often a spot to organize piles of paperwork. Steve would routinely lecture me about not damaging his piano. In the Old Gay’s Package Store location the piano became a place for him to layout Rockridge Plans, and scatter all his random file folders all over it.

In all the times that piano has been moved, it has been tuned with each move. By one of our Solar Customers. Don’t ask me who, because I can’t remember. I only ever remember it being played twice, but it is beautifully tuned.

This infamous piano was bought by Pat Lynch when he and Steve went to an auction. Pat soon realized that he had no space for it. So Steve bought it off of him, then Tracy told him that there was no way it was coming home, because it would take up the entire living room. So it took up residence in Miller’s, and followed me from then on.

When I go to work tomorrow it will be 21 days, I still expect Steve to come blowing in the driveway in that white Pro Master Van, and charging in the door with his mouth going a mile a minute. But that won’t happen, what will happen is that James and I will do our best to carry on the best we know how. S Keyes Electric, Inc. will move forward in Steve’s memory. But it will never be the same, it just can’t be.

https://youtu.be/x8A9Y1Dq_cQ

About 6 months after Connor died, Steve sent me this song, it made me bawl then, and it still makes me bawl now. Seven Spanish Angels took another Angel Home… Rest In Peace Steve.. Rest In Peace..💔❤️💙