Posted on by Julie Deziel

In The Dark

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or best known as simply PTSD is a mental health malady that is caused by extremely stressful or terrifying events. This condition is a very significant concern for those who work the trenches of 911 dispatching. It is very common for dispatchers to experience a secondary trauma from their exposure to the most distressing emergency calls. I have PTSD.

I dedicated nearly four decades of my life to serving the public during their most critical moments, including EMS and 911 dispatching. I spent eleven years in an ambulance, but then I experienced my own life-altering trauma event when I was involved in a horrific car accident. This accident left me unable to lift, walk on uneven surfaces, or even get down to the level of my patients. While working in EMS, I was also teaching EMS courses in Northwest Minnesota and Northeast North Dakota. Consequently, when the accident occurred, I had to resign from my position at the college where I taught. I found myself questioning my next move, wondering what lay ahead. Then, I discovered a position with the Polk County Sheriff’s Office that seemed to align with my knowledge and ability to handle emergency situations. I held a 911 telecommunication position for nearly twenty-eight years. Both of these pivotal positions had a profound impact on my life.

As a younger woman in positions of responsibility and raising my family, I failed to recognize the so-called PTSD that I later learned about. It wasn’t until later in life that I developed emotional numbness. To suppress the constant intrusive thoughts, I found ways to occupy my mind through alcohol, sex, and anything else that could distract me. Hypervigilance consumed me, and the constant worry of the next call or the events I knew would strike a loved one caused immense anxiety. The most distressing aspect was the intrusive thoughts that couldn’t be silenced. I relived countless calls I made on the ambulance, and even worse, the calls from individuals experiencing traumatic events themselves. The callers and patients became intertwined in my mind, taking over completely. It wasn’t just a few calls I could replay; unfortunately, there were many that lingered in my thoughts. I suppose this is the cumulative trauma that people talk about.

While the trauma I was dealing with early on was difficult that ugliness of the demon named “Cumulative Trauma” unexpectedly appeared when I was not looking. It didn’t ask permission to enter my home. It lacked patience to wait for my permission; instead, it forcefully pushed the door open and walked in, disregarding my reaction. It became an integral part of me, akin to a family member, accompanying every aspect of my life. Now, I realize that it was a gradual process that hollowed me out, leading to periods of extreme distress. The person who loved wearing masks wore them daily to conceal their true self. They hid behind a fake smile, concealing the fear that consumed them daily. This way, no one would know that a stranger had taken control of their movements and interactions with colleagues, friends, and family.  I lived in a dark empty, lonely hole where there was no ladder for me to climb out. I lived in the dark, alone with this pain, this horror, until I could not wait for another tragedy that would “hopefully” replace one of the horrors that I lived with, which unfortunately did not happen. It just jumped into the pile I held and made a place.

I will never hide the fact I am in therapy. Who would not want to find the way out of the dark, a way to live a life that feels relaxed, fun and not waiting for a tragedy to happen? I needed to find that. This road to learning to live with PTSD is difficult. It does not just happen overnight. The sessions are numerous and oh so very hard to sit through. When you sit with intrusive thoughs, hypervigilence, emotional numbing, grief nearly every week, well it becomes almost too much to bear. Strength is vital. But that is one thing that I found in my years of emergency services is that strength is most important as you have to be strong to answer the woman whose boyfriend just committed suicide while you answered the call in time to hear the shots, or a woman taking me on “the walk” she could not do alone to find her spouse who had made the decision to end his life. You have to have strength to help those whose loved ones are down and you have to give instructions for CPR while you cry silent tears right alongside of them. I will continue to live with my many visits with my therapist as I learn to retrain my brain and not allow the horrors to run who I am. One day I will see beyond that dark and see the brilliance of light.

“In the depths, shadows creep, like whispers in the night,

The past emerges slowly, obscured from the light.

Each though a heavy anchor, chained deep in the oul,

Yet hope still flickers softly, as dreams begin to roll.”

~ Unknown

Posted on by Julie Deziel

Home Is Where The Heart Is

How many times have you answered the question, “What is your address?” Or have you typed it in on a form to have something shipped to you or filled it in on your human resource paperwork? This is your place, your landing spot, your place of comfort mixed in with a little chaos. This is home. Most people can say they have lived in at least two places in their life. One would be where they grew up and then the home they lived in as an adult. Some can say they have experienced many places across the world as home. Have you ever wanted to go back to that one place that you first called home, to relive those memories.

My first “home” memory is a two-story white house with a front porch and two detached garages. It had a big yard and we played with the neighborhood kids every day. I shared a bedroom across from my parent’s bedroom. There was a big old piano in the dining room that I took many years of piano lessons on. We always sat around the large dining room table after Sunday church and had chicken. I have often driven past it and wondered how much has changed since we moved out in 1977. I would love to take a walk through it and remember the back door slamming and stand at the bedroom window and look over the back yard and remember the laughter playing “Annie-Annie-Over” and “Kiss or Kill.”

Not every home has only good memories though for whatever reason. Taking a walk through a home once lived can flood a person with so many feelings. As you run your hand along the bannister you might ignite the feeling of a first love as you readied for prom. Maybe seeing your name in concrete reminds you of the demise of your parent’s marriage and how that laid groundwork for feelings of abandonment as you grew up. Would the owners of that house now allow you in even if you promised you’d leave? That you promised you would not take anything but the memories that you found along the way.

When we moved from the place I first called home to the second place I called home before I moved as an adult was a large three-story home on a little lake way off the road. Good memories were made there and sad memories sprinkled in along the way. Nearly 30 years after I left home I was able to call it home again with my husband as we had the opportunity to purchase it. It is still a large old three-story home that we have made our own and we have made our own memories but I am blessed to be able to reminisce with my old memories.

I have learned though from my first home to my hopefully last home it was not the lumber, the paint, how many bedrooms or what neighborhood it stood in but more of who was inside; who made those memories. It was the heart of the place that made it home; the laughter, the family. Each of those memories had a part of building who I am. When I leave our home for the last time as Miranda Lambert sings in her song, “The House That Built Me,” I “won’t take nothin’ but a memory from the house that built me.”

https://youtu.be/DQYNM6SjD_o

Posted on by Julie Deziel

If These Walls Could Talk

This old house has stood strong and tall since 1921. It has seen a century of faces that have moved through and left their mark within the stucco walls. It has seen death within the walls and heard the laughter of many children bouncing down the stairs on their butts just to run back up to do it all over again. There are secrets hidden, innocence stolen, and heard a fight or two. Oh the stories those walls could tell.

The house prior to the most recent changes we have made had 54 windows…yes, 54 windows. Most of the windows were the original paned windows and it was not uncommon to see the curtains move on a very windy day as they were drafty and cold. This house was my childhood home and now it is my forever home. The peace, the lake, the wildlife bring so much joy to our lives. Since January 3rd though I have had an extensive amount of time to spend within the walls of my favorite place where the curtains no longer move with an Arctic Clipper. Every time I look out the window the lake is frozen over and the snow is blowing over it and I am, somewhat, thankful I am thrust to just sit inside. I have COVID.

We have all been inundated with what is COVID and what we need to do when we have it and how to avoid it and the never-ending battle of pro versus con vaccination. I am vaccinated but still had the virus find it’s way into my asthmatic, pneumonia/bronchitis-prone lungs. It took a bit before I was finally tested as I did not present normally…ha big surprise. So I was in the throes of it when I was finally tested. Thankfully I have a great doctor who worked with my wishes to stay out of the hospital for personal reasons and decisions made. Plus they would not do much more than what I was doing other than an experimental treatment not approved by the FDA. COVID hit numerous organs a little hard and it has been a struggle but I am through the worst we believe although I am still having some residual issues with some things.

Today is February 8th and I am still sitting within the walls of my house. My husband and I quarantined from each other and walking stairs was impossible for me so I just have lived in my living room. But when you sit in the same place 24 hours a day, day in, day out can take a toll on you physically and mentally. I am timed to medications and nebulizer treatments. Sleep is almost non-existent and the walls have begun to talk. I have heard and felt this old soul of a house creak it’s tired bones just as I do each day. I hear it say I am tired of being strong just as I do also for each of the 36 days I have lived in my living room. In the silence as I do my Bible Study I can hear the lake and the house have a conversation together. It can push a wearied mind into a state they begin to think they are going off the rails. As I sit here though and think about my situation I think about all those that have to sit these same number of days behind a closed door in some type of care facility with minimal human contact and are scared and alone. They hear sounds from other rooms but not the rooms of their safe place, their home. The contact is not necessarily their loved one as I was blessed to have throughout.

So for now I will gladly accept the stories I hear each day and night within the confines of my living room knowing my strength lies just a floor above me. I will accept that it is a slow process to heal from this virus. I will welcome the midnight activity of the lake and wildlife out in our little world. And for now, I will continue to be content in sitting on the inside looking out.

Stay safe my friends, stay safe.

Posted on by Julie Deziel

Hidden

Shinedown “Through The Ghost” posted at the end of the blog. Feel free to play it will reading. Very thought provoking song. I do not own the rights to the music.

Who as a child did not play the game of hide and seek. Oh the excitement as you waited as they counted to ten or twenty and heard the words; ready or not here I come.” Holding your breathe so they did not hear you as they looked behind the couch and you may have even shut your eyes believing that by doing so you became invisible and there was absolutely no way they could ever find you.

Through the years I cannot deny I have simply wanted to shut my eyes and pretend I am invisible, that I do not exist, that I am a ghost that not a single soul can see me. I have tried to hide myself away from all that I encounter just so they will not know me…as I know me.

I boast oftentimes that I am the “queen of the mask” and I have drawers full of different ones. I can pull one out at the drop of a hat, for any situation. I do this so that I can hide myself away. I can find a way to cope with all that I hear through the 911s I hear. I can cover myself with the dust of an old mask of anxiety as I wait for the next tragedy. The tragedy of it all is that I no longer see myself. It seems the color of who am is blank. The senselessness and hopelessness has overtaken the color of my soul.

I am pained that through all the aid given, all the proper authority that has been sent, all the abuse taken by the upset and angry individuals, and all the tears cried with the hurt and desperate that the world with never know me as I once knew me…for I live within a shell of a ghost. It is easier to hide myself away. I have found that shadows allow me to live and function forward. The world will not know me as I had once known me. Time has taken its toll. I will remain behind the shadows as I take my place behind the mic where the only part of me exposed is my voice. My voice is my mask and the callers becomes a part of my army of ghosts that I will live through tomorrow. Excuse me. The line is ringing once again that I cannot hide from. “911, where is your emergency?”

Posted on by Julie Deziel

Always Our Hero

What is the definition of a hero? Merriam-Webster has a few of them. One is a “person admired for achievements and noble qualities.” Geoff would fall into this category. All his years as a firefighter automatically put him into that category which he entered into in his teens and would often practice with his cousin Tommy. Tommy reflected on these moments at the funeral. “I always thought it was the coolest thing to be saved by my own cousin time and time again. He was my own superhero.” From Burlington Northern Santa Fe all the way to the Senate floor he was a hero during the train derailment near Casselton, ND in 2013. To me though he was more than a hero, he was a son.

August 12, 2020. 365 days ago. 8760 hours ago. 525,600 seconds ago when my phone rang as my husband and I had settled on the couch for the evening. It was my daughter and she told me, “Geoff’s dead.” Only my straight-to-the-point Adair would lay it out that way. In the nano-second following I thought, “What did Geoff do to piss her off?” But it was nothing that Geoff did to upset her. Our Geoff was gone for real. I was up off that couch and saying we had to go to Adair. I made it to the dining room and I literally fell to the floor in utter shock, horror, loss, disbelief, and heart-breaking pain for my baby girl and grandson. I could not get up from the floor, Mike literally had to pick me up off the floor. “This is not happening. This is a dream. Please wake me up from this gut-wrenching pain I am feeling for all three of them.”

Just eight days prior I sat in their backyard and we visited for hours in which we figured out all of life’s problems, gossiped and watched what we at the time believed to be real dead birds hanging from the water tower (which we found out later they were not real) and of course Isak provided much entertainment. The days that followed Geoff’s death showed me a community filled with love for their friend, their family member, their co-worker, their hero and planning the most appropriate celebration of life they felt he deserved. I also saw those same people project so much love on Geoff’s favorite little guy and surround the love of his life with strength, love and a ton of food. The visitation and service that was put together was beautiful. They knocked it out of the park…literally! It was held at the baseball diamonds on a summer day filled with much sun and love. They honored their hero well.

I can see the hero everyone else sees but Geoff is my hero for a different reason. There is another definition for hero that to me fits him to a tee; an object of extreme admiration and devotion. Geoff loved my daughter with all he had. He gave his all to his little family and provided for them. He was her biggest supporter and together they could weather any storm. He fits that definition in the way he admired what they had and the devotion he had to their love and relationship. The love they shared was one-in-a-million and I was blessed to have him as a son-in-law, although I kept him in my heart as one as my own.

It is difficult to understand why things happen the way they do. I believe we all would agree there is no way Geoff would have chosen this journey for his Adair and Isak but he would be incredibly proud of the strength she has had over the last year and will walk with her through her life. We most definitely know he is watching his buddy grow into the goofy, compassionate, friendly mama’s big boy (he will tell you he’s not a baby) who looks like him more and more every day. The only answer I can give myself is that heaven must have needed a hero and although we wish Geoff was not the one picked we know they got the best. As the song by JoDee Messina (attached to this post) goes, “I guess Heaven was needing a hero. Somebody just like you, Brave enough to stand up for what you believe and follow it through. When I try to make it make sense in my mind the only conclusion I come to is that Heaven was needing a hero like you.”

Posted on by Julie Deziel

The Silence is Deafening

There is no denying that a train makes a statement. With its large lumbering engines blowing their horns at every intersection to the rumbling of the ground as they pass by at 60 miles per hour as we sit on the roadway and wait for each of the train cars to make it through and we can continue on with our day. For many it is an opportunity to check their social media pages or make a phone call or another to touch up their makeup or just to simply get lost in thought. Even though it is so loud and annoying to me personally…that silence is deafening.

I have written before about my son-in-law who we lost six months ago to an undetected heart condition. We are still reeling over that tragedy. Having worked in the EMS world I know that tragedy happens and it is definitely not choosy. My youngest son and I experienced a terrible car accident years ago and I remember the look of my children and family when I was able to see them and the fear in their eyes. I do not wish that on anyone. As I have walked with an officer to deliver the news to a young mother her husband will not return home, I wish none of our officers ever had to knock on that door and see the absolute horror in a parent’s face as they know what is coming.

As I put another year as a 911 dispatcher behind me…23 years actually, a scenario that just seemed unimaginable recently occurred at the end of a long shift. I experienced a 911 call that was eerily similar to my son-in- law’s situation. There is no training for this type of situation. During the most devastating moment of the caller’s life all I could do was think of my daughter having to make that exact same call. As I walked through the information I needed I wanted to assure them they were not alone just as I prayed my daughter did not feel. As they waited for help to come and the caller and I worked together I am most certain was a lifetime for an “actual person” to get there. Even though I was “with them”, I can only think they felt a crippling silence from their most loved. When ambulance and law enforcement arrived I was able to disconnect and even though there were two other dispatchers in the room all I heard was a deafening silence.

As the words from Disturbed’s “Prayer” sing out, “Another dream that will never come true just to compliment your sorrow. Another life that I’ve taken from you, a gift to add on to your pain and suffering. Another truth you can never believe has crippled you completely. All the cries you’re beginning to hear trapped in your mind, and the sound is deafening.” This is the life of a 911 dispatcher. You carry the sounds, the sorrow, the horror and they find you in the silence and it can most deafening in those moments. I do not wish that on another soul. I think about the dispatcher that took my daughter’s call often. I am so sad she had to comfort my daughter on the worst day of her life at the moment I would have given anything to have stood in for her.

I will continue to watch the trains go by and hope for a glimpse of a baseball cap and sunglasses and a smiling Geoff riding along with his buddies and silently remember all those lives I have been a part of through a loud siren ringing telephone when it pierced the silence of the dispatch center.

Posted on by Julie Deziel

The Window

“The soul can speak through the eyes,
and kiss with a look.”

-Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer-

A simple edited picture of me. When I first looked at it I thought it was a rather cool picture and my eyes really stood out. But I looked a little deeper into them and they spoke volumes to me. I would believe that many have heard the saying “eyes are the window to the soul.” I have learned in life that the soul is what leaves our body when we die but is also the spirit and essence of a person and is composed by all the mental abilities: reason, character, feeling, memory, perception and thinking. It is a book of who we are physically and spiritually.

When I was younger as we drove along the neighborhood streets I loved to imagine beyond the windows of a home in the evening picturing the lives of those inside. Do they live the Beaver Cleaver world? Do they have every toy and electronic under the Christmas tree to ensure that Santa requests were fulfilled. I still ponder the lives on a quiet drive through a neighborhood thinking who is there and what secrets are hidden behind their windows. Is there financial struggle or is their a lonely spouse following the loss of their beloved spouse through death. If we could take a walk up to the window to see further inside we could understand the narrative of their lives.

We each have a story no doubt. We are born and grow up and go through school with some being a jock and popular and some, like me, a wallflower who centered on music. My narration follows that same path throughout my adult life. I have remained the quiet and shy gal who loves with her whole heart those who I have let into my life. Through EMS work I have seen the joy of life entering life and seen the sadness of life leave a body. I have seen horrific scenes that are imprinted within my memory bank. As I progressed into 911 dispatching I no longer have to “see” but now “hear” the scenes, the horror of family discord, the devastating sadness of the realization that one’s loved one will no longer look at them, speak to them or spend another moment with them. Each one lays within my soul and travels with me along the highways and byways of my life. Be it a friend or a tragedy that encompass a memory of what is held inside they each are seen in my eye; my truth, my emotions, my fear, my happiness, my intensity, and my sorrow.

We as a family have traveled the grief road over the past year and a half in losing five family members but especially in the last five months our eyes hurt, our eyes are tired. My soul is exhausted and torn. Strength and faith are shook to their core and there is an overwhelming feeling of going under. I know I have the strength of our Lord who holds my heart and soul in his hands and will hold my tears and will dry my eyes. For now the windows to my soul are tinged a little red and swollen but they still remain intriguingly beautiful, not just because of their blue color but because of the words they hold within and everything the soul knows and continues to thirst for.

Posted on by Julie Deziel

I Have Mail

I love the holiday season. I can spend all day sitting admiring my Christmas tree all decorated and soaking in the smell of Christmas wafting from the oven. One of my favorites of the season though is checking the mailbox and finding out that I have mail and it includes those special envelopes from friends and family wishing our household a “Merry Christmas”..

I work in an environment that does not bring much good news. Those that reach out on 911 do not do so to let us know they have a new grandchild or they won at bingo or they are getting company over the holiday season. They unfortunately call on their worst day no matter what time of year.

This year has seemed to be a different year in the center. Communities being in lock down brought struggles that families were not familiar with which brought out more violence, more juvenile issues and substance abuse. As the crisis has continued to drag on and continued lock downs, be it schools or businesses, it has has wreaked havoc mentally and financially on many. The tentacles reach throughout on the crisis lines, mental health providers, emergency rooms, and our 911 lines.

It seems as if death has enveloped me lately. Recently I was involved in 3 CPR in progress calls within a 24 hour period. Over this past weekend there were 2 unattended deaths in 12 hours. There are many ambulance call for services and later an obituary is viewed in the local newspapers. It may or may not be related to the medical crisis sweeping across the United States. It could be due to an internal struggle they have or an undiagnosed medical issue or simply old age took over their tired body. I turn on the National news and there is the never ending broadcast of doom and gloom and the out of sight crescendo of death due to CoVid-19 and no matter where a person goes to on social media you cannot simply will not escape it. It is suffocating. It is almost as if I can actually feel the death as a formidable item. It is exhausting and overwhelming most days.

Tomorrow though I will walk through the locked doors of the 911 doors and prepare to take the calls of another individual who is having their worst day; short of breath, high fever, or a young wife finding their husband laying lifeless on the floor. I will do my job. I will check my mailbox on my way out of the driveway in hopes that it will present me with a little joy; an envelope filled with a peaceful scene or a goofy Christmas scene but both sending love with the pictures of the family and signatures of season greetings. I will FEEL alive and hopeful…for now.

I pray you are enveloped in much love and peace this holiday season.

Posted on by Julie Deziel

A Hard Season

*click on song below to play while you read*

The perfect home for the long awaited season. My husband has enjoyed deer hunting since he was a young child. He has passed on his passion to his oldest son who is passing it on to his sons. For many in our neck of woods it is a tradition that is planned meticulously for months. Lists made, food planned, the perfect spot picked out, and the stand put up. The hours of sitting and waiting for the perfect “one” and the talk of the big ones that got away. The season will go on for approximately two weeks and the venison will be packed in the freezer and those lucky enough to get the trophy buck will have it hung on the wall much to the chagrin of the spouse.

I have watched my extremely strong, independent daughter build the life she wanted with the perfect fit for her. They shared twelve years together with most of them laughing and cementing the strong marital bond that many would be jealous of. They brought their long-awaited son home and the perfect home was laid out with the three of them. Their little home was set…until tragedy stuck like a bullet cursing through the fall air on opening deer hunting.

We as parents take our children through maybe trials in life; potty training, that scary first day of kindergarten, first loves followed by the first breakups. We kiss their ownies, love them through the long nights of high fevers, chase the monsters out of the bedroom and hours of horrendous homework. We are there to make it all better no matter what. What do you though as a parent who cannot make your children better when major tragedy hits? How do you fix it for your child whose grief is so heavy?

I have entered that long, hard season with her. The loss of her husband is the one horror that cannot be chased out of the room. I have no kisses to make this pain go away. I sit here at a complete loss. I feel as if my hands are tied behind my back. I am at a complete loss because I cannot mother away her pain. My baby hurts immensely and my instinct is to run immediately every day to her and just rock her and make it better. I can sit with her and wait with her but her love will not return. Her love will not be anticipated for supper at the end of the day. His stories will not be shared anymore. Her trophy hangs on the wall never aging, always young.

The season will not end after two weeks. It will last for an eternity. I will always want to make her better but I will not be able to. I will climb the mountain with her and sit beside her in silence waiting and wishing there was a way for a mommy to make it all better.

Grief is a hard season and I cannot save her. Plain.And.Simple.

Posted on by Julie Deziel · 1 Comment

Empty

This is one part of our yard; the east side of the driveway. Imagine it full of trees and overgrowth of trees and cattails near the water. Last summer and this summer my husband and a kind old man spent countless hours cutting down and hauling out the trees to bring the vision that my husband had for a clear view from the house to the lake. This is the nearly end product minus grass (next year’s project). This space at one time had a log cabin, a chicken coop with a concrete foundation and a small 1-car garage. You see no remnants. Imagine next summer this will be all green and absolutely breath-taking view out towards the lake.

For me though having grown up out here and watching them clear all the trees and weeds I watched them empty bits and pieces of my childhood life and small aspects of my parents slowly slipped away. I have told my husband, “You are tearing down my memories.” But I knew better. The memories will always be there but visually they are erased.

Having lost four family members in a years time the same principle is being played out here. They were taken away, erased away from Alzheimer’s, kidney disease, sudden medical illness and an undiagnosed cardiac condition for my 32-year-old son-in-law. Their physical presence has sadly been wiped away and so incredibly hard to face at times that it can be hard to breathe. We just cannot catch our breath being in a state of grief for so long.

Just as the land east of the driveway changed completely with my husband’s vision, my memories of playing there or jumping off the dock in the lake have not faded. So too are the memories of my loved ones who have moved on in their journey. I just have to allow myself the grace of time to take those breaths and know that as the canvas of life changes what I carry in my bank of memories will never change. My loved ones walk with me and those I love. As I will walk across the green grass next summer I will hear the laughter of a childhood many years ago as we played football in the dark with the neighbors and the sound of the wood splitter as dad prepared the wood piles for winter or the vision of my mother sitting in her lawn chair twirling her hair as she read one of many books. I will remember the crisp morning we stood as a family for the photographer and a picture from that morning sits below a lamp with a red bulb lit for my son-in-law. My view when I close my eyes is filled with images from the past that can never be wiped away with a chainsaw or a tractor. Next year as I walk across the green grass I will hear it all, I will remember it all and I will make new memories with the new view. My memory bank is not erased nor will it ever be empty and will embrace each of those memories and breath, reflect, and smile. The view is full.

Posted on by Julie Deziel

Where Do the Tracks Lead To?

I can bet there are many people that see a train heading down the tracks or when they are holding you up at a crossing imagining, “Where is that train going?” “Where do those tracks lead to?” or “What does life at the end of tracks really like?”

I no longer will look at a BNSF train in the same way again. I would always look for our son-in-law engineer Geoff on every BNSF train I came across. I saw him a few times in his years with Burlington Northern. I was incredibly proud that my “son” took on the title of engineer. It was cool as a kid to think of “driving” a train. Lucky Geoff actually achieved that cool experience. Now knowing I will not get a chance to catch his grin or just a glimpse of his hat in the engine of the train is simply heartbreaking. Hearing his two-year-old son Isak get excited every time he hears a train when it goes through Larimore is heartwarming but then heartbreaking in the same breath. Daddy will not take his son to the train and show it off. All he has now are the keys to the train from his dad.

These tracks this morning were breathtaking with the sun shining on them. I sat there for a bit and took in the beauty of some simple metal. The clouds and sun mixed above them and they all met off in the horizon. Where was the point they met on the horizon? Was it as peaceful there as it was as I sat and soaked in the beauty of that moment along the road?

My hope is that wherever your tracks are taking you in life today you are finding peace, joy, and something simply breathtaking. As we have learned in the past month in losing Geoff you simply do not know what life is going to throw your way but you have a choice; run from it or run to it. From this point we know our lives will never be the same but we also know we will all be brave. We will find that peace and joy on the tracks of our lives.