Broken

A sad day.

An unexpected, heartbreaking loss.

She’d been a member of my family, for what seems to be… an eternity.

Strong. Loyal.

Battlehardened.

She had her scars. A rough life. Regardless of the torture endured, I could always count on her. She got me through some tough times. Faithful.

We had our outdoor chats. She knew my secrets. Depending on the situation, and the environmental pressures, she was right at my side through thick and thin. She helped prop me up, when I was weak and weary.

A true ally.

But, today it all fell apart.

I heard her brittle bones snapping in my bare hands. I felt her fragile spine splintering, and twisting. The end was near. I froze, as I knew what was about to happen next.

Push through it old girl. I believe in you. Don’t let me down now. We can get through this, damn it!

And, push through the pain, she did. My heart swelled with pride. She had to move a little slower and take less weight, but once again, she came through for me and I was able to nod my silent appreciation, and then, take her to where she needed to go. The final resting place.

It was time to part ways.

It was time for a replacement.

In with the new.

A little symbolic, in its own esoteric way. 2020 has been one of the best years in my personal history, and getting better as 2021 approaches therefore I saw my loss… as a blessing and a sign. New home. New novel(s). New goals. New life. It made sense that it was time for her to depart from this world.

We lost power last night, four hours into a snowstorm. From what I understand, outages in my neck of the woods is commonplace, and to be expected. Luckily, I don’t worry about outages anymore. I used to be the only one on my street without a generator. The only home in the neighborhood without lights on. Not this year… never again.

However, I have always been a bit of a caveman. I see my friendly neighbors out in their driveway, with self-propelled snowblowers, an attached protective plastic shield surrounding them on all sides, thick chains wrapping the tires, tossing snow halfway across the yard.

And, here I am, hunched over, shoveling like a madman.

It continually surprises me that I always seem to complete my chore, long before them. Even with incremental coffee breaks.

As I reached the end of the driveway, where the heavy “heart attack snow” was piled up from passing plow trucks barrelling down the street through the overnight, my shovel finally gave out on me, and I then had to say goodbye. It was a slow death. I watched it happen in real time.

The handle broke with the last shovel full. The end of an era.

Her replacement however is a jacked up, ergonomically correct, multi-handled, wide base, sharp toothed, yellow beast of the north which is screaming from the basement corner to be released into the next storm.

I have a feeling she and I will become quite close over the years.

The power finally came back on, and my Sunday has been a bit lazy.

Standard updates: Having some complications with the paperback(s) formatting and ISBN issues. Amazon is always sending emails to “fix this, and fix that, and then we’ll review again”. I may have to hire someone to help me see that madness through to completion. It really starts to get under the skin.

Regardless of those trivial pains in the ass and those future bridges to cross, the Surrender Game is available, and folks seem to enjoy it. That’s all I want.

Chase the dream. Be kind to each other. Chat soon.

peace

Thank you for reading and joining me on my journey. The Surrender Game is now available for purchase on Kindle. Please subscribe in the provided area to receive a notification of new posts by email or feel free to follow me on Twitter @jeremymorang, or like my Facebook page to receive information about the Guardian War Chronicles, and other installments to come. Please give this a like if you like it, share with others to help spread the love, or leave a comment if you wish. See you at the next one.