#TheSundayPost | XXIV | About Jorie’s sudden absence online,…. and the sabbatical she’s on from blogging.

[Official Blurb] The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog. This is your news post, so personalize it! Include as much as you want or as little. Be creative, it can be a vlog or just a showcase of your goodies. Link up once a week or once a month, you decide. Book haul can include library books, yard sale finds, arcs and bought books.. share them!

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Jorie’s life behind the blog:

Despite everything going on this Spring, I was still hopeful I could keep reading and keep blogging – as reading has always been able to renew my spirits. Especially if life feels like it is derailing a bit or getting overly stressful. Stories bring me a lot of joy to dissolve inside and find a respite from the afflictions of life. Spring felt different this year all the way round. From the quirky weather to the intensive pollen in the air outside. Not to mention the fact, Mum was boomeranging in and out of the ER like it was suddenly in fashion to know the ER staff by name. Allergy season took on new meaning when you have to defend how you’ve had asthma the whole of your life when your doctor thinks that it’s a new affliction and not an old one that has resurrected itself back into your life. I remember how fun that was for Mum to have to keep going to the ER in order for her primary doctor to acknowledge she was asthmatic. Oy.

By May, I felt we had turnt a corner, despite the fact Spring was also the season we thought we might be losing our time with Dad. He wasn’t doing too well and as the weeks passed, we were preparing ourselves for our final goodbyes as it felt like he might not survive the season. He rallied a bit and came through it despite the fact we still had our concerns about the rest of the year. May was also the month Mum had to have emergency surgery, and it took the rest of the month for her to recover from it. I was trying to focus on Wyrd And Wonder as a wicked good distraction as for a bit there it was a bit touch and go as they felt it would be routine surgery but when it took longer than expected we were all worried. Nurses, surgeon and daughter alike. The month slipped through my fingers and most of the posts I had drafted are still unpublished. I found a lot of wicked good authors who befit the Nautical Fantasy prompts we developed as a team behind Wyrd And Wonder, too. It was one of those enjoyable pursuits of hidden niches of Fantasy that I loved to undertake – despite the fact I didn’t get to properly finish the journey in May.

By June, Mum and I were settling into a regular routine of visiting with Dad whilst I was balancing a full work schedule until I realised I couldn’t continue working full-time at night during the Summer. The weather (ie. the intense heat and humidity) was affecting me something fierce this year and as I noticed my health and wellness declining, I decided to reduce my hours which my boss understood, and we left it open when I’d return to a full schedule as Summer can be a long-standing season here. It was a nice pattern of normalcy after a very difficult Spring.

All along, I was still reading – still working on reviews and attempting to post what I had been working on for Wyrd And Wonder. I was so positive about my progress into certain stories – most of them I received for review – that I felt I could definitely finish them by early June. The best part about life though is we can’t see too far into the future. We might feel blindsided by the way things happen in life, but it is better to greet life as it arrives than to have forewarning about certain things ahead of their occurrence. So, for me, when I was updating about my reading progress on certain stories, I truly was making progress and was hopeful to be able to share my thoughts about them even if a bit after the ending hours of May.

Until my father was hospitalised rather suddenly in the early days of June. It was just ahead of my birthday and I was already stressed at work as we were regularly short-staffed and/or having our shifts changed. I was going with it and pitch hitting as best I could but when Dad was rushed to the ER out of the clear blue, it threw us for a loop. I still remember the night we received the call – we weren’t in towne but we came back immediately and arrived shortly after Dad. It was one of those long nights in the ER and then finally upstairs in the ICU. I was calling out at work for the next day long before we spoke to his doctors as I knew I wasn’t leaving the hospital anytime soon that night.

From what we understood of what was happening, we felt then, he might pass during the night. In fact, we were bracing ourselves for that reality. By the time he reached the ICU it seemed more apparent too. We called in our pastor and asked him to visit my Dad – he was going to go late that night, even after we left ourselves except, he found something out before we did. We stayed well after visiting hours and into the wee hours of the morning – when we reached the same conclusion as Dad’s doctor. It would be kinder to put him on comfort measures and let him go than to continue to forestall the end. We said our goodbyes as we left the ICU as neither of us was ready to stay and watch him pass away. We’ve never done that in our family, and it wasn’t something we wanted to start now.

We received a call in the morning – somewhere between 9 and 10 and we thought that that was the call letting us know he had passed as that was how we had left things in the middle of the night. Instead, it was the doctor calling to let us know that Dad was awake, talking and asking for us. He also was recovering from what put him in the ICU in the first place and was off comfort measures at that point. We were confused but thankful and went straight to the hospital. The pastor met us there and he told us he had called the ICU in the middle of the night and asked if he should go that night when they said, actually there was a turning of events and that he should come later in the morning. We were all sharing prayers and thankfulness seeing Dad awake and talking. It was a blessing but a bittersweet one as I wasn’t quite prepared for what would happen a month to the day later in July.

We visited with Dad more regularly after he returned to the care home as we knew that his recovery was tentative and could change at any point in time due to the nature of his illness at that time. Despite that, Mum and I made the most of it and tried to engage Dad as best we could during our visits. He wasn’t able to be in his wheelchair at that point and that made visits harder as we were restricted to his room, but we still went and tried to pass on our joyfulness to him as best we could in that limited space. By July, I was on holiday from my night job as my boss and their family went on a month vacation. It was a good respite for me, as the weather was aggressively worse than it had been in June. Mum and I had a rhythm of visiting with Dad – though we did notice he wasn’t thriving as well as he had been previously. Without my night job, I had more hours I could visit with Dad and wasn’t restricted to just my regular days off. That became an important turning point for me as I looked back on the final month I had with Dad.

I remember being dropped off at work shortly after 6a and thirty minutes later I was being picked up again as Mum came to tell me that she had received the call that Dad had passed away in his sleep. I wasn’t prepared for that news – as I hadn’t had the chance to see him in a few days – I was tired from work and had taken a few days off from visiting to rest and the day he died was the day I was going to go after work to see him. He died on a Thursday, and his funeral was the following Tuesday. The interesting bit is that he died peacefully in his sleep without any medical afflictions at that point in time and his death was natural. He also died with a smile on his face as he truly had total peace at the time of his passing. We’re also pretty sure that my grandmother passed the same week as my Dad in (2003) and that she was laid to rest the same week as Dad. We started to see cardinals after his passing and that bird was a special one to my grandmother. We don’t regularly see cardinals and whenever we do it makes us think of her. It wasn’t a coincidence in other words. 

By the time my boss returnt from vacation, he was gone for several weeks, and she felt bad she had been away at the time of his passing. I had to take some time off work – I was gone for three days after he died and then, I took five days off about a week and a half later. Work helps to keep you from dwelling on the sorrow and sadness but having time off to be still and contemplative helps healing too. I’m back at my night job on a limited basis until the weather is more agreeable and my day job has had a lot of drama and chaos to it lately but for some reason, that has helped keep my mind focused on something outside of my own grief.

The day of the funeral, I found myself in the unique position of being the lead car to the graveside funeral and that wasn’t something I thought I’d be doing. It also had a finality to the journey we had taken with Dad from his stroke in (2016) to his health crises of (2022). It was overcast that day and a light rain fell as we laid him to rest. The pastor who was at the hospital put together a beautiful service for us and made it personable. I had a co-worker and her Mom join us as well as two family friends and the overwhelming support and prayers we received locally was overwhelmingly supportive. Especially as we were receiving support from people we didn’t expect to care as much as they had about us as my Dad’s death sort of drew us all closer together. As sometimes is the case. We also had support from out of state by a friend of mine and she knew what I was going through as her Dad passed ahead of mine. All round, Mum and I felt the uplift of prayers to be a helpful blessing during July.

I attempted to come online in the weeks after Dad’s death but I felt myself unable to find words to talk about his passing. I reached out to the team behind Wyrd And Wonder and a few others, but after I wrote those messages, I was just too overcome by grief and the memories of my Dad to write anything else. This is why this blog post was pushed forward into August. Today marks a month since he died and his words echo in my mind and heart – ever since his stroke, he made sure to tell me – don’t stop writing, don’t stop reading – don’t forget about your blog. Keep going. Don’t let what happens to me stop you from doing what you love and what gives you joy. I knew at some point today I needed to write this – but my heart kept pushing it off again.  Some posts are just harder to write than others. And, this one was especially harder for me. As I’m still getting used to the fact he’s gone and is away from us until we meet him again after we live our lives.

As a family our faith has always been the bedrock of our lives but it is one thing to understand where we go after we pass away but it is another to reconcile the loss of someone we love so dearly whilst alive. It is going to take me a bit more time to heal from his passing and to be able to once again focus on the stories and find joy in blogging again – the way I had before he passed – but I feel better for just getting these words down tonight. To explain my unexpected absence online and also to honour my Dad and find my own away back to my blog and to the stories I left unfinished.

Mum on the other hand is doing remarkably better than I am. I believe she was more prepared than I was for his passing as she had more time to visit with him than I had as I was working full-time. She saw things progressing towards this conclusion moreso than I could and I think in some respects, it allowed her to brace herself for what was coming better than I could. She misses him and grieves his loss as much as I do but it is different somehow for her and I find that she’s struggling less than I am overall. I just have a longer road to resolve my emotions and that’s okay. She’s also found a new project that I’m excited about for her and am encouraging her to continue to pursue it as it is a wicked journey she’s undertaking.

In regard to my blog and readerly life:

I’m not entirely sure when I’ll be reading and blogging again with regularity again. I have all the books stacked right where I left them during Wyrd And Wonder. The review books are still on my shelf that I was going to be reading and reviewing in May and June. Time sort of stopped in that regard – I want to read and I want to explore the lives of those characters, but at the same time, my mind and heart haven’t re-aligned the focus I need to get through them. I’m not even sure which story appeals to me to read right now. I’m thinking it won’t be a Fantasy novel at all. I tend to read Contemporary Romances when I’m coming out of a lot of afflicted strife and adversity. They tend to pull me through and get me back into a happier space as a reader.

I could be wrong though as I have a few Fantasy stories in-progress that I ache to finish but I’m going to be kind to myself and just start reading when the mood strikes me. I’ve taken a break from accepting blog tours and new review requests for the time being – as I am hoping to host some tours in September or October of the Historical variety. Beyond that, I’m going to focus on two readerly events that give me an uplift of spirited joy every year which are Spooktastic Reads (in October) and Sci-Fi Month (in November).

Outside of that – it’s all up in the air. I’m just taking it a day at a time.

I’ll be returning randomly until my heart and emotions reconcile my Dad’s passing. I’ll be sharing new posts on my blog via Insta and BlueSky – so when you see those updates, you’ll know there is something new on Jorie Loves A Story. Until those moments arise in future, just know that I’m doing okay and each day I feel a bit better about everything that has been going on this year.

It has been a YEAR. No denying that!

Kindly read through my archives for #TheSundayPost

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