As I move thru this life I've realized there are different flavors of grief. People I knew casually as friends, relatives that passed when I was too young to realize what was going on, close friends, close relatives, and parents. And another form of grief it took me years to identify as grief, relationships with living people that didn't work out. My heart manages these feelings of sadness differently for each person. For some, it's like the sting you get when you flick your ear on a very cold day, and for others, it's a deep wrenching pain like getting kicked in the gut and their reminders are planted everywhere, so once or twice a month you find yourself morning their loss. To be honest with myself I'm a bit surprised, My Father who passed in 1980 is the most painful he was 49, followed by my dog Floyd who passed in 2006, my marriage, and then my brother Ken who passed in 2014. Strange how a dog is more painful than my own brother, but he was my son for 14 years. I've had other dogs but our bond was different, they were pets but Floyd was my boy. I've seen a number of people come and go in my life but these 4 have had the largest impact on my life, so far.
May 18th marks the 9th anniversary of my brother Ken's passing. He loved pets, he had many cats over the years. As a teen in the 70s, he was a partier, the guy loved his marijuana smoking. He was a Navy veteran during a time of peace, so he had the opportunity to explore Africa, the Mediterranean, and Europe. After the service, Kenny being 6'8' and somewhere around 300 lb., Ken began a career in law enforcement. He loved guns, fishing and boating, and reading about the subject of occult science and religion. He was married for a few years and had no children but liked being an uncle.
One faithful night in the 1990s he was working as a state police officer at a state college. He had just finished a detail at a dance and he was walking alone back to the station across campus when he saw a group of college students fighting, he walked into the crowd to break up the fight when someone came up from behind him and hit his knee with a pipe or bat. This injury left him with a permanent disability. His pride prevented him from pursuing any disability benefits so he kept working in security positions that didn't require running. This took a toll on his mental health, and again he was too proud to address it. Slowly over the years, he had lost everything he had worked so hard for. In the end, he was forced to apply for a disability so he didn't end up homeless. One night in 2014 it was snowing and he got out of his pickup truck at the grocery store, he slipped and fell on his knee. He needed surgery. After a month in the hospital, it was determined that he was recovering and responding to physical therapy. Then the Veterans Administration which was covering his medical bills moved him to a rehabilitation nursing home. The nursing home was understaffed by underpaid people. As a result, they were not getting him out of bed to do the physical therapy, he developed a lung infection, and just 3 weeks after being admitted to the nursing home he dies, of pulmonary arterial hypertension caused by the lung infection. He was 57 years old.
I ended up getting his pickup truck and it is my daily reminder of my big brother. There is a country song written by Lee Brice - I Drive Your Truck, the YouTube video is not the same story, Kenny and I share but the sentiment is the same. I just turned 58, this makes me the oldest surviving man in my line and the last to have the Sir name Moore.
xx
Trigger warning: a suicide and bad ptsd dream
coping with loss of loved one
I just need to let it out 😔 trigger warning ⚠️ 
Death of a Dad
Dealing with Grief from Pet Loss
