So many of you have commented on the zoo photography I have been doing…. which has been a lot. Being at the zoo makes me feel closer to Joe for a number of reasons. On Rich’s suggestion, I am sending a copy of the photos to the zoos. I wrote a letter to each of the zoos: Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium/Wildlife Safari in Omaha, NE; Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita, KS; Busch Gardens in Tampa, FL; Fort Worth Zoo in Fort Worth, TX; and the Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Clearwater, FL. I enclosed a photo of Joe, told them about our story, and then included a thumb drive of the photos I had taken at their zoo/aquarium. I gave them my permission to use them if they would like, just to give me credit for the photo. I don’t know that anything will come of it, but it is a gift to honor my Joe at the anniversary of his death. He really supported and loved my photography and Tim really likes my zoo photography as well. So this is a gift for them. I hope they at least look at them and perhaps share them with their zookeepers. I really thought this was a nice way to honor Joe.

Well, the one-year anniversary is closing in on us. Two weeks. They say the days leading up to the anniversary are worse than the actual anniversary itself. We shall see. All I can say is I have been doing a LOT of grief work over the last few weeks. I still have moments EVERYDAY that I just can’t believe that it is all real. Where there is such great love, there is great loss.

We have been thinking for weeks about what we were going to do for this first anniversary of Joe’s death. March 6th falls on a Monday and we are planning to spend that day together as a family and go to a Mass offered in his name at our church. We wanted to get together with Joe’s friends and their families one last time to honor Joe before we move to Montana. We didn’t want to miss this opportunity to get together with the people we have loved for years, who were a part of Joe’s tribe. We are asking his classmates, rugby teammates, friends from college, firefighter friends, Delta Chi brothers, anyone who loved our Joe, to join us for food, drinks, cookies, and scotcheroos on Sunday, March 5th, from 1-5 p.m. at our home in Omaha. Please bring stories to share and pictures if you have them. They both would be a blessing to our family. Our Joe came with a big tribe, and we’d love to get together with you all one last time to honor Joe’s memory and say our goodbyes. If you need our address, please send me a message. Bellevue peeps….we moved to Omaha several years ago, so don’t head to our old house in Tregaron! If you plan on attending, please let me know so I can make sure you are fed properly!

This has taken a few weeks to get ready, but when I was on my way home to Omaha from Houston, I stopped in Wichita, Kansas for the night. They say that they have the best zoo in Kansas there – the Sedgwick County Zoo. I got up early in the morning in late January on a weekday. It was 32 degrees and I had the zoo to myself for the most part. I spent about 6 hours walking around and really had a nice time. I got a few photos that surprised me…like a rhinoceros sticking out her tongue. There was also a cardinal…I think I have mentioned that I often see cardinals at the zoo….making me feel like Joe is with me. This cardinal flew right into a coati enclosure to get my attention. He followed me around and so I got a lot of photos of him too. New fun fact: flamingoes actually don’t mind cold water. They were really noisy but splashing and having fun in the cold water. You could hear the lioness roaring at the lion from all over the zoo. You could see her breath in the cold air and that was pretty cool. Just hearing her give him a hard time about I don’t know what, but she was the epitome of “I am woman; hear me roar!” I was also chased by a wood duck, which was comical I am sure, but somewhat terrifying. The black swan also tried to approach me, but I don’t mess with swans – learned that the hard way as a kid. There must have been something strange going on in that aviary area because I heard several screams of people come from there. Either the ducks were chasing them, the swans, or maybe one of the free-roaming wallabies in the area snuck up and scared them. There were also these African Painted Dogs that were interesting. I don’t think I had seen them before. The buffalo here, Boomer, died this past week. He was so patient and let me take lots of photos of him. Their zookeepers are heartbroken at his loss, according to their FB page. Anyhow, I wanted to share some of my happy place times with you. The one random sunset shot is from my drive home that night to Omaha. I was in northern Kansas and just had to pull over and catch the beautiful colors.

I wanted to thank every one of you who sent me warm wishes yesterday. It was a hard day on so many levels, but I was kept busy. I did my normal Barre and Dancefit classes in the morning at the gym. Then I came home to a weekly photography zoom meeting….took a shower and was ready to meet Rich for lunch at 1230. The doorbell rang and Zac Oslica (Joe’s best friend) and his mom, Wanda, were at the door. They came with yummy carbs and an invitation to lunch. Zac had gotten off of shift at the fire department that morning and drove up from Kansas City to get to Omaha for lunch. I may have cried a little – it meant so much to me. He had lunch with us and then was going back down to Kansas City to try and beat the winter storm we were expecting. Plus, today is Zac’s birthday, as well as his girlfriend’s, Megan. So happy birthday to them. Grief zoom meeting number one ensued. I then got some laundry done and talked with my mom for awhile. Then grief zoom meeting number two…my local one that is monthly for grieving moms. By 8:20 I was finally done with my day and sat down with Rich and Lily to open cards and packages. I wanted to share with you what Lily gave me. I asked her last May if she would paint a portrait of Joe from a photo I had of him. I wanted her to change the helmet he was wearing to reflect that he wasn’t a recruit but a firefighter in the painting. I even went with her to Michaels on the last day of her junior year to buy her all the supplies she would need to paint it. I asked her a few times over the summer but she just put it off and I thought she had blown off the whole thing, However, she surprised me with this painting last night. I may have ugly cried when I saw it. I can’t tell you how realistic it is….the shading of his jacket…the detail of his gloves and wrinkles of his pocket. It blew me away. Today I spent a few hours making sure that she had everything she needed to get her spot verified for the Kansas City Art Institute. I have no question in my mind that is where she is meant to be.

Today is complicated. Today is my birthday. I am 52 glorious years old today. I remember 3 years ago that I wanted to make it to my 50th birthday. It was my second goal after making it to Joe and Michelle’s wedding. I remember being so out of breath on my 49th birthday that I couldn’t blow out the three candles on the cake. That was due to a rare reaction to the chemo that I was on. Joe, a year or two later, told me that it was a hard birthday for him. I was bald and couldn’t breathe and had been at the hospital for 7.5 hours the day before, trying to avoid a hospital stay and get some help with the crazy reactions I was having. He said he realized at that moment how sick I really was. So, every subsequent birthday is a blessing.

Last year, Joe came up to Omaha to surprise me on Valentine’s Day and stay for my birthday. He had been trying to get me to be a Chiefs fan for years, and told me, “Since you have finally drank the Chief’s Kool-Aid, I thought you needed some swag to wear.” It was a throwback Chief’s sweatshirt, which I absolutely love. He went out to dinner with us and then drove home after my birthday dinner. It was the last time I ever saw him…. on my birthday. I often look at the spot in my living room where he gave me one of his big bear hugs as he got ready to head out the door and drive back to Kansas City. I had no idea that he would be gone three weeks later. So today I am sad as it has been a year today since I have seen him. I am also blessed because the last day I saw him, he was spoiling me with a visit and my last hug from him was on my birthday.

This past Saturday, I did something very special for myself. I didn’t let anyone know I was doing it…. but it was something I had been wanting to do for about 10 months. I put on my Joe Messina memorial t-shirt, my dark gray and neon green socks (Joe’s favorite color in high school), jumped into the car that all of our kids have owned and driven, but was originally Joe’s, and headed to the tattoo parlor with a letter from Joe from when he was in boot camp. They created a stencil of his handwriting and now I have a message tattooed on my inner left forearm from Joe that I see all the time. My tattoo artist was super nice, and she was from Montana. She thanked me more than once for letting her do this work on me in his honor. She thought it was really cool. It didn’t take long, but I was near a window and watched two firetrucks go by during my time in her chair. That was my cue that Joe was with me and approved of my choice. Joe had A LOT of tattoos. He is probably laughing hysterically that his mom and dad now both have tattoos….to honor him and his memory. Below are photos I took with Joe at my birthday dinner last year, one of his hair on my birthday (I compared him to an alpaca) and then of the tattoo I got. I absolutely love it. The tattoo says, “Hey Mama! I love and miss you! Love, Joe”

I wanted to share with you what was discussed with my sarcoma specialist this morning. My local oncologist told me that I was stable. My sarcoma specialist agreed that to the naked eye, there has been little to no change in my tumors. However, his radiologist did find some minimal growth in my tumors in my pelvis. The tumors in my lungs and in my spine are stable according to him. I have three main tumors in my pelvis. One, the midline mass is stable at 5.8 cm. The big one in the left side of my pelvis is now 10 x 8.5 x 7.9 cm. Four months ago, it measured 10 x 8.2 x 7.4 cm. The tumor on the right side of pelvis sidewall is 3.8 cm up from 3.6 cm. My Mayo doctor and I had talked at length about how we would proceed if things started to grow a couple of years ago. Both he and I consider this stability. Once my tumors have grown 20% (that was the number we agreed on), we would look at a different treatment. Because I am not curable and on palliative care, my treatment is to extend my life but also to give me the greatest quality of life I can have for the longest possible time. So, we will continue with the same treatment I am on now. I will be decreasing my dosage of blood thinners by half the next time my script is filled which won’t be for another 3 months or so. He gave me permission to use the sauna, which I will start doing. I couldn’t do that with the other chemo I had been on because it caused my body to react to both excess sunlight and heat. We both agreed it may help with the stiffness and soreness in my joints. I will probably go physically up to the Mayo Clinic to visit with my sarcoma specialist the next time…in late May or early June prior to moving to Montana, as he has only met me in person once….in March of 2020. He is aware that we are moving, and he looks forward to working with my new oncologist. Anyhow, even though there was minor growth in two of my main tumors, he considers this to be stable and I should keep doing what I am doing. Just wanted to share the nuts and bolts of our meeting this morning with you. Love to you all!

I have mentioned that I was on the road most of January I decided that on my drive down to Houston to see my brother and his family, and my parents, that I would take a few hours to do something just for me. I really enjoy going to the zoo, so I thought I would go to one in Fort Worth. That had me driving a little over 10 hours the first day and then an additional four hours after I spent 6 hours walking the zoo. We had been there before….maybe 25 years ago when the boys were really little. It was around May that time and all I remember was how hot it was. My little ginger boys had red hot faces the same color as their hair. I remember thinking that many of the animals were not out because of the extreme heat that day. This day in January of 2023 was different. I went on a weekday where my only competition was from young moms with strollers and wagons and a few retired couples enjoying the 77 degree day. Unlike the zoo in Omaha, many of the animals are outside in the winter due to the mild climate, so I really had a good time walking around and meeting a lot of the animal babies. One I fell in love with immediately was Bruno, a male gorilla baby born in November 2022. He is still only with mom and she won’t let anyone, including the zookeepers, near him. She is a good mom and I had a really fun time taking pictures of Bruno and his mom, Gracie. They also had a baby Asian elephant and a baby giraffe. Enjoy!

I have a zoom appointment with my local oncologist to go over the results of my CT scans of my chest, abdomen, and pelvis. However, this afternoon, the results were released for me to look at on my online patient chart. The news is good – everything is unchanged after four months. I am stable. I don’t think I realized how heavy these results were weighing on my heart. Ever since Joe died, I have lost all fear of dying – I know he is waiting for me when it is my time. I also know that he would want me to live a full and happy life for as long as I am able, and I have made that a priority. One of the side effects of the medications I am on are incredibly vivid dreams. I am talking EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. It can be exhausting because I feel like I never get to a deep, calming sleep. I have to be careful with what I am thinking about prior to going to bed because they will morph into dreams. Some of the dreams are good…some are hysterically crazy…some are very sad and disturbing, and some are terrifying. When I took psychology in high school, the teacher took weeks with us to teach us how to stop a dream midway and realize it was a dream. That skill has stayed with me. I can tell myself that this dream is not real and is funny…and to remember it for the morning to share with Rich and Lily. I have had some really vivid scary dreams that I had to really tell myself over and over that it wasn’t real. I have had dreams about Joe that I have kicked myself over and over again for all of a sudden becoming aware that I am getting the gift of spending time with him in a dream and when I realize that…. the dream is over…he is gone, and I can’t get the dream back. I had a whole night of dreaming that my cancer had started growing again and I was on a new cancer regimen that really decreased my quality of life. It was an awful dream…. but one I know will one day become reality. So, I was more worried about these scans than I let myself realize. My inner dreaming self doesn’t hold back. So, I am relieved to say I should be good to go for another four months…. when I get to do this all over again. It will be the last set of scans in Nebraska. It will be towards the end of May or beginning of June. After that, I will have a new team in Montana to work with. I will also be having a zoom meeting with my sarcoma specialist from the Mayo Clinic next Thursday morning. I haven’t met with him for 8 months, so I am looking forward to talking with him again. I really like him. So, for today, and every day I live with this cancer in my body, I give thanks. Thanks for your continued prayers. I truly appreciate them.

It has been quite awhile since I have written about my health. I have been traveling quite a bit and most of it on my own. I did three cardio classes at the YMCA today after my scans this morning at the hospital. It was nice to know that I was missed. One of the older ladies I dance with has a brother who has cancer. I have seen her with him at the cancer center at my hospital in Omaha. The two of them went to the pink out game at Creighton University this past Saturday and watched the basketball game. She brought a pink Creighton vs. Cancer shirt for me today to class. It was so very unexpected and so very appreciated. Now I have something pink to wear during workouts on Valentine’s Day. Anyhow, as one person so aptly put it to me this weekend, “I never thought you would make it this long.” Well, I have and contrary to popular belief, it is a battle every day. No, I am not being hooked up to nasty chemo treatments every week. I have been there and done that. However, the nasty little white pill I take every day and those 2-inch needles in my hip every 4 weeks cause their own havoc in my body. Those side effects I deal with every day. When I watch the news, I have noticed they always lead with the horrible, shock-factor story to grab everyone’s attention. Since I have survived 3 years with a terminal disease, people…friends and acquaintances….and even some family members have stepped away. The horrible shock factor is no longer present….it has been over three years and I didn’t become a bald skeleton and become super sick. I did give up my hair for several months and I was very very sick at first due to a rare reaction to a chemo drug, but I have been fighting to make my story one of a person who fought each day with the cards she was dealt and tried to live her life to the fullest. So, I don’t bother telling most people about my scans anymore…. or treatment days. Those hospital visits used to be like notches on my belt – the things I survived to do again. My Joe was all about supporting me making those notches. I usually have at least one or two tears either in the waiting room or in the scanning machine knowing I won’t be getting a call from him directly afterwards, like he almost always did. A lot of stuff (feel free to insert a stronger word there) has been going on in my life the last few years and people are tired of hearing about my woes. Heck, I am tired of it. It exhausts me to carry it all the time and deal with it daily. So, I understand people stepping away. However, for the handful of people who have stayed with me through thick and thin and all the crap that life has thrown me lately, I want you to know that I truly treasure you. For the rest of you, I ask you not to give up on me. I am so, so tired from everything I have been dealing with lately….so much more than I am willing to share in this forum. I am not up for entertaining visitors or going out. It is just too tiring to try and put on a half-way happy face in public. Life is full of peaks and valleys and currently I am in a valley. However, I am using a photographer’s eye in this valley of my life to look at the beauty around me…. because it is still there. I just have to look harder for it. As for those scans…I don’t have an appointment with my local oncologist yet to hear the results. I have an email into his nurse, who should either release the results to my online chart so I can read it, or maybe she will call to set up an appointment. I will let you know when I know what the results are. Either way, I meet with my sarcoma specialist from the Mayo Clinic next week via zoom to discuss my treatment plan.

I would like to finish with two things that I have found interesting over the last couple of days. One is the lesson of being kind. You never know what battles someone is waging that you don’t know about. When I was driving home from Texas, I stopped at a gas station just south of the Oklahoma border. I filled up my tank and then went in to use the restroom. I have lived in cold weather climates for the better part of my adult life. When you come into a store, especially during the wintertime when there is so much snow, dirt, snirt (snow and dirt mix – if you have ever lived in a northern tier state, you know what I mean!), and salt out there, it is polite to wipe your feet on the mats just inside the door. There wasn’t any snow (although there had been 4 days prior) but out of habit, I voraciously wiped my feet on the mats inside the door. The man behind the counter said to me, “I have a dog that does that in my back yard – right before he shits. You aren’t going to shit on my floor, are you?” I kid you not, this was a direct quote. I know because he repeated himself because I literally just stared at him flabbergasted that he had said this to a complete stranger…and a customer. His coworker, a woman, told him he was weird. I told him, “I was just trying to be nice.” This man had no idea that I had stage IV cancer and CT scans looming over my head in a few days. He had no idea that I lost my oldest son less than a year ago and that I still cry for him every day. This man had no idea that I had just left my parents with my mom being alone for the first time in 55 years and my dad confused in a memory care unit. He didn’t know anything about me. He could have been kind. He wasn’t. I am sure he thought he was being funny. Stuff like that would have gotten a pretty strong retort back a year ago. This time, that stupid comment broke me. I drove down the highway in tears because it was just one more thing. Really, the only thing that snapped me out of it was imagining my Joe decking him, because he would have for someone speaking to his mama that way. Lily and I once went to Sam’s Club years ago. She was little but still remembers the whole thing. I was trying to get one of those gigantic Sam’s Club carts free from the line of carts folded together. I tugged and tugged and got one loose. A woman was behind me waiting her turn to do the same action for her cart. I gave her mine and started tugging on the next one for us to take. I turned around and she was crying. I immediately asked her if she was okay. She had just lost her mom and this tiny act of kindness tipped her over the edge. The world had been going on around her while she was grieving, and no one was being nice to her. So I hugged a complete stranger in the Sam’s Club corral because she needed it. So please, be kind. You never know what someone is dealing with.

The other thought I found interesting was told to me just tonight at my cardio class. The instructor is a pastor’s wife, and she is such a compassionate person. We have ended out class praying over women in the class before. She always ends her class with “exercise for your heart.” She tells us that we have worked our muscles and our heart is a muscle as well. She then will read a story, a quote, or some type of inspirational reading to us to think on for the week to be better people. This is why I always try to attend her class. She only teaches on Monday nights. Tonight, she talked about whether you are a thermometer or a thermostat. A thermometer just reflects the temperature of the room. Is it gossipy or crude? Are we lowering our standards as a person to fit the temperature of the room? Instead, we should be a thermostat: someone who can bring up the room with happiness, thoughtfulness, compassion. The mercury in thermometers is poisonous. Don’t be a thermometer. Be a thermostat and make an impact on people versus letting them control you. I thought that was a pretty interesting concept…so wanted to share it.

Many of you know I returned on a Friday night (Jan 13th) from Florida. I did laundry, reintroduced myself to Rich, Lily, and Tallinn (although Rich and Lily were gone all weekend with prior engagements) and turned around and drove to Houston that Monday morning. I drove as far as Fort Worth, TX (about 10.5 hours) and stayed there for the night. I purchased tickets online to the Fort Worth Zoo and spent a good majority of my Tuesday there taking pictures of the animals. They happened to have a baby gorilla (so adorable!), a baby Asian elephant, and a baby giraffe. They had all sorts of cool animals and I had a wonderful time just walking around taking photos of the animals. Zoos are my happy place, and I just needed some time walking outside and connecting with my Joe, who I always feel is with me when I am at a zoo. Those photos will be coming later. I arrived in Cypress, TX (just outside of Houston) Tuesday evening. I have since been spending time with my parents and my brother and his family. Craig and Mayra have a 12 year old son who loves basketball. I got to go to a game and a practice. It brought the memories flooding back from when Tim was so into basketball (okay….he still is but I don’t get to go to his practices or games anymore!). They also welcomed a baby girl named Emily Jo on December 20th of 2022. Craig is my Joe’s Godfather and uncle, so they named her in honor of him, which was so very touching to us. She is a peanut….so tiny…but so darn cute. She looks alot like her older brother did when he was a baby. It is entertaining to watch how she has wrapped everyone around her little finger. She definitely rules the house right now. There is also a big infusion of pink in their house, which makes me smile.

The hard part has been helping my mom get my dad ready to move into a memory care facility. Everything needed to be provided….a bed, three sets of sheets, clothes, sofas, chairs, toiletries….everything. We also put a little red truck door hanger on the outside of his door so he will know it is his room. He has a red truck and that was how he knew he was at his house when out walking….he looked for the red truck. We managed to get everything together and this morning a wonderful moving company (I really can’t say enough good things about them) came and moved him to his new place. Although my mom had mentioned to him all the time about moving, I think most of the time he had it in his mind that my mom was moving there with him….so today was hard. I took a photo of him this morning on his spot on the couch, where he has taken up residence watching news everyday for the last few years. I sit here now and look at that worn spot on the couch…my dad’s spot, and it makes the tears start to flow. However, his room looks really nice. It is in a corner of the building so is a bit larger and he has beautiful windows to look out of. He can look out the window and see the American and Texan flag flying. He has a TV with cable set up in his room but we have encouraged the memory care director to have him out with others and doing activities. There are exercise classes three times a day. They have a Bible study once a week. My mom will pick him up and take him to their Bible study at their church for as long as he desires to go.

While my mom was directing the movers on unpacking, etc, I accompanied my dad to his first meal in the dining room. There are cloth tablecloths and cloth napkins at their meals. The executive director of operations started out as a cook many years ago and on Wednesdays he makes a guest appearance in the kitchens and makes omelets for all the residents. We met with him on the way out and he was in a chef’s jacket…so I asked if he was doubling as the chef today. That was when he said he does dabble in the kitchen every now and then…and every Wednesday morning. Dad sat at a table with three other residents. Robert, a Marine Vet, was very talkative and pretty high functioning. He is hard of hearing though, so I must have shouted, “His name is WALT…..about 12 times.” Robert liked sharing the table with another military man and I think the feeling was mutual. I told him I had been in the Air Force and he literally rolled his eyes and pshawed me – as if the Air Force didn’t count as a military service. Dad was given water and pink lemonade to drink and then chicken and gravy, collard greens, and yams. My dad is not fond of yams or anything green….and pink lemonade would not be his first (or fifth) choice of drinks. However, my fussy eater dad ate everything on his plate and washed it down with pink lemonade. He then polished it off with a piece of cake! I got to giggling…I just couldn’t believe it! I asked him how his lunch was and he said, “Pretty good!” I am not sure he remembers my mom’s name because he never really has to say it. But he asked twice at lunch where “she” was. Both my mom and I feel pretty good about the staff. They are friendly and knowledgeable. My dad is very easygoing and polite, so I think he will quickly become a staff favorite. We left after the director took him to the living room to be with everyone else for activities in the afternoon. My mom will go to see him tomorrow afternoon and see how things are going. I will be heading home tomorrow morning. I am just trying to make sure that everything is okay here at home now that my mom will be living alone. My dad’s cognitive decline has been rapid over the last year, but he was always willing to help my mom by carrying the laundry basket, etc, for her. I have ordered one on wheels that will arrive on Friday. Here are a few photos from today’s hard day. As I hugged my dad and told him I was driving back to Nebraska tomorrow, he hugged me tight and told me he loved me. It was a precious lucid moment that I will cherish. I have already talked to my Joe in heaven and asked him to watch over him. Goodness, it has just been a tough year all the way around.

Just in case any of you were wondering, the weather was really bad here yesterday. Although we didn’t get hit by the tornado that landed in the Houston area, we were under a tornado warning a lot of the day and had nearly 6 inches of rain in about a 5 hour timeframe. It was windy and dark and the weatherman said at one point there was 617 lightning strikes in a 10 minute period in this area. Glad we weren’t moving yesterday! Today was sunny…but chilly for here. My brother, who works in Dallas for 4 days a week, had snow as he arrived last night.