The past couple of weeks there have been some changes in our house.

The day after Don and me booked our Mark Birthday Cruise, he was laid off.  Actually, it didn't matter too much because in all actuality, Don was done.

He has been struggling with rheumatoid arthritis since Mark had moved to Memphis.  There have been numerous injections, trips to the ER, MRI's, surgeries and medication.  One of the medications Don takes every week is methotrexate.  This is actually a cancer chemotherapy drug.  It was discovered that people who were being treated for cancer and took this drug....their rhematoid got better.

Don started taking it in 2005.  I would talk with Mark frequently about how his Dad was doing, and Mark felt compelled to come back to St. Louis.  He was worried about his dad...and one night called me to ask  "Mom, I was just wondering if Dad's hair started to fall out from that chemo drug."

"No....your dad has been losing his hair long before he took methotrexate!"  Mark thought that was funny.

All the treatments are supposed to help with slowing down the disease and helping with the pain.  They have helped some, but over the past year it has been much worse.  Don's hips, ankles and back hurt more than they ever have.  He has had to take medication and pain medication daily.  His hands get swollen and they lock up.   He has trouble even holding a pen long enough to fill out some forms.

For a person with a desk job, he probably could keep working.  For someone who is a bricklayer, it is impossible.

So after over 35 years of laying brick, Don is done.  Even if he wanted to continue to work, he wouldn't be able to do the job anymore.  We have started proceedings for him to get disability.  This is going to take literally weeks, months, possibly even a year or two.  But it is time, he is done.

It will be a little difficult for us.  Perhaps we never should have registered for this trip.....but something deep inside tells me Mark would want this for us.  I know John and Tabitha are glad we are going, despite the expense.  I will just work extra when I can.

I know that while Mark was sick those last six months, it was so hard for Don to get up in the morning.  Some days he could hardly move when he came home.  He kept working so that we would have insurance for Mark.  He thought about stopping after Mark died, but felt that he was still able to work.

No more.

This starts a new era for us.  It is a change that we can live with. 

Don and I have talked about several times over the past couple of months of how our life has changed some, and then again not changed at all.

We both dread Mark's birthday.  It is probably the most difficult time of the year for us.  We learned very quickly last October that the one date where we know he should be here will not get any better with the years.

We decided to change things a little this year.  We plan to "get out of Dodge" so to speak.  We both know that the one place we feel happy, feel Mark is surrounding us, and feel at peace is at a beach.  So, Don and I booked another cruise so that we are doing just that over Mark's birthday.

We spent a lot of time looking at different cruises and decided to go to Aruba.  On October 6 this year, we will spend the day there.  We booked our trip, our hotel in San Juan, our airfare.

The next day he got laid off.

Darn it anyway, but maybe Mark knew.  Maybe he knew if we had waited just 24 more hours after spending months of saving, months of discussing, that we wouldn't have done it if we had known Don would have been laid off.

We are going anyway.  Maybe I will need to have a garage sale or something, but we are going.

So, it is Mark's fault we are going.  He always seemed to cost me a lot of money when he was here.   This year it will be no different.

Today, we will be celebrating his brother.  Dick's funeral is this morning and I know it will be a difficult morning for Don.  Once again, together, we will get through this.

This morning around 7am, Don's brother,  Richard, passed away. 

There is a lot of old history with Dick, and those who have known our family for a long time are aware of stories surrounding him.  He was, however, Don's only brother.

Dick perhaps made some bad choices in his life....choices that impacted us DeWalles.  Yet, despite everything, there remained a strong bond between him and Don.  And, in the end, the past trials didn't really mean anything anymore.

It was Uncle Dick who bought Mark his laptop so he could stay in touch with all of his friends when he was sick.  Don and I were in no place to get one for Mark at the time, and how Dick knew to do something special for him was something I have never forgotten.  Mark was so very grateful.

The real irony is that I am sure neither Dick nor I would ever guess it would be only me at his bedside when he died.  Being the first family member to pass away since Mark, I am sure Mark was up early this morning to greet his uncle.  I am sure after a breakfast only Grandma Sophie could make, the headed either to a ball park, a fishing hole, or a golf course.  

I called Don at work and told him that his brother had died.  Even though it was expected, it is very hard for him.

Please think of Don today as he adjusts to this new significant loss.  Think also of Mark teaching his uncle how to play golf, and smile.

Kind of a quiet 4th of July for us.  Don wasn't feeling well this weekend and decided not to go to the fireworks on Friday.  I has planned and scheduled myself so that this year I could go....good thing I have two little boys who seem to love them.

Tonight we went again to the fireworks display at First Baptist Church of Arnold.  They too were spectacular.  I have Danny and Michael watching out for the grand finale....something I have decided is a hello from Mark.  They weren't disappointed.

Otherwise, it has been very quiet.  I know that if Mark were here, he would be busy getting ready for the All Star game this week downtown.  Somehow, some way, he would have had tickets.  Nothing else would have been a priority for him...just getting down there at any expense.

I have been trying so hard to put back some extra (what is that?) money so that Don and I can really get away for Mark's birthday in October.  Even though everyday is so difficut, it seems as though his birthday knocks it out of me the most.  I have to stop and think about how old Mark would be, because for me, he will always be 24.

I have found myself sitting at the computer desk and staring at one of my most favorite pictures of Mark...the one taken at Scott and Susie's wedding of he and Lisa.  He was healthy, happy, and tanned.  He was thrilled that he had "beaten" his cancer, and was beginning to work on plans to come back to St. Louis.  Within the next month, he had convinced Butch that he was needed at home.  It is one of the interesting pieces to Mark's last year...that he was able to come home.  I cannot imagine how things would have gone six months later if he had not been back in St. Louis.

I still see Mark everywhere......I still look for him everywhere.  Even though I was in two different areas this weekend where there were thousands of people, I still felt somewhat alone because there was one person that wasn't there. 

In the Oakville Call this week, there was a picture that did make me smile.  Maybe it wasn't meant to be a "Mark hello" but I took it that way.  It was a Maura's engagement picture.  Maura was someone Mark cared for quite a bit.  I always knew that he would either stop in Cape on the way home to see her or call her....and then call me to tell me he was again on his way.  She sent me the most special letter several months after he died...including a Bible passage that her grandmother had told her about.  I was just astounded when I saw that it was the exact same one that is listed on Mark's gravestone.  Maura was unaware of this and I am not even sure Mark's stone had been placed.  I smiled and it warmed my heart to see her picture, and how happy she looked with her fiance.  I know it must make Mark happy too to know her friend is happy.

I also used some of the downtime this weekend to watch a couple of documentaries on the computer.  All of them had to do with Holocaust survivors.  Having none of their history in my life, having not experienced anything that they have lived through, gives me another perspective on losing forever someone you loved.  I try to find stories that will give me more insight into what has been handed to me, how to cope.  I suppose I will be seeking those kind of stories forever.

One survivor described how his parent also survived, but never was happy because he lost other children and his spouse.  The comment about never feeling totally happy again because "he could not protect his own child" made me understand that no matter how one loses their child, that feeling can never be reconciled.

I could not protect Mark from cancer.  I never ever dreamed of anything even remotely near to Mark becoming terminally ill.  I worried more about car accidents, drugs, being at the wrong place at the wrong time.  Never, did I believe anything could come that would destroy that strong body of his.

One little lump.  That is all it took.

Despite all the stories I read, all the documentaries I see, all the Bible readings I do, I still feel no further ahead than I did when we learned Mark was ill.  There are many times when I feel that nothing can make things better, nothing makes any sense, and any explanation just isn't good enough.

I really appreciated the note I received from Marc Engel.  It was a "Mark story".  For the time it took me to read it, then to think about if for several hours, it gave me some Mark time.  I remember Markie telling me he never wanted to play golf with Marc...something I suggested when Marc was going to Memphis.  "Mom, how will it look if I lose to a blind guy?  Even worse, if I beat him, everyone will think that is just as bad."  It always makes me laugh when I think about it....and when I told that to Marc, he too laughed.

That reminds me of a similar story.  Tony Chytla and Mark played in a league at Annbriar.  Following Mark's first stint with chemo in 2004, Mark took Tony with him to Pebble Beach.  I remember worrying about Mark out on the golf course and Tony told me had made arrangements with the director so that he and Mark always played together.  That way, Tony could keep watch on Mark.  He could tell when he had enough.  I remember the first time out and Mark beat Tony.  It was the same thing...we kidded Tony about not being able to beat a kid undergoing chemotherapy...yet, if he had beat Mark then how dare he beat a kid with cancer.

I hate the weekends I am off and Don is to sick, tired from taking his medication for his rheumatoid arthritis.  All he really feels like doing is watching TV and napping.  I end up spending a great deal of time alone and when I am alone, I do a lot of thinking.  My thinking is always with one thought:  Mark.

Even with two evenings of several thousand gathered in one area to watch fireworks, I was still alone.