It’s been 6 years you’ve been gone.  Gone.  
 
I contemplate if that is the right word to use.  You haven’t really been gone, have you?  I saw you this morning in the ripple of the water.  I see you and dad as I watch this mama and papa bird who live under the sundeck you and dad built.  They work tirelessly day and night taking care of their children.  The mama caws and squeaks so loud at our presence the neighbors can hear her.  I want to tell her “Be quiet mama! We aren’t going to harm your babies!”  But she’s doing what she’s supposed to do, calling out and taking care of her family.  I see you in her loud, angry, protective, reassuring squeaks. 
 
You could be loud at times.  Yelling. Singing, Laughing.
 
I thought of you this morning as I tried to quietly get my coffee from the kitchen as to not wake Austin who sleeps in the bedroom below.  You weren’t quiet in the mornings.  In fact, you were so loud I would wake up angry.  You did it on purpose.  You wanted us ALL to wake up, so we could take you water skiing.  The flat water at Chelan doesn’t wait for those who want to sleep in.  You’d put up with our grumbling, because it was worth your ski.  We’d put up with your need to ski, because it made your day.
 
When I opened the cabinet to choose my coffee mug, there you were again.  Yellow and bright in your school bus glory.  You woke up early to shuttle kids to and from school, and you made the best of it.  Driving sports teams to their events.  Taking the excited sixth graders to Camp Waskowitz as we sang “Peanut, peanut butter. Jelly.”   You always stored your roller blades on the bus, so you could take loops around Greenlake while you waited for the kids to finish their field trip.   You’d come home in the middle of the day, and park that big yellow school bus across the street. I can still picture it my mind, and see you opening the door to step out of your bus.  It always amazed me this little person, like you, could handle a bus that big.
 
But you weren’t little at all, were you?  You were strong and your spirit was large.
 
I’ve thought of you many times this week, as one of your children has not been feeling well.  I call them every day to check in, because I love them. Also, because that is what you would do.  You’d call your babies, checking in, just like the mama bird who lives under your deck.
 
Sometimes I feel sorry for myself, because I want more.  I want more of you than what you can give.  I want the loud, larger than life, loving adoration of my mom…to call, to sing, to ski, to laugh and to love. 
 
But today all I have is the opportunity to reflect on the lessons you and the last several months have taught me. We may not have everything we want, but we must make the best of what we have. 
 
I will see you in the ripple of the lake.  Walk in the hills you loved.  Drink coffee from the yellow school bus. Be reminded of your love as I watch the birds who live under your deck.

When my husband and I were driving to dinner this evening he excitedly clapped his hands together and said “Oh honey!!  I cannot WAIT for the next three years!!  Our house will be the way we want it and we will probably have our vacation home at the ocean.” 

We are in the process of a major home remodel.  Stage one will be done this year.  If all goes well, stage two will be done next year and then we can begin planning for a vacation home in Oregon.  And while I also have a lot of excitement around these same things, I instantly got a pit in my stomach.  I told him about the aching I had in my gut and what I believe to be the reasons why. 

My dad was diagnosed with cancer one year after he retired, and then my mom one year after my dad passed away.  Many years ago they purchased a lot of land in Chelan and worked tirelessly every free moment they had to build their dream home where one day they would retire.  To know how hard they worked throughout the years to only enjoy the fruits of their labor for a short time makes me sad.    The one counter thought that provides me comfort, is knowing that while they worked hard they also lived.  They didn’t wait until they retired to enjoy life.  Despite working long days Monday through Friday, every Saturday morning in the winter they packed our gear up into the school bus to ski Crystal Mountain.  When it was time to vacation they loaded suitcases in the back of the station wagon and drove across three states to take us to Disneyland.  Every summer they took us camping despite how much work and preparation it required. Eventually they began traveling the world.  And when they passed away they had hundreds of people fill the pews of the church because of the rich and meaningful friendships they built over the years.

I am thankful they didn’t WAIT out their long days and weeks at work until the day they retired to live.  I want to live life like that.
​
My husband and I spent our dinner talking how their death relates to the pit in my stomach when he excitedly discussed what awaited us three years from now.  In that moment I could ascribe three things to that feeling. 

1. I feel an immense amount of pressure to feel happy and love my life in the current moment.  I am no longer able to just put my head down, work and tell myself this will all be worth it one day in the future.  Their death has made the little things carry so much more weight.  If I spend my days not doing what I love it feels like a waste.  I feel guilty napping and wasting a couple hours in the middle of the weekend.   It sounds like a good motto in theory, but it also puts the day to day moments of life under a microscope. 
2. Relationships are critical.  Friendships are important. I read that one of the top five regrets of people dying was, “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”  I have important people in my life that I haven’t seen in weeks/months.  So when I miss lunch with a group of friends on Friday because I have a lot of work to do, it feels like a big letdown. 
3. The last one I mentioned feels pretty dark, and I know there are many people who will see it as fatalistic.  However, I know I’m not alone because my siblings have said they have felt the same way as I do.  For my entire life, until the day my dad took his last breath, I felt immune from true pain, suffering and loss.  When my dad died and then my mom, this illusion was shattered.  Now, sadly, it feels like it’s not a matter of IF something else will happen, it’s just a matter of when. 

 
So when my husband said he can’t wait for three years from now, my parent’s life and dreams flashed before my eyes.    I want to ensure I’m living life today and not for some day in the future.  This is entirely up to me.  I know this.  Which leaves me to end this blog with the other four ways in which the dying wished they’d lived their life:

•  I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
•  I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
• I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
• I wish I’d let myself be happier.

 
So now I need to pause.  Take a deep breath.  Acknowledge I can feel joy within every day of the week.  Find the courage to explore what I need to make that happen.  Be unafraid to advocate for myself if it’s not.  Let myself find happiness today, so I can feel excited for the added goodness that awaits.

Aside from working through the loss of a loved one, grief delivers several other side effects. 

Before you experience tragedy or loss, you are falsely lured into the idea you are immune.  However once you have been struck, your mindset changes from ‘if I lose someone I love’ to ‘it’s only a matter of time’.

Perhaps this is why I suffer from one of my side effects from grief...nightmares.  They don’t happen every night or even every week, but they have happened often enough.  The specifics of my nightmares are never the same, but the theme always is.  I dream of losing someone I love.  The pain and anguish causes me to cry out in my sleep until my husband softly rubs my arm or my back to wake me up. 

Saturday night I had one of these nightmares.  I had dreamt something happened to my son.  When I awoke I could not shake the feeling, and I could not fall back asleep until well after 2am.  For a long while, even though I was awake I could not stop crying.  The pain felt so real. 

The next morning I woke to my alarm feeling unrested and exhausted.  Although it was Sunday and I normally could have slept in, I wanted to wake early to see my son off before he drove back to school at Pullman.  He’d spent the last three weeks at home for his winter break.  On Sunday morning I watched him pile his bags into the already packed SUV of his best friend.  Austin and three of his buddies were driving back to their lives at Washington State University.

Today, I read in the news that my nightmare was the heartbreaking and unfortunate truth for two WSU families.  Two separate accidents, one on i90 and one on SR 26 took the lives of two young students. Between the hours of Saturday at midnight and Sunday at 5 pm there were over 150 accidents in the North Central Washington area.  The snow made the driving conditions treacherous.

All you need to do is google ‘Highway 26 WSU fatalities’ and you will see post after post of the dangers of that specific roadway.  State Route 26 runs 133.61 miles from I-90 east of Vantage, east to US 195 in Colfax.  This two lane highway is dangerous in clear and dry conditions as there are no passing lanes and drivers like to aggressively pass one another.  In snowy and icy conditions it is far more dangerous and deadly.  The common consensus online is something needs to be done to improve the dangers of that highway, but there seems to be little answers how to go about doing that.    

What normally would have taken my son five to six hours to travel from Redmond to Pullman, yesterday took him and his friends eight and a half hours.   

I sat at home last night in my sweats watching the Golden Globes with remnants of exhaustion from little sleep the night before.  Thankfully, I had been receiving texts throughout the day from my son’s best friend giving me updates on their travels.  I was finally blessed with a text at 5:30pm they had reached Pullman.

My heart is so grateful they arrived safely, but it is broken for the parents whose children did not.  I cannot stop thinking of the families who spent the last three weeks celebrating the holidays with their children only to say goodbye not realizing it was the last time.

My nightmare is the reality for those two families and the loved ones who lost more than anyone ever should. 

My heart is heavy.  Very heavy. 
​
I ask you to pray for the healing of those who are suffering in the depth of their grief.  I also ask you to pray for answers.  How can we prevent more deadly tragedies from happening on a road that carries the beautiful hearts and hopeful futures of our children?

It’s been five years.  Five years since you’ve been gone.  Sometimes it feels like it was yesterday.  The memories are so fresh in my mind.  Yet, there are times it feels like it was decades ago.  Things have changed so much since you’ve left.  I’ve changed.

When you are grieving people say, “In time, it will get easier.”  “In time, you will think of only the good and recall the memories with warmth and not pain.”  These are all half-truths.  Things have become easier, but they’ve also become harder.  It is true, the sharp pains have gone.  However, it is the long dull ache that remains.  I long to be the same person I was before cancer took you.  The person who laughed freely, who played practical jokes on my co-workers, the person who wasn’t so concerned about finding her purpose.  Your death reminded me of how much purpose you can have in this life, and how much of a difference one person can make.  Your death reminded me that life is too short, therefore I must find my purpose today.  I miss the carefree me, but mainly I miss you.

Most days when I think of you I can remember your hugs and your whiskers lightly grazing my cheek.  I felt so safe and loved when you wrapped me up in your arms.  Dad, you loved me even when I felt most unlovable.  I think of your humor and how your belly shook every time you laughed.  You laughed often, and you made others laugh even more.  You were fair and kind.  Your way with words was a crafted art that could disarm the angriest of beasts.

Dad, I do think of all these beautiful things, but the memories of the day you left are etched in my brain as if it happened moments ago.  These memories strike me at the oddest moments and grip my insides without mercy.  It was five years ago today, the first worst day of my life happened.  It was on that day I realized I am not immune from anything.  The shelter and safety your embrace afforded me was gone.  My glass house of happiness was shattered.

Every day I have struggled to build myself back up, to accept what I do not approve.  I have had to consciously choose whether or not I want to be happy, happy without contingencies.  This is harder than you think, choosing to be happy when life does not deliver what you want.

Dad, you were a great man, the greatest man I’ve ever known.  I’m doing my best to raise a son who is your equal.  You would be so proud.  He is everything you would imagine he would be.   You loved him deeply and he loved you just as much.

I remember the day you found out I was pregnant.  You walked through the kitchen door after a long day at work and mom blurted out the news, “Jill’s pregnant.”  I can still picture the palm of your hand slapping your forehead as your head dropped back and you let out an anguished sigh.  I wasn’t married.  I was attending college and still living with you.  I was seven months pregnant.

You had two months to adjust to the idea of your 3rd child becoming a parent in less than desirable conditions.  Yet, you and mom both adored your new grandchild the moment he was born.  You loved him no less than any of your other grandchildren. I think of this today because your grandson is graduating soon.  I know how happy you would be, standing in the stands to watch him graduate.  And let's be honest, yell something embarrassing as he walked down the aisle.

It is a sad thing to accept you won’t be there in body.  I can only find comfort knowing you are there in spirit.  I find solace believing you would be so darn proud. 

I’ve done my best, daddy.  I’ve done my best to raise my son to be as wonderful as you.

​I think I’ve done a pretty damn good job.

Missing you today and always.
​
Your daughter,
Jill

Yesterday, I shared a little bit about how grief impacted my family.  Today I will share the catalyst for that blog, my interview with my husband.   

Jill:  The past several years have been tough, really tough, with me losing both my parents.  I’ve written a lot about my grief and how it felt from my perspective.  Can you share what it’s been like as a spouse of someone who’s suffering from grief?  I don’t think people think about the spouse that much in these circumstances.  I mean, it was hard for our relationship, right?  It was a challenge for a while.

Ryan:  I think there was a paradigm shift that occurs, or at least occurred for me, in which I realized this is not something which can be solved or fixed.

Jill:  You mean, you can’t make me feel better?

Ryan:  Yes.  If my inclination is to try and fix the situation because I care so much about you and I see that you’re hurting, then my first reaction would have been ‘What can I do to not make you not hurt or to take this away either through distraction or doing SOMETHING.’

There’s a need to solve or fix the issue, but there is a realization that not only is that probably impossible to do, but really counterproductive.  Your need is instead to be heard, be listened to, and to have someone to empathize with you.

If you talk to me it’s not because you are asking me to take care of the situation.  It’s because you’re feeling incredibly deep and sometimes paralyzing emotions.  It’s my role to listen and to hear what you are saying.  It’s not my place to take that on and say ‘Okay. Now Jill is expecting me to remedy this somehow.’

Jill:  I think the hardest thing for me was wanting to feel understood, but it’s impossible for someone from the outside to truly understand.  Therefore, the feeling is even more alienating, even as a couple.  You are closer to me than anybody and I share everything with you.  Grief is alienating, because there’s no way possible for you to understand.  Yet, that was what I desired the most.

Ryan:  Because I haven’t lost a parent, I don’t have a good frame of reference on grief.  It was difficult to not only realize I can’t do anything to help, but to know I’m not sure I can entirely understand it.  It was difficult not only to know that you are hurting, but also to feel very powerless as to what my role should be.

Jill:  I think in a really strong relationship each person takes care of one another to a certain degree.  Sometimes that is 60/40, sometimes it’s 50/50 and sometimes it’s 70/30. But here, it is completely one sided.  I needed to be taken care of, and I had no bandwidth whatsoever to take care of you at this point in time.  This went on for a long period of time.  Is that how it felt? 

Ryan:  Yes, but along with that is the realization this is unbalanced out of necessity.  Grief of that magnitude isn’t something you can easily compartmentalize or set aside.  My needs or my own feelings could not take precedent, nor did I expect it to.

Jill:  Rationally you can tell yourself that, but emotionally is that still the case?

Ryan:  That’s a good distinction.  You can tell yourself something rationally and at the same time emotionally you feel “Wait…what about me?”  So yes, there is that constant kind of battle to meet emotional needs while still thinking rationally.

Jill:  I’m glad we can talk about it now, because if you told at that time “I don’t think my needs are being met” it would have been really hard for me to hear.  I was just trying to swim and keep my head above water.

I can see how as a spouse of someone who’s grieving they might feel like they are getting lost.

Ryan:  Yeah, absolutely.  Just as it is emotionally isolating for someone like you in the depth of their grief, it can feel like that from the other side as well.  The bridge, the connection, was really energy driven in one direction.  All the excess capacity is being taken up by this moment to moment, dad to day survival of sorts.  There’s still a constant battle what you know rationally, what you feel emotionally and trying to reconcile those two things.

Jill:  I went to therapy to help me work through my grief, and then I encouraged you to go to therapy to see if there were ways we could work through the grief together.  Was that helpful?

Ryan:  Yes, it was.   A lot of it came down to me finding an outlet to express my frustrations.  It wasn’t with you or with your grief or anything other than feeling I was unable to connect, unable to help, unable to empathize, unable to know how to best help.  Those are all things that would be really really difficult for me to discuss with you. 

Jill:  Do you have any advice for other spouses who are trying to support their loved ones through the grieving process? 

Ryan:  I found therapy to be very helpful.  I think if I can stereotype for a minute, I think men tend to be fixers.  We see something that is not right or broken or our wife is sad and we think ‘Alright. I’m going to step in here like I would fix a leaky faucet.’  With grief it is not something that can be fixed. As hard as we try and as much as we want to, there is not an easy way to make everything right or take away this pain.  In many ways it kind of goes against our instinct, or my instinct at least, to want to take care of everything.
​
I guess my advice would be to assess the situation and determine if your spouse is just asking for a willing ear, some comfort and some attempt to empathize rather than a plea for you to make everything better.

I’ve shared a lot on my blog about my personal journey with grief.  Never have I shared the impact my grief had on my family.  I would be lying if I said it had no impact whatsoever.   

In most healthy relationships there is a balance of give and take.  You give love; you get love.  There’s equal sharing of support and care.  With grief, there is a shift and the relationship becomes imbalanced.  This is justifiable and understandable.  Nonetheless, it can be a challenge for our loved ones who are sidelined while we work through a very personal struggle.

My family experienced the impact of my grief physically, financially and emotionally.

After my dad passed away I couldn’t bear to be embraced or hugged from anyone, especially my husband and children.  Six years later this is difficult and painful for me to write.

I couldn’t understand it at the time, since I am someone who will not hesitate to embrace a complete stranger.  Grief is an isolating emotion, and this response to my loved ones perpetuated my feelings of shame and isolation.  When I shared all of this with my therapist she said. “It’s because they are not your dad, and your daddy’s hug is the only thing you want.”  With that understanding, in time, I was able to work through these feelings and once again crave my family’s embrace.

Death reminds us of the limited amount of time we have on this earth.  For me, my grief created a personal quest to find ‘my purpose’.  I left a full time job to pursue passions that lived closer to my heart.   My husband was not only gracious and generous with my selfish quest, he was encouraging.  He was supportive even though this meant he absorbed the bulk of our family’s financial responsibility. 

What was supposed to be a transitory adjustment for me, turned into a far longer time frame than he and I had anticipated.   We hadn’t anticipated my mom would be diagnosed with terminal cancer only 17 months after my dad passed away.  We also hadn’t anticipated the three months of me taking care of my mom would turn into 22 months.  We hadn’t anticipated the brief sabbatical from the business I had recently started would turn into a permanent dissolution.

For approximately three years I did not contribute any income to our family, and yet my husband remained gracious and patient.  I am sure there were questions and concerns he felt, but because of my fragile state I believe it was difficult for him to clearly express his feelings.

When my mom passed away I had been suffering from grief for more than three years, and it had become somewhat debilitating.  I was able to manage my daily tasks, but I was a hollow shell just crossing the easy stuff off my list. 

I couldn’t clearly convey to my family how the grief from my father took me down at the knees, and now the death of my mother took the floor out from under me.  I felt as though I was living in quicksand.  All my energy was expended to survive each day and provide for my family’s basic needs.  Every day I exhausted immeasurable amount of effort trying to find the hope that was lost the day my mom took her last breath.

I can’t say for certain how my loved ones felt when I had experienced loss for a second time.  There was a big part of me that believed they were done.  “Alright already.  It’s been three years and we are ready for the old Jill to return.” 

The thing about losing two parents back to back, it’s not like the grieving you experience the first time leaves you better able to handle the second death.  First of all, the relationship with each parent is different, therefore the experience with grief is different.  Secondly, you are already severely handicapped from the loss of the first parent, so you only have half your tools to heal the second time around.  Lastly, my parents were my home.  No matter where they lived, where I lived or what I was going through, they were my home.  They were my place to return when I needed to feel grounded, feel safe and feel loved.  With both parents gone, my home was lost. 

I needed my parents to help me with my grief, but they couldn’t.  I needed my husband and my kids to help me with my grief, but they couldn’t.  My family needed me to be me, but I couldn’t.

For this, they had to live without the real Jill for a little while, until she could finally return to them scarred and battered.  They needed a level of patience unfathomable to me.  When I think about how frustrated I felt they didn’t understand what I was going through, I am reminded how little I understood what they were going through. 

I don’t regret the decisions I made.  I would do it all again in a heartbeat, but it doesn’t negate the fact the situation was hard on everyone, including my family.

Love is patient.  Love is kind.  Love is empathetic.   Love is family.   For my husband, I will be forever grateful the way he has taken care of Austin, Ryanne and I.  Because of him I was able to take the time I needed to spend with my mom, and then heal from my grief after both my parents were gone.  For my kids, I am grateful they gave me hope, so I could dig my way out of the quicksand. 

Tomorrow I will share a special interview I had with my husband in which I learned a little more about his experience sitting on the sidelines while I struggled with my grief.

To my husband and my kids, I will honor your patience and love by continuing to live my life with purpose.

Today is my dad’s birthday.

Most days since his passing I have done my very best to live life, embrace my wonderful memories, and not let the feelings of loss overwhelm my feelings of joy.  Today was not one of those days.

In addition to being my dad’s birthday, it also happened to be the funeral and celebration of life for a family friend.  He lived across the street from us growing up and was a beloved man of the neighborhood.  He was friends with my dad and I was friends with his daughters.

On occasion my dad drove the four of us girls to high school in the morning.  My dad would pull up to the busy drop off area where all the kids were unloading from the school buses.  He'd slide open the van door and yell, “Now GET OUT and NEVER DO THAT AGAIN!!!”  It was embarrassing for Kimmy and I, but mortifying for our two friends. 

Their dad, although a bit of a jokester himself, always greeted us with a smile whenever we came over for a playdate.  While playing in their basement, he served us the most delicious handmade crepes I’d ever tasted.  I have thought about those crepes many times over the years. 

Today, I sat in the pews of the Catholic Church with tears streaming down my face.  I watched his family walk in a procession behind the casket, and my heart ached for their loss in ways I have trouble articulating. I can only say I felt their loss, my loss, our loss within the deepest part of my soul.

As I was leaving the church I saw my dad’s best friend who was also there to pay his respects to their dear neighborhood friend.   The loss felt profound.  We both felt it.    I cried more than I’ve cried in months.  My dad's friend held my hand and gave me a hug as we let the loss wash over us.  

I was missing my dad.  He was missing his friends.

In the priest's homily today, he said we will see our loved ones again.  He said it is through our memories and our joy we remain connected. This belief gives me me the strength and comfort I need to focus on life, and not loss.  

But some days there is sorrow.  Some days we weep.  Everyday I miss my daddy's hug.

Today is my dad’s birthday.  Yet, I feel like it was my dad who gave ME a gift.  The embrace I received from his dear friend felt like the closest thing to a hug from my own dad.   It was the best hug I've received in a very long time.

Grieving, yet always grateful.

Someone I’m very close to recently asked me if I felt healed.  They were referring to the death of my parents and if I have overcome most of my grief.  I sat quiet for a moment, a little unsure how to answer. 

My wheels were turning as I tried to understand the meaning behind the question and how I could best describe my grief to someone else. 

One of the best analogies I’ve heard when it comes to describing death and loss is, “Losing someone you love is like an amputation.  No matter how well you learn to get around, you will never be the same.  You don’t ‘get over it’, you just adjust.”

Grief becomes a part of you, and you learn how to live with it.  Sometimes you forget its presence as it sits silently in the background waiting.   Then out of nowhere it will rear its ugly head when you are least expecting.  Regardless of whether grief is at the forefront of your mind or silently waiting on the sidelines, you are different because of it. 

Sometimes I feel like I should apologize because I’m not the same person I used to be, and then I feel angry for feeling that way.   One of the most selfish feelings I’ve felt during my darkest days of grief is to wish someone experienced the pain I felt for just one week.  I think, maybe then they will understand. It is a shameful and desperate response to satisfy the desire to be understood.

After my father passed away I sat in my therapist’s office with tears lightly rolling down my face as I talked about all the ways in which I was going to miss my dad.  The tissue in my right hand lightly dabbed at my cheek as each tear fell.  Struggling with the loss of a man I loved deeply, I could not imagine anything feeling more painful than losing him.  That is, until my therapist spoke her next words.  She said to me, “Your life will never be the same.”  The tissue I had been using to lightly wipe the tears away was sucked into my mouth repeatedly as I gasped for air in between sobs.

In those seven words my world turned upside down.   In addition to mourning the loss of my dad, I also had to say goodbye to my former life.  Birthday parties and holidays….changed.  Bear hugs wrapped in the softness of his chest…..gone.  Baseball games, graduation parties, weddings…..absent.  His jokes, laughter and words of comfort….silence.

My life has been forever changed.  It is not what I wanted, but this is my new life.    To honor my life and the lives of those before me, I have accepted this is my reality.  

Time healing all wounds is one of the biggest fallacies there are.  It implies that given enough time the grieving will be back to their ‘normal’ selves.  There is no going back.  There’s only defining a new normal.

Recently I gave a sheet to my husband which included statements about how it feels for the grieving.  Of the 120 statements about grief, there were 20-25 lines with my handwritten stars.  These stars emphasized the statements that spoke specifically to me and my feelings.  

The fact there are 120+ statements on this paper, and no two people will mark the exact same lines tells you a little bit about how vast and variable grief can be.  It is impossible to relate one person’s experience to another.

I cannot relate 100% to my sister, nor she to me.  I can’t even relate the death of each of my parents to one another.  They were different circumstances, different people and I had a unique relationship with each one of them.   To my friend who lost her father a short time ago, we both lost our dads, but her grief will be different than my own.  

It is a complex, double edge sword.  Grief cannot be clearly understood, but this is what I desire the most. I also desire compassion, acknowledgement, reassurance, patience, and love. 

Maybe this is what most people who are grieving want.  However, I cannot speak for everyone as as we are all unique and need to honor our own individual journey.  

I found it helpful to read the 120+ statements about grief.  It was comforting to know my feelings were understood and shared by someone else.  It felt therapeutic to make little stars next to the lines that pertained to me.  It was reassurance that all of my feelings are normal and part of the process.  If you would like a copy of the grief document you can email me at [email protected] and I will gladly send you a copy.  

With my love and condolences to all the grieving, I hug you in my heart.  You are changed.  You are not alone. You are strong. You are loved.   

It was one year ago today we said goodbye to our mom.  My siblings and I had kept vigil by her side all night long, sleeping in chairs until 4:30 am when we finally said goodbye.  It was one of the more painful days of my life, a day shadowed in surreal disbelief. 

Over the last year it has felt as though everything has changed and yet there are times it feels as though nothing has changed.  The heartbeat of life has continued without pause.   The birds still sing. The flowers still bloom.  School and work beckon and our future patiently awaits. 

Fourth of July in our family has always been a wonderful holiday and a time for the family to celebrate our freedom and the love of our family.  Growing up we celebrated the holiday with parades, swim races and fireworks on Angle Lake.  In later years it was spent with morning water skiing, boat rides, ice cream and fireworks on Lake Chelan.   This year was no different and yet completely different all at the same time. 

We played, laughed and celebrated, but the loss and absence of our parents still tugged at our hearts.   

There have been days I’ve felt bitter at the unfairness.  Sometimes the memories of those moments in the hospital surface through my subconscious and make me feel terribly sad.  But somehow over the past year we’ve managed to make our way through to find new hope for tomorrow.  This year we celebrated our lives, our family and my parents legacy with gratitude.  We have each other and we were loved by two people who sacrificed everything to give us such wonderful blessings.

Today, in memory of our mom I will share the poem I wrote shortly after her diagnosis.

Cancer…Your evil ways
12.10.2012

You crept into our lives in the darkness of the night.
Silently you entered without so much a fight.
You hid yourself in guise leading all off course
Buying time to grow until we found the source.

You weaved your web of grey taking cells by one.
The bodies now half broken without a loaded gun.
You found your way and struck into our family core.
You grew within the man, the father to us four.

He fought and tried to keep your evil grip at bay.
Your hold onto his body would not go away.
He left you in his flesh to begin his journey home.
You took away his laughter, his soul was left to roam.

We feel his presence daily guided by his hand.
We need his strength today with Our Saviors newest plan.
You’ve woven in the dark and caught us once again
Striking wounded hearts barely on the mend.

You demonstrate no pity to hit us all once more.
You’ve taken on another, the mother of us four.
You’ve brought us to our knees pleading for your grace.
Have mercy on our family leave without a trace.

We recognize your evil and this is not your way.
You made your mark in flesh and found a place to stay.
You take our blood and body, and cause our hearts to cry
But our spirits live on always, our souls are free to fly.

You will win these battles in your clever ways,
But our faith will never waiver in our love and praise.
We honor Him and know the journey that awaits
Eternity with loved ones beyond Heaven’s gate.

As Father’s Day approaches I reflect on all the fathers in my life.  I think of my husband, my ex-husband, my brother, my two brother-in-laws, my father-in-law and my ex father-in-law.  I think of all the wonderful men in my life who have impacted me and my kids in unexplainable ways.

I especially think about my own father.

Shortly after my dad passed away people would tell me someday I would be able to think about him without sadness. They told me someday I would remember the good times and smile.  Someday I would recall his sense of humor and laugh. 

This is all true…most days.  But there are still those days I hurt for our loss.

My heart still aches at the unfairness our dad was taken from us too soon.   I feel the absence of his embrace and long for the feel of his whiskers on my cheek.  I miss the way he would walk into the room and make everyone feel comfortable and happy in a remarkable way.  I miss his wit and his ability to make people laugh without feeling laughed at.  I miss the way in which he loved me…truly loved me without condition.

The days I miss my father the most are on Saturdays when I sit in the stands watching my son play baseball.  As I sit with 10 other family members, it is in those moments I feel the absence of my dad.  He loved watching Austin play baseball.  

When he was in the hospital undergoing chemo we set up a webcam so he could watch the games from his hospital bed.  Before my dad was sick he would sit on the hot metal bleachers with the sun blazing and sweat rolling down his cheeks.  He would loudly exclaim “I sure picked the wrong day to wear my leather underwear.”  

When Austin was a little guy I arrived at one of his games with my whole family already sitting in the stands and Austin in tears.  Austin had mistakenly wore his cup without the special underwear and his cup was rubbing him raw.   To make Austin laugh my dad yelled out to him on the field “Austin, did you remember to put the cup on in the front or in the back?” 

He was the biggest fan of his family.  Whether it was a dance recital, piano recital, talent show, drill team competition, basketball game, football game, triathlon or baseball game he was always present.  He always put his family first.  He postponed his admittance to the hospital for his chemotherapy treatment so he could watch his granddaughter sing a solo in her 5th grade talent show.

My siblings and I laughed so silly the other weekend when my dog, Milo, ran up to a group of ladies and began sniffing one of their behinds quite inappropriately.  It was at that moment we remembered how our dad would have handled the situation. When my parent’s dog would greet visitors at the door with a good ‘ol crotch sniff, instead of awkwardly trying to pull the dogs away my dad would ask “You’re not in heat, are you??”

He would talk to little girls in the grocery store who were wearing the princess dress they wore for Halloween by saying “Oh my goodness. Don’t you look beautiful!?!”  He made grocery clerks laugh when he closed his eyes and crossed his fingers as he waited for his credit card to clear saying “Please go through.  Please go through.”  When he was on the ventilator in the Intensive Care Unit the nurse told him his numbers were improving slightly and he could maybe have the ventilator removed.  He pointed at my mom and gestured for hanky panky.

He loved his friends deeply, loved his family fiercely and loved his wife the most.   He worked hard to not only put food on the table, but to create memories that have lasted a lifetime.  He loaded gear in the car every Saturday to take his family snow skiing. He launched the boat every summer teaching countless kids and adults how to water ski.  He ended his weekends with sore muscles from all of his DIY projects.  He was firm with discipline, but generous with his love and affection. 

On occasion, I still find myself feeling sorry at the unfairness of our loss.  I sometimes feel robbed of the extra time I wanted with a wonderful man.  But when I think of who he was, what he did for his family and the legacy he left, I feel lucky I had him for a father even if it were only for the briefest of time.