Always with the two fingers with this kid lol
SO many words of wisdom in the book I've been working through right now: Calling in "The One". It truly is not about actually attracting someone, but rather about healing yourself from the inside out and dealing with toxic thoughts and people and healing from that. Honestly, it has left me feeling complete just as I am.
#GodsPromises
The kids really enjoyed having Uncle Daniel around this month.
I came out of the bathroom from getting ready for work to find this scene. Cashel told me he was teaching Kinsley about how to tell time and fractions lol I told him that it may be a bit advanced for someone who doesn't even know how to spell her own name entirely just yet, and he told me that he'd handle making her the smartest girl in the world. &heart;
A willing pupil!
I have maybe 8 inches on this guy at this point. Eeek!
I seriously love dating my kids. It's so much fun!
That moment when your kid takes a picture of you and you realize that angles are super important lol
First night using the grill this season!
I seriously laughed SO hard at this one lol
While super fun to watch, my boys discovered that the Ninja gym is maybe not really our thing. Some of these kids were legit like little monkeys, swinging from one ring to the next with ease. It was crazy! Cashel and Kendrick were just way too big for it.
Vinyl Taco, however, was most definitely our thing lol
We went off to Air Madness after lunch, however, and that was a HUGE hit! We all had SO much fun!
We definitely will be back here!
It was SO nice to just have a weekend with my bigs. The little two were with Mark's Dad and step-Mom for the weekend in Worthington, and it was just SO much less stressful to not have to chase them around.
I did NOT visit Falls Park enough when I lived in Sioux Falls back before I met Mark.
I'm not entirely sure I could have made a better meal if I tried. This was outstanding!
I got to take each of the kids separately to see Mark, and they enjoyed it so much! Unfortunately, he had a bad headache when I was in with Kendrick, but the pain meds had kicked in by the time I brought Cashel. We didn't know this would be the last time the boys would see their Daddy this side of heaven :( But as I look at this picture, I realize more than ever that it was Mark's time to go. I don't often post pictures like this of him not smiling, but the vast majority of the time, he looked more like this. He was in pain, miserable and couldn't express himself. Sure, he'd have some good days or portions of days, but he wasn't well. We may have "good" visits, but although he had the best possible quality of life considering the disease he had, his poor body and brain were so broken. This picture validates that for me.
Kendrick and Ryan always do such a great job of engaging with Mark and playing games. I will miss this!
By the time Cashel made it for a visit, the pain meds had kicked in, and Mark was feeling a lot better.
I need to do this more often: This separate of bigs and littles. The big two really enjoyed time without having to cater to the babies, and I can't say I hated it either!
A vanilla chai latte with either coconut milk or almond milk is where it's at!
Oh Ryan...this poor kid has been all over the place, but we're still working through emotions for sure.
This girl, on the other hand, is a hoot!
My goodness do I ever love this lady! My "Jil" always brings the smiles and the hugs for me, even when we're both in the dark places. Thank you for loving me, friend!
I admittedly laughed SIGNIFICANTLY harder at this than was probably necessary lol But for real...if you stop looking for bugs, are they even there? lol
Two things on this picture: 1) How is my baby FIVE? 2) How do you get your five year old to stop wearing pajamas all day every day without a legit fight?
It's going to be a great summer!
A pretty typical video chat with Mark.
Upping those weights! Aside from weighted punches and flies, these are my go-tos for all other upper body and lower body free weight activities.
Ryan is BIG time into Ryan's World stuff lately. After his birthday, that really dissipated, thankfully, but this birthday was ALL about Ryan's World.
BIG time!
The kids were apparently very concerned that I might become hangry at some point during the day lol
Ryan is officially registered for Kindergarten now! What?!?!?
#Coffee
Date afternoon with this guy consisted of ice cream and shopping. He is like his Mama in that he's much better at spending than saving.
I feel for Cashel when it comes to his hair. Everyone else in our family was blessed with a pretty normal hairline, but his is all whackadoodle, so he pretty much just gets a buzz cut every time he cuts his hair.
Guilty! It cracks me up that all I had to do was look at her and she burst out like this. She knew.
I'm not quite ready for another project JUST yet, but when I am, I think this will be a little mini one. I love the cabinets up top, but I'd like to add so much more to the equation, and I'm thinking some sort of different flooring. I have a TON left from the floors upstairs and downstairs I could use, but not sure if it'd be a great fit for a laundry room. Any suggestions?
This is my dream laundry room...and see...there's ha rdwood there. Would it be weird? Even if it's in a utility room?
The pig tail game was STRONG in the month of March. I love it!
First fire of the season!
Kendrick is getting SO much better at reading. It's the one area I was growing a little concerned with during distance learning, because not only did he not want to do it, and I had to force him every time, he was just barely eeking by, right at where he should be. He started the year unwilling to even read to me, but now he likes to at bedtime, which I love!
Why is it always when they're the cutest and sleeping, that's when they have the crusty, dirty face? lol
My girl Erica has the best memes. This one definitely resonated with me.
OMG I love this lol
Kiddo #3 has now officially discovered that he can take selfies when my phone is locked.
Homegirl is such a little diva. She insisted on taking all 3 of her favorite blankets on a walk with us, but I knew she'd make me carry them, so I brought a bag with me to hold them. It took all of about a tenth of a mile for her to be weary of carrying them, so we put them in the bag. She cracks me up!
Not only is Kendrick reading to me, he's also taken it upon himself (on his good days) to read to Kinsley and Ryan before bed. I wish this was a regular thing, honestly lol But I caught this one day and just loved it!
I've been working hard to be more positive. My friend Jenna calls it "manifesting", and so I "manifested" that there would be overnight pull ups in stock in the Worthington Walmart, and lo and behold! The downfall of living in such a dinky little town is that most of the time, the specialty types of things like this are seldom in stock. ::sigh::
MAJOR seasons of unsettling around here. I had no idea what was coming when I read this. This was the morning before I left for my Des Moines trip. When I got back, I got the call the next morning.
Thinking I am NOT a wide-brimmed sunhat kinda girl. Probably more of a viser or baseball cap one.
I was so thrilled to get to catch up with all but one of my siblings over the course of my weekend in Des Moines. This was a quick brekafast/coffee date with my brother and his wife, and my sister and her daughter in Fort Dodge. I've seen my sister a few times, as she's taken my kids so I can have some respite for a few weekends over the past year, but not my other siblings over over a year! It was so nice to see their faces!
My big bro Dave joined me for drinks at Lua Brewery (owned by one of his buddies) for a gorgeous afternoon on their outside dining area. It was so good to catch up!
It felt so good to actually have a reason to get all dolled up! I spent the weekend with my girl Jenna, a fellow FTD Spouse I met on a Facebook support group. She's my favorite travel buddy, as we're both really chill!
And...here's Jenna! We had fun at a comedy club, eating out, resting, just enjoying a little kid-free time for the first time in FIVE MONTHS!
We had these pork nachos that were SOOOOO good at the comedy club (we went to Funny Bone). Highlight of the night!
I also got to see one of my best friends from college for the first time since my Mom's funeral in 2017! It felt like no time had passed at all, per usual with us. Love you, Steff!
Downtime? What is that?
We were just feeling a little wild and decided to get on over to David's Bridal and try on dresses just for the heck of it lol I'm pretty sure they knew that neither of us were truly in the market, just felt like feeling pretty lol No one even offered to help us lol
We pulled out all the stops - so yummy! I kinda wish I had gotten the lobster tail, though, if I'm being honest. My soup was so yummy, but also cream-based, so with a dairy insensitivity...yeah lol
I love and miss this lady so much! She's my grounding person - who keeps my heads out of the clouds and focused on reality. She's the one who encourages me and tells me I'm not the things I tell myself I am. Her journey with FTD is not over yet, but I can honestly say that I'm SO thankful that FTD brought us together. For such a devastating and traumatic disease, these FTDers are married to the very best people!
My baby brother had a baby! I finally got to meet Miss Lena even if she was almost THREE MONTHS OLD! She is just the most adorable little lady, and I'm so thrilled for JJ and Molly! As expected, Jason is such a wonderful Daddy, and Molly such an incredible Mama too!
Love you guys!!!
For some reason (A God thing, for sure) I felt compelled to end my trip a few hours earlier than I had intended so I could head back and swing by Mankato to see Mark (which, it's about 30-40 minutes out of my way, really). This is the last picture I have of him and I together. Ever. The Lord called him home in the middle of that night.
I got the call from the hospice nurse at 8:54am. to say that they believed that Mark had passed. The whole day was a blur, but with vivid snippets of memories. I wanted to be there for all of it, even as they transferred him to the mortuary stretcher and zipped up the bag. I recall some of it, but most of it was a blur. My dear friend Angie took me there, and took me to lunch and we went back, and I stood there stunned for hours. It felt so surreal. I expected to feel something, really, anything. But mostly I just cried a whole lot, and stopped thinking about it. From the moment I got home and got the kids to sleep, I just wanted to be alone. The next morning, I dropped the kids off at daycare to go about their normal days (they didn't have nearly as big a reaction as I had envisioned), and went out to Wolf Lake and walked for hours in the rain. It was just what felt right at the time.
It was Tuesday, and therefore date day with Ryan. Considering all we'd had happen, I wanted to keep life as normal as I could, so aside from looking like death, I forced myself to dry the tears for a while, put on some makeup and do my hair and actually get dressed and have some time with my baby boy.
It has been good for me to have little ones underfoot during this process. They're so blunt, and they're much less understanding of what happened, and so it has been this underlying joyful bustling that keeps me taking the next steps forward.
Beautiful, from my bestie Jill - thank you, woman!
I just can't believe she's my little lady. She's so grown up!!
I drove up both Wednesday and Thursday to clear out Mark's apartment in Mankato, and while there on Wendesday, I walked past the men's Depends, and about lost it. It's just so wrong to feel sad that you'll never be able to buy your 41 year old husband diapers again. It didn't last long, of course, and I had the same reaction the first time I had to buy them for him, but still. It's going to be those little things that really get me worked up, I have a feeling.
Seeing all his things piled up in his room didn't really get me, honestly. Packing his things up didn't get me. Taking load after load to the car to pack up didn't get me either.
This last load, however. This one got me. The first time I visited after he passed and they had taken his body away, no one had turned off the music on his Amazon Echo in the room. While I was moving out, the top Christian Hits station continued to play, and even when I left the first night, I didn't turn it off. Thursday afternoon, after a long day of trying to find donation places open and working up a major sweat and just feeling exhausted, I moved that last load into the hallway and came back into the room for one last time.
The Echo was still sitting in the corner, quietly playing music, and I just slumped onto the floor against the wall and looked around and just sobbed. It's unnatural to experience what I have over the past 5 years. It goes against anything we think could happen to us as 35 or 36 or 37 or 38 or 39 or 40 or 41 year olds. Seeing the dirty carpet, the paths which were well-worn from his anxious pacing, the spaces they attempted time and time and time again to clean up after his accidents. The stains. The memories of moving him in, and how much more alive he was, even though he was still so dead - it just broke me. His Echo was one of those things that will always bring back the memories for me of this time in his life, and after about half an hour of sobbing, I listened to one last song: Rescue by Lauren Daigle, before I unplugged it, carried it in my hand to the door, opened it and walked out of that apartment for the last time.
The Pillars has been such an enormous part of our story, not only just as the ONLY place that would accept him in the midst of turmoil, but as part of our family. They ARE family to us. I already miss them, and I can't wait to see them again! They gave us all a safe space in the midst of this horrid disease and the uncertainty that it brought.
I realized after going through pictures from that weekend and realized I didn't get many with Daniel or Iryna, and I feel just awful! Iryna and I had a really nice morning that Friday morning, going for a nice long walk out at Wolf Lake and then having some coffee over at River City Eatery. It was so good to have them around, I jiust feel bad I didn't get a chance to see them more with hosting my ginormous family the rest of the weekend.
I am so thankful for my babies. I cannot fathom going through all I have without them, or even with only one or two or three of them.
I found myself a various parts of that week feeling rushed. Rushed during my time with him right after he died. Rushed to decide on big things, like that I wanted to do an autopsy of his brain. Rushed to make decisions about dates and times and clothes and clearing out his place and just so many things. The one part that pained me was not knowing if I should or shouldn't take pictures of stuff like this. Or stuff like my kids at the casket. Or should I have the kids even SEE him in the casket. I even have one of myself that I set a timer of to take one of ME by the casket, as I was there alone, after an hour of tearful goodbyes. It's...morbid. It's awkward. There's no time to sit there debating what to do, though, and you don't get that hour back to do it over again. I'm glad I have them, honestly. I'm glad I did the awkward thing of taking the pictures. The world doesn't need them, but they bring me great peace, and for that, I'm glad I did. For those of you going through something similar, I'd encourage you still to take the pictures. You don't get to re-live it, and for me, it gives me peace as opposed to angst.
Brothers are pretty special. ♥
I love my family so much, and I was so glad to be able to see them all together for the first time in ages.
Thjs pretty well sums up the evening after the burial service. So much napping for all of us, and absolutely no work whatsoever.
I got a few hours of downtime the day after, when we went to see Mark's Dad, Pam and Jess after church. It was nice to have that time, even if I'd been alone a lot the week leading up to it: That time had been spent planning, not resting.
I made my own doppleganger lol
Uncle Daniel is so special to us! We have thoroughly enjoyed having him near us for so many months over the past few years. We miss him when he's not around, although we know he can't be here forever. We've been so thankful for the snuggles and hugs and video games and fishing and tough love at times. Mark, no doubt, is so thankful that you're here loving on his babies like you do. Thank you so much, Bub!
I thoroughly missed my gym that week, and I was SO thankful that Daniel and Iryna were up for hanging with the kids so I could get there for the first time in almost two weeks.
The first of many visits to see Daddy's grave. When we got there, there were 4 deer tromping all around it, and one was even standing on the dirt pile there. So fitting, huh, babe?
Kendrick's first 300pc puzzle, all by himself! He made sure I took a picture to show Aunt Iryna the finished project!
Lots and lots of that settling going on these days.
Until we meet again, sweetheart ♥
SO many words of wisdom in the book I've been working through right now: Calling in "The One". It truly is not about actually attracting someone, but rather about healing yourself from the inside out and dealing with toxic thoughts and people and healing from that. Honestly, it has left me feeling complete just as I am.
#GodsPromises
The kids really enjoyed having Uncle Daniel around this month.
I came out of the bathroom from getting ready for work to find this scene. Cashel told me he was teaching Kinsley about how to tell time and fractions lol I told him that it may be a bit advanced for someone who doesn't even know how to spell her own name entirely just yet, and he told me that he'd handle making her the smartest girl in the world. &heart;
A willing pupil!
I have maybe 8 inches on this guy at this point. Eeek!
I seriously love dating my kids. It's so much fun!
That moment when your kid takes a picture of you and you realize that angles are super important lol
First night using the grill this season!
I seriously laughed SO hard at this one lol
While super fun to watch, my boys discovered that the Ninja gym is maybe not really our thing. Some of these kids were legit like little monkeys, swinging from one ring to the next with ease. It was crazy! Cashel and Kendrick were just way too big for it.
Vinyl Taco, however, was most definitely our thing lol
We went off to Air Madness after lunch, however, and that was a HUGE hit! We all had SO much fun!
We definitely will be back here!
It was SO nice to just have a weekend with my bigs. The little two were with Mark's Dad and step-Mom for the weekend in Worthington, and it was just SO much less stressful to not have to chase them around.
I did NOT visit Falls Park enough when I lived in Sioux Falls back before I met Mark.
I'm not entirely sure I could have made a better meal if I tried. This was outstanding!
I got to take each of the kids separately to see Mark, and they enjoyed it so much! Unfortunately, he had a bad headache when I was in with Kendrick, but the pain meds had kicked in by the time I brought Cashel. We didn't know this would be the last time the boys would see their Daddy this side of heaven :( But as I look at this picture, I realize more than ever that it was Mark's time to go. I don't often post pictures like this of him not smiling, but the vast majority of the time, he looked more like this. He was in pain, miserable and couldn't express himself. Sure, he'd have some good days or portions of days, but he wasn't well. We may have "good" visits, but although he had the best possible quality of life considering the disease he had, his poor body and brain were so broken. This picture validates that for me.
Kendrick and Ryan always do such a great job of engaging with Mark and playing games. I will miss this!
By the time Cashel made it for a visit, the pain meds had kicked in, and Mark was feeling a lot better.
I need to do this more often: This separate of bigs and littles. The big two really enjoyed time without having to cater to the babies, and I can't say I hated it either!
A vanilla chai latte with either coconut milk or almond milk is where it's at!
Oh Ryan...this poor kid has been all over the place, but we're still working through emotions for sure.
This girl, on the other hand, is a hoot!
My goodness do I ever love this lady! My "Jil" always brings the smiles and the hugs for me, even when we're both in the dark places. Thank you for loving me, friend!
I admittedly laughed SIGNIFICANTLY harder at this than was probably necessary lol But for real...if you stop looking for bugs, are they even there? lol
Two things on this picture: 1) How is my baby FIVE? 2) How do you get your five year old to stop wearing pajamas all day every day without a legit fight?
It's going to be a great summer!
A pretty typical video chat with Mark.
Upping those weights! Aside from weighted punches and flies, these are my go-tos for all other upper body and lower body free weight activities.
Ryan is BIG time into Ryan's World stuff lately. After his birthday, that really dissipated, thankfully, but this birthday was ALL about Ryan's World.
BIG time!
The kids were apparently very concerned that I might become hangry at some point during the day lol
Ryan is officially registered for Kindergarten now! What?!?!?
#Coffee
Date afternoon with this guy consisted of ice cream and shopping. He is like his Mama in that he's much better at spending than saving.
I feel for Cashel when it comes to his hair. Everyone else in our family was blessed with a pretty normal hairline, but his is all whackadoodle, so he pretty much just gets a buzz cut every time he cuts his hair.
Guilty! It cracks me up that all I had to do was look at her and she burst out like this. She knew.
I'm not quite ready for another project JUST yet, but when I am, I think this will be a little mini one. I love the cabinets up top, but I'd like to add so much more to the equation, and I'm thinking some sort of different flooring. I have a TON left from the floors upstairs and downstairs I could use, but not sure if it'd be a great fit for a laundry room. Any suggestions?
This is my dream laundry room...and see...there's ha rdwood there. Would it be weird? Even if it's in a utility room?
The pig tail game was STRONG in the month of March. I love it!
First fire of the season!
Kendrick is getting SO much better at reading. It's the one area I was growing a little concerned with during distance learning, because not only did he not want to do it, and I had to force him every time, he was just barely eeking by, right at where he should be. He started the year unwilling to even read to me, but now he likes to at bedtime, which I love!
Why is it always when they're the cutest and sleeping, that's when they have the crusty, dirty face? lol
My girl Erica has the best memes. This one definitely resonated with me.
OMG I love this lol
Kiddo #3 has now officially discovered that he can take selfies when my phone is locked.
Homegirl is such a little diva. She insisted on taking all 3 of her favorite blankets on a walk with us, but I knew she'd make me carry them, so I brought a bag with me to hold them. It took all of about a tenth of a mile for her to be weary of carrying them, so we put them in the bag. She cracks me up!
Not only is Kendrick reading to me, he's also taken it upon himself (on his good days) to read to Kinsley and Ryan before bed. I wish this was a regular thing, honestly lol But I caught this one day and just loved it!
I've been working hard to be more positive. My friend Jenna calls it "manifesting", and so I "manifested" that there would be overnight pull ups in stock in the Worthington Walmart, and lo and behold! The downfall of living in such a dinky little town is that most of the time, the specialty types of things like this are seldom in stock. ::sigh::
MAJOR seasons of unsettling around here. I had no idea what was coming when I read this. This was the morning before I left for my Des Moines trip. When I got back, I got the call the next morning.
Thinking I am NOT a wide-brimmed sunhat kinda girl. Probably more of a viser or baseball cap one.
I was so thrilled to get to catch up with all but one of my siblings over the course of my weekend in Des Moines. This was a quick brekafast/coffee date with my brother and his wife, and my sister and her daughter in Fort Dodge. I've seen my sister a few times, as she's taken my kids so I can have some respite for a few weekends over the past year, but not my other siblings over over a year! It was so nice to see their faces!
My big bro Dave joined me for drinks at Lua Brewery (owned by one of his buddies) for a gorgeous afternoon on their outside dining area. It was so good to catch up!
It felt so good to actually have a reason to get all dolled up! I spent the weekend with my girl Jenna, a fellow FTD Spouse I met on a Facebook support group. She's my favorite travel buddy, as we're both really chill!
And...here's Jenna! We had fun at a comedy club, eating out, resting, just enjoying a little kid-free time for the first time in FIVE MONTHS!
We had these pork nachos that were SOOOOO good at the comedy club (we went to Funny Bone). Highlight of the night!
I also got to see one of my best friends from college for the first time since my Mom's funeral in 2017! It felt like no time had passed at all, per usual with us. Love you, Steff!
Downtime? What is that?
We were just feeling a little wild and decided to get on over to David's Bridal and try on dresses just for the heck of it lol I'm pretty sure they knew that neither of us were truly in the market, just felt like feeling pretty lol No one even offered to help us lol
We pulled out all the stops - so yummy! I kinda wish I had gotten the lobster tail, though, if I'm being honest. My soup was so yummy, but also cream-based, so with a dairy insensitivity...yeah lol
I love and miss this lady so much! She's my grounding person - who keeps my heads out of the clouds and focused on reality. She's the one who encourages me and tells me I'm not the things I tell myself I am. Her journey with FTD is not over yet, but I can honestly say that I'm SO thankful that FTD brought us together. For such a devastating and traumatic disease, these FTDers are married to the very best people!
My baby brother had a baby! I finally got to meet Miss Lena even if she was almost THREE MONTHS OLD! She is just the most adorable little lady, and I'm so thrilled for JJ and Molly! As expected, Jason is such a wonderful Daddy, and Molly such an incredible Mama too!
Love you guys!!!
For some reason (A God thing, for sure) I felt compelled to end my trip a few hours earlier than I had intended so I could head back and swing by Mankato to see Mark (which, it's about 30-40 minutes out of my way, really). This is the last picture I have of him and I together. Ever. The Lord called him home in the middle of that night.
I got the call from the hospice nurse at 8:54am. to say that they believed that Mark had passed. The whole day was a blur, but with vivid snippets of memories. I wanted to be there for all of it, even as they transferred him to the mortuary stretcher and zipped up the bag. I recall some of it, but most of it was a blur. My dear friend Angie took me there, and took me to lunch and we went back, and I stood there stunned for hours. It felt so surreal. I expected to feel something, really, anything. But mostly I just cried a whole lot, and stopped thinking about it. From the moment I got home and got the kids to sleep, I just wanted to be alone. The next morning, I dropped the kids off at daycare to go about their normal days (they didn't have nearly as big a reaction as I had envisioned), and went out to Wolf Lake and walked for hours in the rain. It was just what felt right at the time.
It was Tuesday, and therefore date day with Ryan. Considering all we'd had happen, I wanted to keep life as normal as I could, so aside from looking like death, I forced myself to dry the tears for a while, put on some makeup and do my hair and actually get dressed and have some time with my baby boy.
It has been good for me to have little ones underfoot during this process. They're so blunt, and they're much less understanding of what happened, and so it has been this underlying joyful bustling that keeps me taking the next steps forward.
Beautiful, from my bestie Jill - thank you, woman!
I just can't believe she's my little lady. She's so grown up!!
I drove up both Wednesday and Thursday to clear out Mark's apartment in Mankato, and while there on Wendesday, I walked past the men's Depends, and about lost it. It's just so wrong to feel sad that you'll never be able to buy your 41 year old husband diapers again. It didn't last long, of course, and I had the same reaction the first time I had to buy them for him, but still. It's going to be those little things that really get me worked up, I have a feeling.
Seeing all his things piled up in his room didn't really get me, honestly. Packing his things up didn't get me. Taking load after load to the car to pack up didn't get me either.
This last load, however. This one got me. The first time I visited after he passed and they had taken his body away, no one had turned off the music on his Amazon Echo in the room. While I was moving out, the top Christian Hits station continued to play, and even when I left the first night, I didn't turn it off. Thursday afternoon, after a long day of trying to find donation places open and working up a major sweat and just feeling exhausted, I moved that last load into the hallway and came back into the room for one last time.
The Echo was still sitting in the corner, quietly playing music, and I just slumped onto the floor against the wall and looked around and just sobbed. It's unnatural to experience what I have over the past 5 years. It goes against anything we think could happen to us as 35 or 36 or 37 or 38 or 39 or 40 or 41 year olds. Seeing the dirty carpet, the paths which were well-worn from his anxious pacing, the spaces they attempted time and time and time again to clean up after his accidents. The stains. The memories of moving him in, and how much more alive he was, even though he was still so dead - it just broke me. His Echo was one of those things that will always bring back the memories for me of this time in his life, and after about half an hour of sobbing, I listened to one last song: Rescue by Lauren Daigle, before I unplugged it, carried it in my hand to the door, opened it and walked out of that apartment for the last time.
The Pillars has been such an enormous part of our story, not only just as the ONLY place that would accept him in the midst of turmoil, but as part of our family. They ARE family to us. I already miss them, and I can't wait to see them again! They gave us all a safe space in the midst of this horrid disease and the uncertainty that it brought.
I realized after going through pictures from that weekend and realized I didn't get many with Daniel or Iryna, and I feel just awful! Iryna and I had a really nice morning that Friday morning, going for a nice long walk out at Wolf Lake and then having some coffee over at River City Eatery. It was so good to have them around, I jiust feel bad I didn't get a chance to see them more with hosting my ginormous family the rest of the weekend.
I am so thankful for my babies. I cannot fathom going through all I have without them, or even with only one or two or three of them.
I found myself a various parts of that week feeling rushed. Rushed during my time with him right after he died. Rushed to decide on big things, like that I wanted to do an autopsy of his brain. Rushed to make decisions about dates and times and clothes and clearing out his place and just so many things. The one part that pained me was not knowing if I should or shouldn't take pictures of stuff like this. Or stuff like my kids at the casket. Or should I have the kids even SEE him in the casket. I even have one of myself that I set a timer of to take one of ME by the casket, as I was there alone, after an hour of tearful goodbyes. It's...morbid. It's awkward. There's no time to sit there debating what to do, though, and you don't get that hour back to do it over again. I'm glad I have them, honestly. I'm glad I did the awkward thing of taking the pictures. The world doesn't need them, but they bring me great peace, and for that, I'm glad I did. For those of you going through something similar, I'd encourage you still to take the pictures. You don't get to re-live it, and for me, it gives me peace as opposed to angst.
Brothers are pretty special. ♥
I love my family so much, and I was so glad to be able to see them all together for the first time in ages.
Thjs pretty well sums up the evening after the burial service. So much napping for all of us, and absolutely no work whatsoever.
I got a few hours of downtime the day after, when we went to see Mark's Dad, Pam and Jess after church. It was nice to have that time, even if I'd been alone a lot the week leading up to it: That time had been spent planning, not resting.
I made my own doppleganger lol
Uncle Daniel is so special to us! We have thoroughly enjoyed having him near us for so many months over the past few years. We miss him when he's not around, although we know he can't be here forever. We've been so thankful for the snuggles and hugs and video games and fishing and tough love at times. Mark, no doubt, is so thankful that you're here loving on his babies like you do. Thank you so much, Bub!
I thoroughly missed my gym that week, and I was SO thankful that Daniel and Iryna were up for hanging with the kids so I could get there for the first time in almost two weeks.
The first of many visits to see Daddy's grave. When we got there, there were 4 deer tromping all around it, and one was even standing on the dirt pile there. So fitting, huh, babe?
Kendrick's first 300pc puzzle, all by himself! He made sure I took a picture to show Aunt Iryna the finished project!
Lots and lots of that settling going on these days.
Until we meet again, sweetheart ♥
