Come Help Us Celebrate

With J's birthday quickly approaching we wanted to hold a celebration of his life on his birthday. Everyone wishing to help celebrate his life is more than welcome. (Let me know if you need directions.) iwearyellow@gmail.com

Shaping Who I Am....

Its strange to think in just a matter of days 11 months will have gone by and I find myself wondering how I'm going to feel when that day comes. Oct 29th... Am I going to be reliving everything that I went through up till the day he passed away? Will all those emotions come flooding back? Will I be as strong as I was a year ago? Or will I be stronger? I've been looking back at pictures from last year's October & looking at the pictures from the last day we all spent together as a family. It wasn't anything super special. It was a Sunday the day before J was to go into the hospital for his stem cell treatment. We carved a pumpkin with the kids & went trick or treating with his nieces & nephews around his parents neighborhood. His mom had set that up so J could see his kids trick or treat since he'd be in the hospital. We had no idea what lay ahead of us. We seemed to be happy go lucky... With the attitude that J always kept up " let's just get this done & beat". I think that helped both of us to be strong. Knowing that this trial of cancer would be short lived & life would go on. I remember that night after the kids got to bed J staying up late to make sure I'd have everything I'd need to run the house on my own. Passwords to accounts, my computer backed up, photos backed up & saved & he even had a Halloween card for the kids. At the time I really didn't think much of it. I kept telling him that he needed to get to bed & get his rest but he'd insist that he just had one more thing he had to do. He didn't want to leave me without having done certain things. I'm grateful that he had that insight to do what he did. Those 11 days he spent in the hospital were some of the hardest, saddest but there where happy moments too like when he got his stem cells back. I can still hear his voice & remember how he acted when they drugged him in order to give him back his cells. It still makes me smile. Its hard to think that just a few days later I got that c dreaded phone call that flipped our lives upside down. I've spent so much time lately thinking about how I felt, how I coped with things just weeks & months after his passing. Remembering the loneliness I felt. No matter how many people are around you, you still feel like you are walking in a fog. This isn't your reality & any day you are gonna get a call from him telling you he's all better & come pick him up at the hospital. But you never get that call & the days pass & things slowly get easier. You start to heal. You get stronger with every breath you take every step you take even if you take two steps backwards. 11 months passes & you start to look back at those pictures & remember those memories & I feel like its a different girl. My kids look so little, so fragile. I feel like I'm peeking in on someone else's life and in a way I am. Almost like a butterfly emerging from her cocoon ready or not but out facing the world. Just trying to make it one day at a time & finding other trials along the way that form & shape who I am.... Who I am becoming. Seeing my kids grow & thrive & seeing them happy & oh so grown up. That's been my blessing from all of this. Seeing that they are still happy despite what they lost. And they may have lost oh so much more than I did but they don't ever forget how much J still loves them. At the beginning I didn't want to look forward to where my life might go but now I can't wait to see where life takes us... Knowing that no matter where it takes us J is still there by our sides watching over us & guiding us to where we should be headed. I realize that if I get weak if I start to feel like I can't make it through anything J & my angel will be there by my side to lift me up & I have nothing to fear.