wow. so, the last time I wrote, we weren't even expecting Julesy yet and everything in our life was so different. I mean, unrecognizably different. very quick recap (expressing NONE of the emotion of any events):
2012 - Eddie had a new job, Jules was born, Holly & Georgia were both put down, Drew graduated HS and started college
2013 - Taylor graduated HS & started college
2014 - Noah graduated HS & started college (and T quit college), Eddie started flipping houses
2015 - we sold our house and moved to Hill, Ev began living with us full time, Rachel started K & Drew took a "sabbatical" from school & traveled the world
2016 - Ev graduated HS & started college, we moved to our current house (total fixer-upper) and Eddie was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer
2017 - battle against colon cancer... Jules started K, I went back to work full-time
2018 - Eddie lost his 18-month battle, but won Heaven. Noah graduated college, I traded in 2 cars for 1, friends held a "fun-raiser" to raise funds for our family and house projects, we started attending a grief program at the caring place, and the world kept on turning somehow.
2019 - Grandpa died, girls went to Colorado and Disney World, had birthday parties, started piano lessons, and we started rebuilding our lives
2020 - Covid19 hit and the world was overwhelmed by the pandemic... and we got our puppy, Maggie
it is almost surreal how NOTHING is the same now as in my last blog post. Home, car, pets, activities, job... but, most of all, our family. the life we lived has been turned upside down. now, we exist with a huge hole in our lives that will never be filled in this lifetime. (not that we would want it to be filled, as the hole represents that Eddie is missing and we never want to forget or ignore that.) honestly, back in 2011, I would have been surprised to even know we would move (twice!)! boys leaving home, dogs dying, even another kid - those were all expected to happen at some time. back then, I remember imagining my little girl coming down that stairway on the day of her wedding, so a move was not on my radar. but cancer?? no way. and I certainly never dreamed Eddie would be taken from us at such a young age. he was 52 and his baby girl had just turned 6 when he died. unimaginable.
when I decided I wanted to get back to writing like this (after quitting fakebook a year ago, where I'd previously documented our lives), it made sense to try to get back to my old blog... but when I finally accessed it today, I was blown away by the difference in my world from that past post in 2011 to now. guess I needed to process that first.
I write now, as a different person. I'm a widow without her other half. my hopes and dreams for the future are all undone. I'm an only parent raising 2 little girls (this is different from a single parent. it just is.) AND I'm also navigating the changed dynamics of my relationships with my grown boys (stepmom without dad makes things uncertain somehow, on top of changed relationship to adult son & parent... it's all very complicated!). but, through it all, Jesus is with me and has never left me. and I'm still His.
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