In 2011, shortly after Megan’s lung transplant, we decided to have a 5-year plan of moving out of the house we currently live in. We bought this house the year we were married…2005 It’s small, in the city, with a busy highway, shopping area, and rail line within a few hundred yards, lending an ambient soundtrack of engines, train horns,…
Embrace the Tomboy
I don’t know how to raise a girl in any other way than I’m doing. I’ve never done it before, I don’t have a sister, and last I checked, I’d never been a girl myself. I’m pretty clueless when it comes to makeup or clothes, and the only reason I know how to braid hair is because it’s the same technique you would use to make rope in…
Father’s Day Gift
Father’s Day 2017. For once, we had a weekend day where there was nothing to do. We had visited with both mine and Megan’s dads on Saturday, specifically planning to have an open day wedged into the seemingly constant stream of other events that have been taking time on our weekends together. Sarah was awake and moving well before i was (a…
“Share your memories! (3 Years Ago)”
“Share your memories! (3 years ago)” Yeah, that’s what Facebook likes to do to me every year on June 9th. It helpfully pops up a notification, showing me a picture I took on that date in 2014, that I might like to share with the world. It’s such a heartwarming gesture by the team at Facebook (or timehop, or Google Photos, or any other…
My Own Decisions
Summer is here. Shelby’s last day of school is tomorrow. Work is slowing down, after the “sales” season rolls into the “build” season for the company I work for. Weekends are a time for rest and relaxation. Time to get things done around the house, and to spend time in the woods, at the beach, or just taking in an overnight trip…
Crossing a Bridge That Never Will Be
Way back in September of 2012, Megan, Shelby and I took our first backpacking trip together. Shelby was only 5 years old, and Megan was almost two years past her lung transplant. I meticulously planned the trip, choosing the Blackbird Knob trail in the Dolly Sods Wilderness, in West Virginia. I was already intimately familiar with it, knowing…
She Didn’t Have to Be
Megan loved being a mother. If there was one thing, one goal in life she had, it was to create a little girl like Shelby. For 7 years, she doted on her, relishing taking her to school, feeding her creamed peas, changing diapers, reading to her, and in effect spending every healthy moment she had with her. Even when she was admitted to the…
Mother’s Day – A Year in Review
(So, I wrote this last year on Mother’s Day. I tried and tried to write this week, and the more i did so, the more it read just like the below. So instead, I’ve decided to re-post it, with an update on what has changed, a year later. A year further from losing Megan, and another year growing with Sarah. I’ve underlined in parenthesis my…
Going Postal
It’s been cold, rainy, and just plain miserable for the past two weeks. The brief respite prior to our Texas trip, where it was summerlike for a few days did nothing but remind me that May in Ohio is fickle. You can be sitting outside, sipping a cold beer in the sun one day, and the next, you’re protecting plants from frost and bundling up…
Holding a Hand
On a day-to-day basis, I’m fairly composed and not overly sensitive to things that remind me of Megan, her illness, or the fact that she’s gone. Shelby acheives honor roll like clockwork, and though it reminds me of how proud Megan would be, and I wish she was there, it’s an “it is what it is situation”, where I can be happy for both of…
Pre-survivor’s Guilt
It’s Monday night. After a long holiday weekend, and a single day of work, I’m off for a week. Sarah and I are traveling to Texas tomorrow, to meet with her friends and family and celebrate the memory of Drew, as they’ve done yearly since his death. The loose ends are tied up at work. Our bags are packed and we’re into the impatient…
Half-finished
Lately, it seems as if any and every project I have going on is halfway there, with no completion in sight. There’s the half-finished garden path Sarah and I are installing, a fence we are putting in around the vegetable area, still half-built, a half-stained deck, a “mostly” painted bedroom, and one of three cars has been cleaned and waxed…