I’ve followed a somewhat standard path in my adult years. Megan and I met in 2002, married and bought a house in 2005, and had Shelby in 2007. Notwithstanding her illness and the extra events associated with it, we had followed a fairly “textbook” sequence of events. We were effectively playing the “Game of Life”, spinning the…
widower with children
On Top of Ole Smoky
Straddling the North Carolina- Tennessee border, Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a sea of lush forests, countless animals, and high mountains. It’s my favorite place on earth. I’ve been there countless times since I was young, and until Megan died, it had never been more than a few years since taking a trip there. I know the park…
Meet the Parents
Sarah, Shelby and I are in Texas this week for the 4th annual get-together of her and Drew’s closest friends. This is the second time I’ve attended, and Shelby’s first. I’ve met these people before. They are all already friends of mine, albeit not as close as Sarah is to them, but friends nonetheless. There seem to be a lot of…
Cards and Coffee Mugs
Father’s day around our house was never a big production. I was usually the first to wake up in the house on any given day, creep downstairs, make myself some coffee, and watch or read the news until everyone else started stirring. I preferred it to be that way. I didn’t relish any extra attention placed upon me. I appreciated every…
Legacy of a Tree
The American Chestnut is a large, stately, useful tree. At one time, over a quarter of the eastern American woods were populated by this tree. The wood is rot resistant, the nuts are delicious, and even the oils in its bark has medicinal properties. Nobody wanted to see the Chestnut go away, and it didn’t want to die off. Over eons it…
Existence
“I would rather be ashes than dust!I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.The function of man is to live, not to exist.I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.I shall…
Motherless Day
My mother, daughter, and girlfriend have all lost their own mothers at a young age, all to different illnesses. Each of their moms had to stare their own mortality square in the eye, and hope for the best for their daughters. They did everything they could to love and protect their little ones in the time they had, but ultimately, they had no…
A Letter from Before, and Beyond
The time has finally come to clean up the basement of my house. When I say that, I don’t mean that I need to go through and organize some of Megan’s things. I mean that the entire basement, full of god-knows-what from Megan, myself, and Shelby needs to be perused, bit by bit. When we moved to this house (for the second time, long story) 4…
Getting Around to It
In the spring, before Megan died, she and I decided to have a deck built on the back of our home. Nothing too fancy. It was to be a 12 foot by 12 foot square, with a new sliding glass door leading to it. We had wanted to have one on our house for years, and we were finally going to get it done. We shopped out for a few different…
Journey of Self-discovery
It was just a little walk. As we pulled up to the trailhead on Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge, there were very light snow flurries. We were at 4100 feet above sea level, and had plans to hike along the western ridgeline at Dolly Sods, the highest plateau east of the Mississippi. Sarah, Shelby, and I took a trip this past weekend to…
What do You Think?
So I bought a table. It was only forty dollars, and it’s a little round glass patio table. Shelby and I spent an hour or so unpackaging it, laying the parts out, and assembling it. I know this sounds completely mundane, even boring, but bear with me. This table symbolizes something. It’s not sentimental, really. It wasn’t…
The Simple Life
My wife suffered from a long-term illness, Cystic Fibrosis. When I say “long-term”, what I actually mean is “life-long”. There wasn’t a day that I knew her where she didn’t have some sort of symptom or complication directly due to her condition. Even after her transplant, every day was filled with special medications, dietary and…