The Thing About Being A (Relatively) Young Widow

 So, here’s the thing about being a (relatively) young widow. There’s a good chance that, as time passes and life keeps moving, there will be a new love. If somebody was in love (I was), built a beautiful life with the one they loved (I did) and then lost that love to death, there’s usually a longing to have that again - not the exact same life because every love story and every relationship is different, and if I’m trying to replicate the first story, maybe it’s too early to start a new one.  What I mean is that there’s a longing to be loved again and to love someone, care for them, be each other’s person(s), especially if it seems like there’s plenty of time left for that to happen again. In a ‘perfect’ world, (minus the part where anybody dies at all) this would never be an issue - people would fall in love and stay that way for 70 years until they both die...peacefully...in their sleep...at the exact same time. Or there’s the Hallmark movie way where the first love does die, but then enters the new love and the devastation is wrapped up in a neat little package and everyone lives happily ever after. In reality, life is messy, death is messy, and love is messy.  There’s no such thing as a clean break or a fresh start when it comes to bridging the gap between what was and what will be. I like order and I like peace. Clear endings and beginnings. A straightforward label for myself and predictable feelings to follow that. Ideally, I should either be a full-time, lifelong widow or somehow erase the 20 years before he died, never to mention my marriage or my late husband again.  It feels disingenuous to combine the two identities and be a widow-seeking-new-love. As if I’m a ‘bad’ widow if I’d like to find somebody else to love or I’m bad at moving forward if I also look back sometimes. For the record, I need to be clear that I doubt anyone expects things to be this cut and dried for me. This is my own neurotic need for order and control. My need to have some sense of organization in the middle of feelings and circumstances that I can’t control. I’ve been a widow for almost 9 years now. My life has changed in lots of ways in the last 9 years. I have changed in lots of ways in the last 9 years. I spent a good part of the first couple of years ONLY wanting my old life back and wanting my first love back. At some point, though, I wanted to start a new life and hopefully find new love. It didn’t and doesn’t mean that I forgot about my first love, but I’m still alive and I was done with clinging tighter to death than to life. Moving forward was (and is) a big mixed up ball of messy, exciting, scary, sad, hopeful, unpredictable, growth-inducing, funny, difficult, awkward, confusing, happy, exhausting, surprising… you get it.  All the feelings.  I would love for this life to be a neat little package with no loose ends or painful reminders of what ended but that’s not gonna happen. The old gets mixed in with the new and the pain of yesterday sometimes pushes its way into the beautiful things that have begun. I loved Dan. He was a wonderful husband and a wonderful father. I did not want to lose him. Our 29th anniversary is on Monday. It’s sad that he died and that we only made it to 20 years.  It’s sad that his children will not know him as adults and that memories are what they have left of him. Sweet memories, but just memories. I will never ever forget him. And at the very same time, I am in love again.  I miss my new love, too, because he’s been deployed for almost 6 months and is coming home this month. That makes me so happy.  So, at the very same time, I’m sad and happy. It’s possible and it happens and I’m going to give myself permission to feel both and not apologize for either.   Anyway, the chances are that the only one I’m apologizing to is myself because my old love would want me to be happy, my new love is incredibly gracious, understanding and confident that I love him,  and all of the other people in my life think way less about this than I do.  So, Happy Anniversary, Dan. We loved each other so well in the 20 years we had and I’m proud of us for that. And come home soon, Frank. I love you and can’t wait to see you again.

 

Sacred Moments

I was driving Isaac to his first day at his first job.  It's a REALLY big deal - a long awaited accomplishment.  I ask him what he wants to listen to on the ride  (the pre-game warm-up, hype building music).  "Eye of the Tiger?" I ask.  No. Weird, mom. Then he suggests, "How about Train?" (his favorite band of all time).  I happily comply and 'Hey Soul Sister' is the first song that Spotify picks.

Suddenly, I'm transported to some mall food court, years ago, where we were sitting in a crowded space, eating fast food.  Dan, me and all the kids.  I remember feeling exhausted and absently watching the music video for 'Hey Soul Sister' on a big screen hanging above the bustling, hungry crowd. I suppose to provide mindless entertainment while shoppers ate.  I remember having the keen awareness that Dan had cancer.  It's interesting to reflect on so many 'ordinary' events during the post-cancer-diagnosis stage when no one observing our little family would have necessarily known we were silently fighting cancer, but the knowledge and weight of it hovered over us like an invisible cloud.  We woke up and it was there.  We went to work and school and it was there.  We did completely mundane things like eating fast food in a mall food court and there it was.  And maybe the hyperawareness of our mortality was what made these seemingly mundane moments precious because Dan was still with us and likely would not always be.  The knowledge of the limited time we had remaining turned these days into sacred days, causing our minds (or at least mine) to soak them in.  Burn them into my memory.  Like that song.  I can't hear that song without thinking about that day and thinking about Dan.

The drive to Isaac's new job is less than 10 minutes, and the song 'Hey Soul Sister' is precisely 3 minutes, 37 seconds long.  My mind and heart travel a long way in those few minutes - from Isaac's first job, to a sacred moment in the past, to thoughts of Dan and how proud he'd be of Isaac and of all our children.  I think of how happy he would be to meet our first grandbaby who will arrive in the next day or 2, and then I think of this Saturday when it will be 8 years since Dan left us.  I fight tears which I will not allow until Isaac is out of the car because he has no idea where my mind has gone while my body simply drove him to his new job.  I want to tell him how proud his Dad would be of him, in so many ways. But if I do, I'll lose the fight against these tears and Isaac doesn't need a super awkward, blubbering mom sending him off for this new adventure.  So, I just swallow the lump in my throat and we sing at the top of our lungs, creating yet another sacred moment.  I'll tell him soon how proud Dan would be of him.  And eventually, I'll tell my grandbaby all about the grandfather they never knew and we will all remember him so fondly, and miss him, and keep capturing the sacred moments until we see him again.

The Promotion

I was driving home yesterday and as I waited for a light to turn green, I was looking through some old memories on Facebook. A picture popped up of one of my twins on the day he got his braces removed. I didn’t pay attention to the date, but it was probably about 6 years ago.  It was an old enough photo that I couldn’t help but stare at it because it highlighted not only newly straightened teeth, but also how much that kid has grown and matured in the last few years.  The light turned green and as I pushed the gas pedal down slowly, the tears started. I’m not a super emotional person and seeing an old photo of a grown up kid does not always send me into tears, but seeing that picture brought to the surface something I’ve been pushing down for several months. This son of mine graduated from high school in May – a major accomplishment in life, especially for someone with the obstacles he had to face.  He was a preemie, weighing only 2 lbs., 8 oz. at birth. He had lots of surgeries for plumbing issues as a baby and at 2 yrs. old,  had to get a g-button (a type of feeding tube) because he had severe reflux and was becoming malnourished.  Around kindergarten, he was diagnosed with ADHD and by 1st grade, with Autism.  In the last couple of years, he has also been diagnosed with epilepsy.  He struggled with school and needed lots of extra help to get through. He worked really hard to graduate and I couldn’t have been prouder.  Unfortunately, the end of high school is only the beginning of adult life and that’s where we are now.  And it’s scary. He is one of the kindest, sweetest, most loving people I know and he loves to be around people and desperately desires to be important and needed. Like we all do. Sometimes I feel very sad for him because I know his struggles in life are not over.  He tried some college classes and it just wasn’t his thing. He got a job at Wendy’s and it didn’t work out. So we have begun to seek help with agencies that exist to help people with similar struggles.  He is in the process of getting trained in various ways in order to be able to get and keep a job. I know he will succeed, but watching the struggle is hard on my heart sometimes because I know it’s hard on his. When I saw that picture of him, at about 13 years old, beaming and just happy to not have braces anymore, it broke my heart a little because he didn’t have a care in the world and now he does. I see it in his face sometimes. He’s scared, too. Being a responsible adult is a lot and he knows it.  When he decided he didn’t want to go back to community college this semester, I said that was okay – he is an adult and he gets to make decisions about his own life. But since his job training has not started yet he had nothing purposeful to do and after a couple of weeks of basically sitting at home, I told him to start volunteering somewhere because it was not good to be at home so much with very little to do.  (I know, I just said he was an adult and could make his own decisions…mostly).  He had done some volunteering at the local food pantry a couple of summers ago with me, so he got online and signed up.  I expected him to sign up maybe once or twice a week, but he wrote down his schedule and brought it to me and he had signed up to volunteer 4 times a week. Okay buddy, don’t let me hold ya back.  He would have to Uber to and from the food pantry most of the time because he doesn’t drive and my work schedule doesn’t allow me to give him the rides. So he started volunteering. It’s his very own thing that he signs up for online every week, sets up his own Uber rides, gets himself up to go, does whatever they ask him to do, and then he Ubers home.  That, in itself, is amazing. I’m super impressed with him for doing all of that independently. I ask him a lot how his day went and he usually says ‘Fine’. Then I ask what he did and he usually says ‘I stocked shelves.’ Today when I got home, he came to the kitchen and I asked how his day went, ‘It was good’ was his answer. He stood there and I could tell he had more to tell, so I asked again what he did today and he said ‘I started filling grocery orders. By myself.’ And I wish you could have seen the look on that kid’s face. He was so proud. I told him what a big deal that was and how proud I was of him and that it was kinda like he got a promotion.  I don’t even care that I may have overdone it a little because that is really how I feel and I could see on his face that he felt the same way. We reveled in this ‘small’ step forward. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that God gave him and me this little boost today. We needed some encouragement and a reminder that our sweet, loving Father is interested in the details of our lives and is never going to let us down or give up on us. We’re gonna struggle, yes. But we are never alone and never forgotten and the plan God has for us is perfect. He rejoices with us when we get our braces off and when we graduate from high school.  He holds our hand when the future is scary and we struggle.  He gives us hope exactly when we need it most in the most unexpected ways like a promotion from stocker to grocery order filler.        

Take THAT, Grief

         

            Grief.  This is probably a weird analogy, but for me, it's like a beautiful tattoo I didn't agree to.  I can appreciate the beauty of it and yet, I wish it were not there. A horrible necessity.  It's the price that most will have to pay for loving deeply and it's a fair and excruciating trade.  When Dan died 6 years ago, I was introduced, really for the first time, to grief.  It’s a heavy, intrusive companion who was never invited on my journey but shows up with no real predictability except the assurance that it WILL show up again…maybe when I’m expecting it (like at anniversaries, memorial services and birthdays) but often unannounced (like when I’m walking down the candy aisle at the grocery store or cleaning out the garage or listening to Rocket Man...REALLY? why?…stupid, random grief). 

            At some point, after becoming acquainted with it, I resigned myself to the fact that it does not go away.   Not that I always wanted it to go away.  At first, I couldn’t get enough of it.   In fact, I looked forward to spending time grieving because it was the only feeling I felt. The only one that made sense to me.  All encompassing, crippling, crushing grief.  I understood the weight of it, the darkness of it.  I felt at home wallowing in the despair.  I cried and cried and grief just let me.  It required nothing of me and I let it consume me without a fight.  Go ahead, grief…you win…I quit.  My broken heart ached for Dan and I could not imagine how I could possibly finish my journey without him.  I didn’t really want to.  I was so devastated for myself, but also for my kids.  Life wasn’t fair and it would be impossible and I was not equipped and grief understood all of that and agreed with me.  No empty encouragement or false hope – grief is not in the business of sugarcoating.  And I liked it that way.  I had just spent 16 months living the harsh reality of cancer and dying and death and I was not about to rush right back into the effort it takes to hope.  It was my darkness and I embraced it and dared anyone to convince me that the light was better. 

            But familiarity bred contempt.  I began to hate grief and the very dark place where grief had taken me became too dark.  Too heavy.  Too hopeless.  I began to need light.  I began to want to hope.  I started wanting grief to go away.  I resented the unannounced visits from my old frienemy, grief.  I was ready to be stronger.  I was ready to move ahead – not to forget Dan, but to live. I was still here, among the living. I was supposed to live.  I was ready to be someone who could use my experience to reach into that dark place and help pull others out.  I thought I was ready for that.  I thought that I could leave grief in that utter darkness and just remember it when I chose to while forging ahead into Life: The Sequel.  That was hard.  It still is sometimes.  Grief refuses to stay where you put it and sometimes, I just despise grief.  Hate it.  At the same time, I appreciate that grief has a job to do and I let it work sometimes.  Begrudgingly.  Mostly because I have no choice.

            Now here I am, six years later.  Here WE are.  Me and the kids.  And, yes, grief.  I am different.  Stronger, yes, but way more tenderhearted.  My lows are not as frequent or long, but just as low and sometimes I am surprised at how quickly I can fall back into the pit.  I have a theory that your heart soaks up sadness and gets saturated and although you can live just fine with all that sadness in there, and even be very happy at the same time, the minute more sadness flows in, the excess pours out because it’s always just under the surface.  On the other hand, joy is more joyful and so easy to embrace because I don’t expect it like I used to and I appreciate how rare it is and grab hold of it with both hands like a parched person reaching for water in the desert.  Water seems mundane and can be taken for granted until you’re in the desert and then it is all you want.  When joy is absent for awhile or hard to come by, it is so very nice to see it show up.  I savor joy. 

            The kids are different.  Completely different, really.  Three of them are legally adults now, one a junior in college and two graduating from high school in a few months.  My baby is a teenager, starting high school next year.  I can't make myself not hate that they missed out on Dan being here for them all these years and I am convinced I've flubbed some stuff up, but in spite of all that, the kids are all so good.  I’m really proud of them.  Not one of them is perfect which is good because neither am I, but they are finding their own paths and it’s terrifying and wonderful.  Grief is a big fan of milestones and it never fails to show up right in the middle of them to taunt me and remind me that Dan is not here to experience the big moments.  But grief is wrong.  Dan is here.  He’s right here with us in all of the growth and the achievements and the changes.  He’s on their faces and in their walks and weaved into their interests and their character and their sense of humor.  He’s in our memories and our hearts and he’s not ever going away, so take THAT, grief.  If I'm giving grief the benefit of the doubt, maybe it reminds me of Dan not so much to make me sad, but to prove he never has to really leave.  Not completely.

             I know you’ve got many more appearances to make, grief, but it’s okay.  You are a part of me now and I see you in others.  Grief introduces and connects people who might never have crossed paths meaningfully and who are not necessarily even grieving over the same circumstances.  The mark it leaves is easily identifiable and so endearing to someone who carries the same mark.  It’s a terrible gift.  A beautiful burden.  I needed it and I hated it.  I am still learning how to live with it, six years later.  And how to live without Dan.  We will see him again and that’s when grief will go away forever.  I won’t miss it.  And I won’t even mention it to Dan.  I’ve got lots of other stuff to tell him.

               

Just Babies

Tomorrow is January 4, 2018 and it marks 26 years since I married Dan.  We were both 20 years old. Yes, 20 short years old.   I feel the need to pause here and apologize to our parents for the stress we must have caused announcing that in all of our utter adultness, we would be getting married.  Oh my.  Just babies.  So, I'm sorry, Parents, and thank you for going along with it.

Marriage is not for wimps.  Under the most excellent of conditions, marriage is H.A.R.D.  It's also wonderful and sacred and a gift like no other, but it's stinkin' hard.  I doubt I'm bursting anyone's bubble here. Most everybody knows marriage is difficult.  But when I weigh all of the struggles against all of the blessings, the blessings win every time.  And that's not necessarily based on quantity.  I'd say that in the 20 years of marriage that Dan and I got to experience, the number of challenges was greater than the number of blessings...for you math types: CHALLENGES>BLESSINGS...but I'm telling you that the QUALITY of blessings we experienced from being married to each other can hardly be described and those blessings are certainly not tainted by time or even death while the sting of the struggles is harder to remember and definitely not what I hang on to.  I've had plenty of time to reflect on our story together and I would like to go ahead and declare that, in my opinion, and perhaps the opinion of my friends and family, Dan had a way more difficult task being married to me than I did being married to him (and if Dan could vote, he would probably not agree with me because he was just the nicest guy EVER...more about that in a bit).  He wasn't perfect.  Nobody is.  But the longer I am able to sift through those memories and mental pictures in my head of the husband Dan was, the more I realize how blessed I was to have him and how blessed I am to have the memory of him.  Of us.

On this, our anniversary, I feel sad that I can't see him, talk to him, hug him. But I don't want to just be sad.  I also want to pour over snapshots, physical and mental, of him and of us.  I want to remember all the ways he was such a good man, good father and a devoted, sweet husband.  When we were dating, he ASKED me if he could call me his girlfriend. It was adorable.  He was so humble and never presumptuous.  He wrote love letters.  He proposed on the dock of a lake and although I think the first thing I said was "Aren't you supposed to be on one knee?" he opened the box and gave me the ring and married me anyway.  He spent the first couple of years of our marriage working hard to put me through graduate school when we were dirt poor and although I was a 5'4" bundle of stress for those 2 years, he never seemed to resent it and even yelled out "4 point 0!" and "That's my wife!" when I walked the stage when I probably deserved a "She's super grouchy when she's stressed out!" or "Thank God that's over!"  He surprised me on the Fall break of my first semester of working in a school in Plano with a getaway to San Francisco.  On days he was able to work from home, he would show up at my work with lunch or flowers or a drink from Sonic.  He shared my joy in finding out we were expecting our first child (and the next 3) and took such good care of me.  He was an excellent father and even when the kids outnumbered us 4 to 2, he was so consistent in temperament.  It was very admirable and almost mysterious to me, as someone who was more prone to horrible-ize things and freak out and get snippy when under pressure.  He taught me, by example,  how to tone it down and still kept cool when I chose not to tone it down.  He wouldn't fight with me.  The nerve.  There were times I really wanted to argue and he just wouldn't do it.  I have no idea how he could do that because I could be really obnoxious, but he just wanted to love me.  He wanted to talk things out and think things through and the balance between him and me was a perfect design.  He knew when to shield me from life.  Especially when parenting some precious but autistic boys got to be too much, he always found a way to give me a refuge so I could calm down and gain perspective and get back to being Mom, but with a second wind and the knowledge that I was never doing it alone.  He worked hard so I could be at home with my kids, even after all the time we had both spent getting me through graduate school.  He bought me chocolate (and various types of candy...I may have a bit of a sweet tooth) for no reason except that he knew I loved it.  He would come home with an outfit he had bought for me just because he had some extra time in the day and I would rarely go shopping for myself.  He planned family outings and vacations and bought a nice camera (before people were practically born with a camera phone) and took SO MANY PICTURES.  What foresight and what a gift those pictures are now.  He compiled them into slide shows burned onto CDs, accompanied by sweet songs that still take me back to those times when I hear them.

He was so brave.  I feared lots of stuff through our 20 years from not having enough money to pay the bills to our kids' future to dealing with autism to how to survive cancer.  He had to be scared, too, but it never really showed.  He was my rock and he knew it and he took it very seriously.  Even when he became so sick that there were few options left, he was the one who made the tough decisions, like going on hospice because he didn't want to endure another procedure and I think he didn't want to put me through the stress of that although I would have done anything for him and supported any decision he made.  He spent those last several weeks with a laser focus on getting his affairs in order.  Where I felt foggy and exhausted, he seemed to have a clarity and determination that made me wonder who was the stronger one here, the wife sticking by her man's side, into the valley of the shadow of death, or the dying man, still leading the way and taking care of his wife until his last breath and beyond, somehow.  My birthday was less than a month before he died and he rarely got out of bed and never left the house anymore but he made sure that someone went out on his behalf and bought a big, soft, bathrobe for me that was just like the fancy hotel ones because just weeks before, we had celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary on a surprise trip to California and stayed in a beautiful hotel with, you guessed it, fancy robes.  I ooohed and ahhhhed about how nice they were (I'm a fairly simple girl) and he must have decided right then that he would get one for me.  That trip was so hard for him because he did not feel well at all, and so bittersweet for us because we knew it would be our last,  but he did the best he could and he treated me like a queen and it is one of my most treasured memories.

I was so loved.  No doubt about it. It's permanently etched on my heart and it's the place I sometimes go when life makes me feel like maybe I'm not all that loved or loveable. I was and I am and I can be steady and strong like Dan was. And for the record, he was that way because of his devotion to following Christ's example.  Mystery solved.  He's not here to celebrate #26 and, yes it makes me sad and kinda mad, but it's ok.  Seriously, it is.  Because it was a beautiful love story and I had a leading role and, just WOW that I got to experience it.  My story isn't over even if that part of it is, but having been married to that wonderful man will always be one of the very best parts of the story.  Happy Anniversary, Dan.  I love you.

#authentic

Lately, my Instagram feed is a gallery of dreamy nature pictures. They serve as a serene backdrop for scripture I have read and needed in that moment. I post these verses because they speak comfort or wisdom into my life.  Maybe I post them because I long to be in those faraway, beautiful, ‘not in my real life’ places. I post them thinking maybe someone else might also be in need of the same message--everybody’s going through something, right?  If I'm being honest, I will admit that I also post them as a telegraphic state of the person address. I’m not the only person who uses social media to send out a status report, support (or protest) a cause, make an attempt to connect with folks, cry out for acknowledgement of pain, ask for help. Some people are subtle about it. Some not so subtle. I'd like to think I'm subtle, but it's not hard to peruse my Instagram and figure out something may be troubling me.  Something kinda bad happened to me lately.  Details aren’t necessary or fun to go over, but suffice it to say that I find myself reeling from another major bump in this road I’m on.  No one died, but I am having to grieve another loss.  Grief.  Again.  This grief is different just as this loss is different.  Some of my grief resume’ is coming in handy and I am using skills I discovered and honed during my first real bout with grief.  But still, loss is loss and grief is grief and it’s never pretty or easy. And you can't bypass grief just because you've done it before.  In response to this latest loss, I took a picture of an old, established tree in my backyard.  I doctored it up a bit with a filter because the picture was too dark and finished it off with Proverbs 31:25, ‘She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future.’  I do love that verse. And I got the response I desired.  Several ‘likes’ and sweet comments expressing love for me and mutual appreciation for the message in the verse.  One friend commented, “High five fist bump squeezy tight hug tears in eyes head thrown back yelling yesssss” which another friend piggybacked with “What she said!! Love you so much!!!”  Mission accomplished, right?  Dreamy Instagram picture + scripture for the win! But something was not sitting right with me.  I knew that how I felt on the inside did not match Proverbs 31:25.  Does not match it. At least not consistently and for sure not lately. I wanted to own the enthusiasm my friends had but I just couldn't. Not with authenticity.  My ‘strength and dignity’ clothes are ill-fitting, like a tiny girl in dress up clothes, and although I do laugh sometimes, I also fear the future sometimes.  Let me be clear, this scripture is TRUTH.  I am not refuting that this is God’s plan for me.  I’m just being naked honest and saying that I’m not walking around with a big smile on my face, kicking grief’s butt and taking names.  I’m hurting.  I’m insecure.  I’m sad.  I’m angry.  I’m confused. I’m tired.  And here’s why I’m pouring all of this out into the cyberworld.  Because I believe that MY job in this life--this crazy, super-eventful, sometimes resembling a Hallmark channel movie life--is to be vulnerable enough to draw others toward the only Light I have found to save us all.  Jesus.  I never want to portray myself as some kind of grief goddess who can weather all of life’s storms with a twinkle in her eye and a clever joke to make everything better.  Life is so messy and I couldn’t even begin to tell you how to clean it up with your own strength.  I’m doing the best I can and praying that any heartache I experience is recycled and used for good.  I’ve seen it happen. God’s word guides me, sustains me, teaches me, challenges me, saves me.  It’s more than a bite-sized meme I use to fit my mood or situation.  I have to devour it and let God knead it into who I am, during good times and bad times, so he can make me who He wants me to be.  Sometimes what I read there about who I am to be, like in Proverbs 31, seems unattainable. It’s not, but it’s a process.  I’m getting there, but I have not arrived.  “But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.” Jeremiah 17: 7-8.  This verse would look nice on my Instagram tree picture.  It will also look nice on my life. I decided to go in my backyard and take another picture. This time of a sapling, no filters. I feel more like this right now. A sapling planted right where God wants me, trusting Him to take care of me and provide everything I need so that my roots get deeper and deeper. Patiently awaiting the fruit that only He can produce in me and around me. In His time and with His strength.

Why The WARM Place?

     There is a long (but surely incomplete) list of stuff I can remember using to protect my kids from physical, emotional, psychological or spiritual harm: outlet covers, baby monitors, night lights, car seats, toilet locks, cabinet locks, stair gates, personal flotation devices, swim goggles, training wheels, helmets, knee pads, elbow pads, bug spray, sunscreen, sunglasses, coats, mouth guards, internet filters, my quick reflexes, my raised voice, my fervent prayers. I am hard wired to protect those sweet babies God blessed me with. I have not always been successful. Kids and situations are unpredictable. I’m not a perfect parent. I have failed, forgotten, ignored, overlooked. Like everyone else, I guess. But I am a pretty good parent. I have protected my kids from lots that they needed protecting from. Even though I have poured considerable energy and money into protecting my kids, I could not protect them from cancer. From melanoma. From death. From losing their dad to that wretched disease when they were just 14, 12, 12 and 8 years old. There was no gate to keep that horrible enemy out. No lock to stop it from entering my house. No spray, filter, or screen to shield my children from the devastation it caused. I am a woman of faith and God never left us, but the valley of the shadow of death is dark, scary, cold and unrelenting. When darkness pushed in, I gathered my children close, but I really could not protect them from reality. Daddy
was gone. He is gone. He is never coming back. Your life is forever changed. Some part of your precious, carefree innocence lost.

 
     Death is lonely. I believe that we will see Dan again, but death is still lonely. I never expected this to be my story. He was only 40. We have 4 kids who need a dad. What am I supposed to do? I was terrified. Afraid of the finances, afraid of the dark at night, afraid of losing my mind. Mostly I was afraid that I wasn’t enough. How could I possibly fill the gap Dan left? How could I get 4 kids through the death of their father when I wasn’t even sure I could survive it? What would I say? Would his death be the event that sent their young lives into a downward spiral? I thought on more than one occasion that perhaps being left here with just me as their only parent was actually going to be the event that would be their demise. Fear loomed large and constant. So many fears. Overwhelming, crippling emotions.

     We found The WARM Place a few months after Dan died. A hospice social worker had referred me and I took the kids to check it out. I had never heard of The WARM Place until Dan got sick. I had a hard time wrapping my mind around the concept of it. How could there be enough kids and families who had experienced loss to make this place necessary? The name is an acronym that stands for W​hat A​bout R​emembering M​e, but walking through the doors of the building you can’t help but feel the emotional warmth in that place. It feels like you’ve walked into a sweet neighbor’s house. We were immediately welcomed with gentle smiles and a home like atmosphere. I admit that I actually dreaded going there the first time because I didn’t want to be in the situation we were in and going there made it seem that much more real. I was a widow and my kids had lost their dad. I didn’t want people looking at us and pitying us or feeling sorry for us. So why did I go there? Because I was desperate. As much as I felt like an emotional, exhausted mess, I knew I had to find a way to get my kids through this. I had seen and heard too many stories of children who had lost one parent to death and the other to grief. I resolved to do all I could to keep their lives moving forward in a positive way.

 
     I could not have done it without The WARM Place. We started attending every other Thursday night. It started with a potluck dinner with all of the other families who were there for the very same reason we were. It was awkward at first because I could not stop thinking how sad it was that a room full of parents and children was all gathered here with deep pain in their hearts and one family member gone, never to share a meal with their family again. I was amazed and sort of puzzled at the families who had been attending longer. They smiled. They even joked and laughed. I wondered how or why they would smile or laugh at a place like this. At a time like this. I didn’t talk much for a while. I was polite but all I wanted to do was cry. That was ok. Not one person was offended or surprised. They knew where I was coming from and they knew where The WARM Place would take us. The potluck meal was always followed by the kids splitting into age appropriate groups and the parents meeting to support one another
with amazing facilitators there to help encourage and direct the group discussion. The kids did activities and crafts that I know they enjoyed. They may not have really known how to articulate
what grief was, but they had very real and very big feelings and were learning how to process those feelings with caring, attentive facilitators. I could go on and on about how much the parent support group helped me. I loved it there. I went from dreading showing up there to looking forward to it. I was privileged to sit in that circle with so many brave, honest, real people who were trying to hold the pieces together for their kids and were just as scared as I was. And brave. We didn’t crawl into bed, withdraw from the world and neglect our kids in the tragedy. We got them to a place that could help them. A place that could help us, too. I’m proud of us. Some of the best people I have ever met were in that group. We kept going for about 2 years. Thinking about the difference in where we were emotionally when we first crossed their threshold to where we ended up upon saying goodbye to The WARM Place makes me smile. Who would’ve thought, huh? I’m not saying The WARM Place was the beginning and end of our grieving. Not by a long shot. But I can sincerely say that The WARM Place gave us the understanding, support, tools and permission to grieve that we needed to continue our journey of grief in a healthy way. What a gift and a treasure. A lifeline.

 
     I wish The WARM Place wasn’t needed. I wish no more kids had to lose a dad, or a mom, or a sibling. I wish all kids could be protected from that. But they can’t and The WARM Place continues to open it’s doors to those new families every day who never wanted to be there but who will leave there so blessed. The WARM Place never charges families a fee. It’s a free service to the families who benefit immensely from it. They depend on donations. Isn’t that amazing? It doesn’t even seem possible that something so valuable and top notch could be a gift but it is. That is why I am committed to helping raise funds for The WARM Place. No doubt, I sell t­shirts every year around Dan’s birthday to honor his memory. It feels so good to remember him in that way and share that with so many people who may or may not have known him but want to help us remember and honor him. However, I also sell t­shirts so I can give back to a place that gave so much to my family. I want to continue to raise funds because if I can be a small part of helping one child learn how to find a new ‘normal’ and process the immense grief they are experiencing, I truly believe I can affect not only that one child, but also generations to come. That one child will become an adult and maybe a parent ­ ready to love and protect the next generation. It’s way bigger than me, or my family, or our grief.

Check out The WARM Place at www.thewarmplace.org. Go to
www.bonfirefunds.com/hugs4hope­-2016 to buy a t­shirt. All proceeds will benefit The WARM
Place. Thank you from the Smiths❤