One Year

I am President of an elite secret society.  Elite, due to our membership being fewer than ten; secret, due to the fact that we don’t have a name nor a purpose.  What we do share is an acute awareness when the 20th of each month rolls around.  My sister-in-law, Jenni, is a member. She is ever so cognizant of the date because she has been marking the milestones of her family’s latest addition, Amelia, born September 20, 2011.  Last year, Sam found comfort in the visual that Uncle Kevin and little Amelia “slapped five” on his departure from and her arrival to the world.  While I have been marking each month as one more month survived, Jenni has been marking the monthly milestones of sitting, crawling, eating, walking, and talking.  I think we would both agree that the past year feels like a blink.  Jenni blinked and probably wonders where her little baby disappeared and when this moving, babbling, little human being appeared.  I blinked and wondered how it possibly could have been one year ago when I still feel as broken as it were just yesterday.  However, there are signs that healing is taking place. Someone finally removed the cinder blocks that were attached to my legs and I’m actually able to run again.  Much like Amelia, I’m still babbling, but I’m moving.

One of the themes from this past year has been, “What was I thinking??” Top of the list, obviously, is two funerals.  Please, no one ever attempt to do that.  Seriously, just don’t.   A smaller one was attending a pressure cooker cooking class, only 3 weeks after Kevin passed away. That was wrong on so many levels, foremost being I didn’t even know what a pressure cooker was.  Purchasing tickets for the five of us to see Wicked during Christmas break seemed like a fabulous idea to create a memorable and uplifting experience.  Turned out Kevin joined us.  Unfortunately, he was sitting right on my chest because I was unable to breath for 2 1/2 hours.  The most recent “what was I thinking?” happened on Monday night during Family Home Evening. Earlier that morning when I got back from a run (yes, read that sentence again with great awe), I sat down and wrote a list of 26 things I have learned from the last year. I thought with the one year mark just a few days away, this would be a great way for my family to reflect back on the past year and hopefully see some of the positive lessons we’ve learned.  Now how this exercise played in my head and how it went down were two different things.  That evening, I pulled out the big white board ready to write down the list of all the things my kids would share, and instead, all I heard were four heart broken children sobbing because their dad was gone.  I added one more item to my lessons learned list:  It might take a life time for my children to see the positive effects of such a devastating experience. For a 17, 15, 10, and 8 year old, all that has been learned came at much too great a cost.  I threw out my list and joined my children in their sorrow.  Lessons such as “Life is unfair” and “Crying doesn’t always make you feel better” don’t need to be written down. When I hugged each of my children that night, I thought about how blessed I am.  I am grateful that I know the Atonement heals, the Spirit comforts, and the Lord provides.  I am grateful for the four little people who gave me a reason to get out of bed every day for the past 365 days.  And now, I am grateful that we survived September 20th, which started with an inspired rainbow and ended with a fabulous sunset.  For those of you in my secret society, and for those of you who are not, thank you - thank you for remembering.