40th birthday

Dear Bill,

Today is my 40th birthday. It is hard to believe you aren't here. Next week will mark 4 years since your death. I can hardly believe it. I will never get used to you being gone. I will never fully get over the shock of it all. We miss you like crazy. You are a part of our regular conversation and are always in our thoughts. There are days when my longing for you makes me want to crawl out of my own skin. I can hardly stand it. I miss us. I miss our old life. I miss making memories and creating a family with you. And I love this new life. The last four years have aged me much more than I would have liked, and at the same time they have given me some pretty amazing blessings. While my anxiety is crippling at times, I am still able to look around and appreciate all that we have been given. I feel so much love for Dave and all these kids and I am so grateful for that every day. I have accepted that I will live the rest of my life in a permanent state of duality. 

Dave and I have grown tremendously these last several months. I think all the staying at home and isolation has been really good for us. We have been able to focus more on our relationship and the deeper issues, which is hard to do when we normally spend a lot of our time taxiing children to and from activities. I am really proud of the work we have done, and will continue to do, for ourselves and our kids. We have a deep love and respect for each other and I am so excited to see where this life takes us. And I can't help but feel some apprehension as well. Sometimes I just look at him and think,

Please don't die.

So clearly I have some work to do still.

This pandemic has been a nightmare to say the very least. We are fairing well, and so far no one we know/love has really been affected, but it is raging on and we will be dealing with this for quite some time yet. Not super helpful for my anxiety. We managed to make it through the end of the school year in one piece, which was no small feat. While most of our summer plans have been thwarted by the virus, we are still finding some things to do close to home to occupy our time. 

The kids are doing well and growing so much. Sometimes I marvel at how big they are. I think in some way they will remain frozen at 9, 6, and 3. It shocks me that I have a teenager now. I see you in them every day. Blake is good about helping with certain things on the computer. He took apart his Xbox recently to see what was inside.  He likes to tinker with things like that. That is all you. I hear your voice when Landon laughs and luckily I get to hear that a lot. I see you in Owen's sweet face, and his perfect runner's form. He has two speeds, fast and off. And my God is he stubborn. I would be in denial though if I said he didn't get that from the both of us. He told Landon to pick up his "Goddamn sweatshirt" the other day. I scolded him and told him that was adult language that no 7-year-old should be using and that he also had not had enough life experience to be speaking that way. After thinking about that, I guess that really isn't true. Someone basically murdered his father when he was 3 and now he is living through a pandemic, so I guess that qualifies.

We love you and we miss you like crazy. Our pain will never end. And we are ok. We are continuing to move forward with excitement as we navigate our new life. There is so much love here and so many memories to be made and so much to live for.  We will carry you with us always, and will be forever grateful for all that you gave to us. And we hold on to the hope that we will be reunited with you again one day.

I love you forever and always,

Bri