The Next Chapter

When I originally thought about this blog post, I figured I'd call it "Epilogue" or something like that.  But then I remembered that Jacque would be really pissed off if I thought about this as the end of anything.  "It's a new beginning" she would tell me.  

So I'm trying to manage this new beginning.  Josh & Drew came to take more of their stuff to their dad's house today, and that wasn't too sad.  It was nice to have all the kids here together for a while.  The hard part is when there's no one here.  It's just me, or me with my kids.  It's incredibly lonely and I'm not really sure how that's going to change.  The nice part is that I have family and friends constantly reaching out to check on me and get me out of the house.  Thank you for all of that, let's keep that up!  But even on a weekend like this, where I saw friends & family, had playdates with other kids, and had a sports junkie's worth of basketball on TV, I was still just sad.

In the eulogy, I mentioned the book of note cards that Jacque kept, and how she'd often pick one out and leave it for me with a little note.  I'd often find them tucked in my sunglass case, or just sitting on the counter when she left for work before me.  As I was going through some papers today, I found the last one she gave to me.  It was on my plate on Valentine's Day morning.  I know (hope?) this will get easier at some point.  I don't know when that day will be, but it is certainly not on Day 11, particularly since there are a million other things just like this scattered around the house.

I don't really know what the point of this post is, but it felt good to write when we were going through all the rest of our challenges (which was completely Jacque's idea), so I figured it was worth a shot tonight.  I'm going to attempt to keep the blog going, because the Swan Positive message is a good one.  I might not advertise all the posts on Facebook, or write that frequently, but I owe it to Jacque to try.