To mark the first post of this blog, I thought I'd copy and paste parts of some of the first messages between Eric and me--
"Turns out she had eclampsia and they had to perform an emergency c section to save her and the baby (Ava). Ava was perfectly healthy but my wife (Sheri) passed away that same day. It was quite the shock losing my wife and getting a newborn baby all in the same day."...
"I can totally relate to your comment about hoping he was unconscious by the time he went down the waterfall. The kind of stuff Sheri went through in the hospital made me hope she didn't feel any of it. I have tried to write about it several times but don't get far. It was so traumatic that it is still tough to see hospital scenes on TV. I don't know if you feel the same way but never getting to say goodbye is still one of the things I wish I had been able to do."
"...you're a runner? Six miles, huh?
I ran a bit in college, but now running has become an important part of my life. Cheap therapy, I suppose."...
"...I have been crazy busy here as well with the whole trying to move thing. I’m pretty sure I’m trying to juggle too much but I just have to tell myself it will be better long term. Some days (like today) I wake up and just thinking of all the stuff that I have to do to get to work makes me want to crawl back in bed. I finally got a fresh coat of wood stain on my deck so that has made me feel like I’ve actually accomplished something. The good news is my in-laws are coming up Friday to give me a hand with some stuff. They are retired and have helped me out tons since…well you know."
"Some good news is that I have a fun vacation planned for Memorial Day. I know you are supposed to go and do the cemetery thing…but I’m skipping that this year. Instead we are flying down to St. George to hang out with my in-laws. If you have stalked my blog at all you would see we go down to St. George quite a bit. It works out excellent because my MIL gets lots of time with her grandkids while me and my FIL go hiking and running. We have a excellent 10 mile hike planned in Zion this trip :) It sounds like you have been staying very busy. The statistics class doesn’t sound fun at all. What are you getting your masters in?
Sorry to hear you hurt yourself balancing precariously on a chair. I hate getting injured and not being able to run. It takes all of my self control to NOT run anyways and make the injury worse. I hope you are able to run your relay still because that is such a awesome course! I ran the Ogden Half Marathon last year and loved it."
"Montana is beautiful and that’s a big reason why we moved here. It is awesome to be surrounded by mountains, trees and rivers. I attached a photo of the view from our deck so you can see just how cool living in Montana is :). I also like that Missoula which is the "big" city that we live next too isn't super crowded like say Utah. The traffic in Utah drives me nuts after living here for so long. I guess I'm kind of spoiled in that regard. If you do ever make it to Montana stick to the western part because it is the nicest. Good places to vist are Yellowstone of course and Glacier is amazing as well. Glacier has special memories because it was the last vacation we went on before Sheri passed away. It was our 10 year anniversary. We were going to go to Hawaii but Sheri was 8 months pregnant so we decided to go to Glacier and go to Hawaii another time. I also attached a picture of Glacier for you to look at. The picture hardly does it justice but it's the best I have. Well at least now you can say you have seen pictures of Montana."....
"I'm excited for my big hike tomorrow and need to get to bed so I can wake up early. Bug you later :) I hope you made it through your super fun day! You didn't send me another email about losing your phone so you must have done pretty good."
"I enjoyed staying up late chatting with you Monday, but I really paid for it on Tuesday. I have decided you are pretty cool so I would probably choose to do it again even if it meant missing out on some much needed sleep :)...
I was up way late Tuesday moving all of my furniture. My leather couches nearly kicked my butt and I almost gave up on getting them moved. I had to take the legs off, turn them sideways, remove a door and use lots of cardboard so as not to tear them up. I finally moved them and now I'm not sure I want to move them back. At least the new carpet looks really good! It's amazing how much of a difference some new carpet can make.
"Yes...I deserve an award...I've made it almost an entire week now in maintaining possession of my phone. But now my debit card is lost. Whatever. At least it's not my phone, right?"
"Hi.
Sounds like you've got a life like mine--Lots to do and little sleep.
I thought you were more of a sound sleeper than that, though.
Anyway--
You're good for taking care of Abby like that--She'll be so happy to have her friends over for her birthday.
I must say I'm pretty lucky...Usually when I'm in those situations (Like when I need to throw a huge party and I'm not sure how I'm going to do it all), I have helping hands near that are always so willing to help."
"I attached some music for you as promised. These are two of my favorite songs about death. I love the beginning of the Linkin Park song. I think they do a awesome job of painting a accurate picture of death. I know I am kinda morbid :)"
"So one of these nights you should send me some pictures of your old house that you fixed up. I would really like to see the work you guys did."
"Best of luck on your upcoming test and have a good week! Try not to lose anything too important :)"
"I listened to the songs and I see why you like 'em. They gave me a sense of your taste in music, plus...ya know...they speak my language. They'll be added to my "Michael" playlist that I established since his passing. As you can probably guess, and perhaps like something you have going on, most of the songs are about losing someone or songs that remind me of him for one reason or another. So I guess that makes us both morbid. But at least we can be morbid together, right?
I'll see if I can send you that playlist somehow. That is, if you're interested.
Another fun thing this week has been Abbey going to school. The school here lets kids go a couple of days a week to get ready for kindergarten. Abbey has really enjoyed it. It is kind of scary watching your first kid get ready to go to school.
Kick butt on your test!!! Are we on for a chat this weekend? I don't have much going on any night so let me know what works best for you?"
"This is a picture of my current laundry room. Thought you might appreciate my wall hangings. They're real records.They've gotta' be worth something. Nevertheless, they I think they look cool hung up.~"
"I must say your girls are quite adorable.
Girls are just the best.
My girl makes me laugh every day....Like just a second ago she went up to our dog and asked him if he would marry her.
I don't think I'll be reading Cinderella to her anymore. I don't want her to get any more wrong ideas. :)"
"...I remembered that Friday is Michael and my anniversary. I thought it might be nice to go to the temple that day and such. What have you done on your anniversaries?"
"I know I talk about Michael a lot. I don't mean to overdo it...I'm sorry if I do. But it's not something I can change right now. Part of getting to know me is part of getting to know him and our life together. Hopefully you get that, at least on some level."
"Thanks for the thoughtful email. I hope your day went as well as can be expected. Believe it or not I was hit harder by Mother's Day than Father's Day. I guess it's just one of those random things. I was starting to get depressed and feel sorry for myself a little for not having anyone around to tell me I'm a super dad. But then I read a post that my sister-in-law made on Abbey and Ava's blog and that gave me the little bit of appreciated that I needed. I'm still not sure what I did to deserve such great in-laws."
I haven't had the thought that you talk about Michael too much. I think it is rather important and it's one of the reasons why some of my best friends these days are widows. To tell you the truth I would be concerned if you didn't talk about him."
"I'm glad to hear your Father's Day was at least somewhat decent. I hope you felt love and appreciation from many avenues on that day...You certainly deserve more than just a few acknowledgments of your super-dad status. I can only imagine how much Sheri appreciates you and your strength as a father. You're takin' care of her girls!"
"Sometimes I look at Andi and I could just cry because I love her so much. She means everything to me. If I were separated from her, I think the only thing that would make it okay would be if she was able to be with her dad. Perhaps Sheri feels that way too, I don't know. I can only imagine."
"Anyway, so if the only time we get to really hang is over lunchtime, maybe it could be nice for it to be distraction-free. PLUS, I will admit to you that I have made an oath to myself that I will never have my girl around any "person of interest." Hmmm...Maybe that's not the best way to put it, but you know what I mean. I guess you can pat yourself on the back now for being considered such.
But, on the other hand, she's little. And she might really enjoy playing with your girls."
"BTW I am super honored to be a "person of interest" for you. You are also a "person of interest" on my short list...hmm perhaps I shouldn't admit that. You might not think I'm all that cool now that you know I don't have a huge long list of "persons of interest" :). HA ha! I think that is my new favorite phrase."
"I know what you mean about the anticipation making it worse. I made a huge deal out of my 1 year mark in my head and made it much worse than it needed to be. The day itself wasn't bad, but I did have some bad days leading up to it. I tried to do fun stuff on the 1 year mark. We did stuff that Sheri loved doing because I figured it was a good way to remember her."
"So, if you're okay with it, I'm thinkin' it would be just fine to just have the girls with us on Saturday. It might be kinda' fun having them there, plus, Lehi is farther away from here than West Point is. And besides, it's always more preferable to me to have my girl with me wherever I go rather than push her on a sitter. (Not that my family ever acts like I'm pushing her on them, but you know...I still feel that way.)"
"We can catch up a lot on Saturday--both at lunch and maybe later that night--even though I may leave a bit early.
Call me when you're in town and we can figure things out.
Be safe."
"We'll figure it out, I'm sure. Just know that I'm looking forward to it and I would for sure tell you if it was too much for me. Maybe it won't even take me telling you...Maybe you'll just know I'm not okay if I ever start crying hysterically and ignoring your phone calls. That might be a sign to take notice of. :) So far so good, though. Yep...anniversary's coming up this week and next week will be the year mark.Thanks for offering your listening ear. You may regret that. :) I anticipate these days just as I've anticipated all the past holidays. Sometimes the anticipating is much worse than the actual day. I have some activities planned that will be good, I think. Inasmuch as I may dread these days, I appreciate having another reason to contemplate and remember, though. I love just being able to REMEMBER. I may not be able to talk to him or share my life with him anymore (to a certain degree,) but I can certainly remember and savor every little memory, right? Anyway, thanks again for your email. Hope you're well. ~Lisa"
"Happy Father's Day. Hope you're doin' alright today. Here's a link to a cute song about Fathers and Daughters--http://youtu.be/vdmADd4mVRw I know it's cheesy, but it's one that Michael sort of established as his song for him and Andi....It's come to mean a lot to me.Maybe it'll make you think of your cute girls."
"Thanks for inviting us over to your house to hang out with you and Andi. It was a good way to get to know you better and very stress free. Andi reminds me a ton of Abbey when she was that age. She wasn't into princesses quite that much, but she was very shy and adorable of course."
"Thanks so much for the music! Abbey and Ava enjoyed the princess music and I very much enjoyed your widowhood playlist. I was quite amazed at how many songs you had. It took me the entire drive (8 hours) to listen to the whole thing. Lots of good songs! The drive seemed to go by fast and I'm sure it was because of the great music! I'll have to get my playlist finished for you soon. I attached a couple more of my favs to help you get through the week."
"...The other thing is I thought of something you could try to hopefully make your upstairs more tolerable. After seeing your house I was thinking about it and if you leave your furnace fan running all the time it should circulate the air and keep the temperature upstairs closer to the temperature downstairs. This is assuming you have a return grill on the second floor which I thought I saw. To try this just switch your fan switch to "on" instead of "auto" in the morning and see how your upstairs feels that evening. Theoretically it should work :)."
"I don't know what my problem is lately....I'm usually cold.
I've had my fan on every night lately. I freeze Harry out of bed 'cuz I have that thing blowing full blast all night long.
Speaking of Harry. Last night I was so dang hot and I also couldn't sleep. I was tossing and turning all night. Finally Harry got sick of it and went downstairs. Not typical. I wish I would have cared because when I woke up in the morning, the pantry door was open. He broke into his dog food bag AND he ate a bag of chocolate chips. As if that wasn't enough, he climbed on the table and found my headphones and chewed them to smitherines. This is the 4th official pair of my headphones he's ruined. On the up side, the last time he did so was before Michael died, so at least he made it that long without succumbing to the temptation. :) "
"I recently bought this Eddie Vedder album and this song (see attached song and lyrics) sums up how I feel about you :)
It feels so nice to listen to a love song and think of someone living...
"Longing To Belong"
I dream of circles perfect
eyes within your face
my heart's an open wound that
only you'd replace
and though the moon is rising
can't put your picture down
love can be frightening when you fall
And when the time is right, I
hope that you'll respond
like when the wind gets tired
the ocean becomes calm
I may be dreaming but I'm
longing to belong
to you
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