Exhale

In my house there are two distinct seasons.  1- Basketball season and 2- Not basketball season.  Justin has coached our varsity girls team for the past 5 years, and it used to be so much fun when we did it together.  But in the A.M. (after Molly) it has been a struggle to keep our house running smoothly when Justin doesn't get home until after 6 (after 9 sometimes on away games) from the beginning of November until March.  I would try to bring the littles to games sometimes, but with the daily "5:00 meltdown" when grumpy hungry bear cubs would awake from naps and tummy alarms would go off, it was a struggle to even get the girls into the car with coats on....let alone keep them on bleachers for an hour and a half.  Let's be honest.... I could rarely watch anything when I would go, even with the help of my ipod and some toddler-friendly technology.

But we have now reached my favorite time of year....NOT basketball season!  (And yes, I know, I'm a spoiled wife who loves when her husband gets home at 4:00).  It's so lovely to cook together, take family walks, and generally have some time to breathe before dinner gets on the table and food gets scarfed, books get read, bath tubs get filled, and two exhausted parents collapse on the couch at 9:00.  

This year has been particularly stressful.  Add to the mix a few plagues that knocked us down in December and January, Justin finishing up his last semester of his master's degree with lots of papers and an internship, and oh yes....starting a new church with Justin as the associate pastor, I'm surprised we've made it to March with hair still on my head and a ring still on my finger.  I need to take a long deep breath and let my frustrations out.  And this seems to be the place that I do it.  Lucky you.  You get to read my verbal drabble.  

Now that I have a little more time to myself when there's an extra set of hands to help with the girls, I feel I can start to address and begin to process what's happened this past month.  On February second, we found out that my brother, Gregg, passed away.  I hate to say it so candidly.  I don't know how to say it at all.  It sounds weird when I say it, even worse when I type it.  Written words are so official and final.  We still don't know what happened exactly, other it was accidental.

I don't know how to talk about his life and his death in a way that neither desecrates his character, nor glorifies a life that wasn't lived to its fullest potential.  I will say that the part of him that I that I will miss so much is how much he loved my girls and my dog that he adopted from me.

                                           

Molly just loved her Uncle Gregg.  I loved watching his face when she opened up her motorcycle he bought her for her second birthday this September.

I find myself contemplating mortality more.  I hate how losses get all clumped together in my head and the loss of another loved one makes me miss my son.  I think how unprepared I would be if Justin were suddenly not here.  I find myself being so thankful for this life God has given me.  I am reminded of how important it is to tell those we love that we love them.

I realize that these thoughts have been scattered, but that's all I have energy for.  Words and deep breaths.  Bracing for the hard work of grieving loss once again, and thankful that I now get to spend more time with my favorite basketball coach/ assistant pastor/ master's degree pursuer/ husband/ father/ friend.