Surviving Vacation

Well, we did it. We survived our annual vacation camping/fishing trip without you. The lack of your presence was undeniably noticed by everyone. Some viewed it as a memorial trip, but I viewed it as following through with the plans and dreams we had for our girls. And our girls had a blast.

I believe you were with us in spirit, turning on the toy airplane and bubble machine at random times. Baker found it annoying until I told him it was you telling him to get off his ass and go fishing. Laura told me she saw you "last night" a couple different days and those conversations both warm and break my heart. Our friends are doing a great job helping out with the girls and giving them the experiences that I can't on my own (your brother needs a swift kick in the ass, btw) and I will be forever grateful that the girls will have those relationships. I call the guys the girls' pseudo-dads because they love and treat the girls as their own, but none of them will ever compare to the Daddy that you were.

Grief

Grief is a peculiar thing. It's a vicious cycle that sneaks up on you when you least expect it. It's the littlest things that seem to hit you the hardest. A song on the radio (I've heard the funeral songs every.day on the radio), the fact that I had to cook burn the bacon for breakfast on Sunday, the fact that I had to permanently unpack your stuff from the camper. That one's not little...that's huge. I procrastinated as long as I could. And when I forced to do it, it sucked. And by unpacked, I mean I put all your stuff in a tote and hauled it into the bedroom. Where it's now sat for 2 weeks. Because I don't know what to do with it and I'm not ready to address it beyond this point yet.

Grieving opens your eyes to the real trials of the world. Someone else's bad day that they lament over is minute on my scale. Because really....you only locked your keys in your car. I would deal with that every day for the next 20 years if it meant I could have Sam back.

But I'm doing ok. I'm excelling at work, the girls seem to be happy (although Laura still has anxiety over people leaving her), they are involved and I have a social life outside being an only parent. But it's still not the same and given the choice, this isn't the life I would choose.

Vacation starts in two days. Vacation, for us, means camping and fishing on the Missouri river. Which isn't something I had ever done before I met Sam. It's something he grew up doing, introduced me to and I really enjoyed it. We had big plans to help our girls experience this. And now those plans rest solely on my shoulders to carry through. The maiden voyage is going to be hard. The whole 8-day trip is going to be bittersweet. I promised and planned to do these things with you for the rest of our lives. Instead, I have the rest of mine. And however long that may be, I promise I will never stop loving you and doing everything I can to make sure our girls experience everything we had dreamed of doing with them.