This morning I awoke to a silent house as my alarm went off. Kids were sleeping, Grandma is sleeping, and my sister is sleeping. I walked into the living room as I do every day and took in the surroundings. Christmas tree in the corner of the room. Couch with jackets and remotes for the TV, toys on the floor, and everything like normal. I picked up my phone and noticed a lot of activity for this blog and for Facebook. I started receiving txt messages with concerned friends asking how much money is needed. I don't know. We have some life insurance for my wife and this blog wasn't setup to be a "please send us money" campaign. It is setup for me to vent. To express what I normally don't. I don't want to guilt anyone into sending anything to us. If someone wanted to give some cash then great. If not, great. No worries. You will find my comments are raw as are my feelings. For those that have donated I do appreciate your doing so. Many are complete strangers and while that is a bit odd it brings comfort that as humans we wish to help others. I am humbled by everyone's generosity.
My son came into the living room and we cuddled. I played with him in his Thomas the train tent.
We spent a lot of the day getting funeral arrangements made. Flowers are expensive. I suppose my wife would just say I am cheap. But seriously... $700.00 for flowers for an hour of sitting on the casket? I can only imagine what my wife will say when I see her again... "You are so cheap!... My one special day people celebrate my life an you can't even buy some flowers?!"... so I ended up getting some that were nice but not so expensive. I thought she would agree that the difference should be spent on the kids. We got a casket ordered. We did not go through the funeral home so we got a much better deal. It looks good. So we ended up getting everything in order... I think. I don't know how I would do this without the help of family and friends. I had the opportunity to go see Jan at the funeral home tonight. That was very tough. I didn't think it would be so bad. I found that when I looked at my wife I saw a portion of me. A part of me died when she did and I just saw that tonight. I found myself talking to my wife asking her why she had to die and how that was not part of the deal. I thought we would grow old together. We celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary in November and I was looking forward to celebrating our 50th. I thought we would have grand kids running around the house and be the stereotypical old couple where the wife would jabber on about things and the father would grunt every now and then be seriously opinionated on politics and tell you how things should be. I realized tonight that there will be a different plan. When we married the words that were spoken were "for time and all eternity". I still consider myself married as much as when she were here. So this earthly separation I suppose could be looked at as a much needed reprieve from the chaos in our home. My sister pointed out that with my wife gone the duties of night-time duties of childcare is now mine. I'm sure my wife will get a kick out of that. Since I am a heavy sleeper she may begin haunting me to get me to be a light-sleeper so I can tend to Claire. Speaking of Claire... she will begin the warming procedure starting tonight. So far so good.
Lots of tears tonight but overall I am grateful for my kiddos and my family. I am blown away by the financial support complete strangers have given. I honestly am without words.
