Living is a whole new adventure when you suddenly find yourself alone, widowed and the mother of four young boys a lot like their Dad.
Creating the Moments
Regardless of the challenges, I ask myself and my children sometimes, how we can make the best of this? How can I utilize the space and the energy to answer the needs that I and they have?
Control in Life
I really connect deeply with living life today because that’s all there is. My lesson is that there are elements of life of which you don’t actually have any control. You can make plans. You can have goals and dreams.
Being Alive
After going through the loss of my husband, the thing that I have connected to the most, is that feeling of what it feels like to be alive. When I get too far from that, I get more unalive though I’m alive.
Date Nights with Grant
Dear Grant,
These 4 years since you died have been tough on me. I’ve been really angry at you and mostly for leaving. I’ve felt betrayed and abandoned by you, so I’ve pushed you away. Forgive me, I want to remember the good times.
I Remember When It Was Just Us
I remember when it was just us. It was you and I. There was nothing that didn’t work for us. You and me, me and you and we smiled. Flower leis, travel and so many things for us to discover together. This was one of your favorite places, Hawaii.
My Miracle
A few months after Grant died, I was on a road trip with the boys. We were going back to the home in St. George where we’d lived when he died. This was going to be the first time back since that happened. We had left shortly after his death because I couldn’t be there.
Knew That Was Coming
It’s finally been said. I knew it would be one day. I wasn’t expecting it till the teenage years really, but it makes sense it’d be now. I think it’s something every parent will hear when the other parent is dead. Those words that cut deeper than any other phrase.
All Your Stuff
I started crying today. Not because I missed you but because I saw your truck. It was in a video. All your people - the crew, they were in the truck. They were driving it to the mountains. It was a party for them. They are road tripping to film a video and doing it in your truck.
Do I Really Believe What I Say? No, Not Anymore
Back to that night in the park, the one I remembered from two weeks before he died, it’s haunted me since. Why? Because there is more to that night, the story and the last thing I said. When I think back on how I used to think… wow… I can’t believe I said that 2 weeks before he died. Do I really believe what I say? No, not anymore. Not when I tell a lie I didn’t think was a lie then, but don’t realize it is until it’s too late.
He Died Doing What He Loved
I remember we got so many sympathy cards the week Grant died. It’s a beautiful thing for someone to send a card, but in the wake of the death of your husband with 4 small children still around, alive and now without dad; the last thing you want is any mail to open. Every letter, every card is a reminder of what just happened.
Back To A Place We’d Been Before
I had an oddly familiar feeling as I walked the grounds of this hotel. Why did I feel as if I’d been there? We had just made a pit stop on our 10 hour drive to visit Grant’s brother and his family. A potty break for little boys and stretching for mom. Now that I road trip as a lone parent and the only driver with 4 little boys, I like to take my time. I make lots of stops to enjoy the journey with boys, kind of like what I’m trying to do in life now anyway.
He Was Riding With Us
We promised them we’d take them to Disneyland. Grant, you’d never been so I wanted to take you too. We could go to Disneyland as a family we schemed, if we could read the scriptures together as a family and finish the whole book of Mormon. At our pace it’d take us about a year. We were close in February last year when my parents went. I wanted to go then. You said, “We haven’t finished yet.”
The 2nd Year Is Harder
Grant,
In 2 days it will be your birthday. You’d be 40, but you’re dead, so you won’t be. You stopped aging at 38. You managed to immortalize yourself in your youthfulness, before your age really started to show, before you were affected by all the life lessons and joys of growing older. Congratulations.
How Am I Doing? Don’t Ask Me
Please stop asking me how am I doing, I have no answer. Friends and family close to me are often asked, “How is Janae doing?” by others who know me. It also comes from those who are thinking of me and have heard my husband died, thus leaving me with 4 little boys. I think people want a connection to me within this raw reality, or a reassurance that I’m ok, but somehow they don’t feel able to ask me themselves.
I Knew Before I Knew
It was 9:30pm on July 29th. He’d promised to be home by 9:30. I looked at my phone as I snuggled in my bed with my 8 year old. He played Zelda and I read my book.
2nd Dead Anniversary
Tomorrow is my second wedding anniversary without Grant. What does that make tomorrow for me? The 2nd dead Anniversary? The first one was too soon, only 2 months after he died. I was in a complete haze of life still. We had planned to go to Hawaii that year during our anniversary. Hawaii is where we got married. We’d already paid for our rental house, so I went anyway with my boys.
