2555

2555 days…Seven years.  Seven years without hearing your voice or seeing your face, live and in color.  Seven years without your rantings about basketball, politics, how you were "robbed" at Wii Bowling and how awesome you are at Texas Hold ’em.  Our 10 year old turned 17 and our 9 year old turned 16.  Seven years has been a lifetime of changes.  

Last year I thought it was an off year, a year where I didn’t feel you as close as you had been in the past.  This year, you are present in this statement, “The late Jeff Young” as in "the daughter of".  It’s E’s Senior year I knew it was coming and I know I’ll hear that phrase a million more times but I wasn't prepared for that first time, not at all prepared.  Every time I hear it this year, my heart will break a little more for the life events you’re missing out on and for your children who will stand tall and face them without you.  Those girls amaze me. 

I don't feel the need to recap the year for you in regards to the girls, I know you fly high watching over them letting them know in your little ways that you're here.  AKY has dreams of you, I honestly think she talks to you in her sleep, I know she goes to the one place she feels you nearest, where you are laid to rest.  EHY dreams of being a nurse in the cardiac unit so she can "save young men like my dad", to save others from broken hearts that she knows might be nearly impossible but she'll do it anyway.   

I too see little glimpses of you in my dreams....just once in a while. 

The girls are making their way to adulting faster than I'd like.  I see the changes, gone are the butting heads and talking back now I see more negotiating and respecting.  What's more shocking is that both have jobs and no longer ask for money hand outs, you know, unless they are driving somewhere FOR ME then I must replace the gas they used to do that something for me.  I fear they no longer need me for all the things they needed me for just a few short years ago, tear.   

The last seven years for me have been full of peaks and valleys, highs and lows, sometimes more lows than highs.  I've had people come in to my life and leave my life.  I've had people tsk, tsk the choices I've made and applaud the choices I've made.  Do you know what I've figured out, I can waste my time trying to please everyone (which will never happen) or I can spend that time pleasing myself and my loved ones.  The rewards are FAR better doing the latter.  Life is just too damn short.   

I know I am truly blessed with the love I have in my life.  

"Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory" - Dr. Seuss 

Rest assured that your memory lives on in so many people, in the hearts of your children, in the hearts of your family and in the hearts of the people who were so drawn to you.  You haven't gone anywhere, you are always here, you stay in our hearts because there is still love so strong for you there.  You stay in our hearts because who you are is who we are.  Your memory lives strong here.   

Love always JY, always. 

Thanks for checking in, 

L