5475

 15 years 

As per usual, I've waited until the last minute to write this.  

I want to believe that I put this off until the last minute because I work better under pressure, but I really think it's because it weighs so heavily on my heart to write these words.  To remember and to think about all the times you made me laugh + cry and all of the times in between.

You.  You were such a LARGER-THAN-LIFE presence in my life, the girls' lives, your friends and family's lives and even in the lives of people who don't even know you in this present.  It's a little annoying, you always hogging the spotlight...ha!

Do you remember that one time when we were in high school, and we made my Japanese sister so mad because she asked what "ripping shitties" meant and we showed her?  She was mad at me FOR-EV-ER for that.  

Do you remember that one time we went snowdrift surfing in your little gold Chevette, you got stuck and I had to walk miles and miles (not really, probably just up the street) in the freezing cold without a coat (because we were teenagers that didn't wear coats) to round up help to get you out?  

Do you remember that one time my senior year, your junior year we broke up and you put a song on a cassette tape, Bryan Adams "Everything I Do, I Do It For You" (yes, I kind of had to look that up on the Google it's been so long) so I could listen to it in my car to remember that no one got me like you got me?  

Do you remember when you asked me to marry you?

Do you remember when I told you we were going to have a baby? 

Do you remember when I told you we were going to have another baby, in the car, with a 6-month-old in the back seat (while living with my parents, gasp)?  You threw my cigarettes out the window immediately because I'd been keeping this a secret for 2 weeks! (No, children, I wasn't smoking in the car, although I might have been smoking the 2 weeks I already knew....sorry Al)

Because I do.  

I remember ALL of these things and one million more things that would take me all of 2024 to list.  I will always love and cherish all the things, I'm not who I am without these moments that shaped my life, all the moments with you.  

Yes, even the worst moment, the moment I knew you were gone.  

YOU taught me to live, annoyingly, so large.  YOU taught me to live each day as if it were my last, also annoyingly.  YOU taught me to forgive and forget what I couldn't change because the only thing I could change was my reaction.  I learned so much from you while you were here, but the most important thing you taught me is to love with my whole heart.  Because that's what you did.  Every day I loved you with my whole heart until the day, 15 years ago, it broke into a million tiny pieces.

You would be so, so proud of these children we brought into this world.  Emily is a travel nurse flying and/or driving all over the country, seeing all the things and being the best nurse, she knows how to be.  Allyson is teaching and shaping young minds at the pre-school she works at, "her" kids call her Miss Allyson, and I couldn't love that more.

I am so full of pride at how they've taken the broken pieces of their hearts and built such wonderful lives for themselves.  In the years you've been gone this is the one thing I worried most about.  This loss that changed their lives forever shaped them into the MOST wonderful people I know.  These girls are so much better than I ever dreamed they could be.

MEMORIES: Our lives are shaped as much by those who leave us as they are by those who stay. Loss is our legacy. Insight is our gift. Memory is our guide. Love everlasting. 

Sending hugs to all of those who are remembering you today and every day.  

Glasses up at 6a is looking a little different this year as we'll all be "phoning it in" haha, we're still doing it. 

I loved you then and love you still, keeping your memory alive as best as I can.  

You're forever etched on my heart.  

Fly high JY.

Thanks for checking in, L