5 years

I was at Broxburn Vegetables and Cafe today with my kids for Strawberry Fest.  It's a vegetable farm just outside Lethbridge.  One of my good friends, who loves "all things festival", told me about it in the morning.  I was getting the kids ready to go to the farm and running around.   Just after she told me about it, I received a text from another friend that said, "Thinking about your family today Jared."  I honestly had to stop and think for a quick second about why I was getting that message.

Right.

Today is 5 years.

I'm not saying that I have literally forgotten what the date of Krista's death was.  That's ridiculous.  I had to take a second to think because the date does not have the power of shadows over my heart that it did a few years ago.  The last couple years, the dates on the calendar marking certain significance to Krista have not had the ability to change my approach to the day in a negative way.  We can live our lives and enjoy them, fully.  I am 100% positive that Krista would be super ticked if we didn't.

If you are reading this blog for the first time, you wouldn't know that my wonderful wife Krista, the mother of my three children, passed away due to a pulmonary embolism on this date in 2009.  Just 4 days after the birth of our third child.  The past 5 years are like a completely separate life compared with before because it has been so different without Krista.  It's like the designations of B.C. and A.D. when talking about history.  I sometimes find myself figuring out that the easiest way to tell how old the things in my house, or peoples' kids are is to remember how old they were in relation to that date. 

Let's get something straight though.  While working through what it means to be a widowed father of three is the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with, it does not mean that there has been an absence of joy in our family's life.  There has still been joy.  There has always been hope.

She would absolutely be CHOKED if her death received attention, and was focused on, in a way that brought the kids down at this time of year.  She would have wanted Soph's birthday and the beginning of school to be an insanely joyous time.  To be honest, even if she hadn't wanted that, it's what I want.  So it's not an avoidance of the topic, like it's something to be feared. I think of it as a prioritization shift.  I want the highest priority to be that our family has a good time together on this weekend, an emphasis on our family bond, not on our family loss.  I don't know that it's been that clear to me until I wrote that sentence. So Strawberry Festival and a sleepover at Grandma Beth's house before school starts is a great way to honour one of the most important things to Krista, and myself... a loving family.

For the rest of her life Soph could have her birthday be a precursor to a day of sad.  That's not cool. 

5 years of change in our lives is a huge amount of time.  It's can also be a short amount of time.  It just depends on what perspective you are using when you begin to sort through the memory banks.  

To look at my own kids now, is to look at completely different human beings.  

Jaxon is 11 now, he is going to his first year of middle school this year.  Grade 6.  He  for his first day of Grade 1 when Krista passed away.  He loves playing basketball and video games and wrestling with me and listening to music. He is great with his sisters, is a good friend to others.  Currently he wants to be a chef, and he's actually pretty legit with cooking. Especially scrambled eggs with cheese.  Seriously.

Grace is in Grade 4.  She dances Hip Hop, likes basketball (not as enamoured with it as Jaxon yet, but I'm working on it. :)) and enjoys goofing around and making hilarious videos with her friends and siblings.  She is unreal with younger kids and wants to be a teacher.

Soph was a tiny little definition of joy.  She's still joy, but now she's a budding Kindergartener version of it.  She loves Play-doh, loves pretend cooking, and loves tickles.  Honestly her giggle could melt the black off an asphalt road.  

Our family - 2010 vs. 2014 - we had the first photo taken nearly one year after Krista passed, and the other was this past summer while visiting Krista's Dad in B.C.  I love these pictures.  I currently also like having long hair.

THE FUTURE.  So ominous it can be...

In the early spring of 2014, I started seeing a counsellor again because I felt this general malaise about the future.  Even though I had hope for the future, it was like it was muddled in the everyday grind.  There was still joy, but it was veiled. 

I had begun to feel like I was entering a new stage of life and wasn't confident that my swirling thoughts didn't need some distilling.  There were a few things that I addressed with my counsellor.  

1. Physical Health
2. Work/Life Balance (societal problem catchphrase alert!)
3. How to invest in my children who are now in new stages in their own lives.
4. How am I going to know, how I know, that I am ready to explore a relationship with someone again?

It has been great to work with him on this.  

1. I have taken steps to address the physical activity and diet concerns I have had in my life.  I don't have a huge weight loss story to share with you, but I can tell you that I am changing shape slowly but surely, and the loss of mass will come.  The biggest thing is that I feel that I have a plan that will work for me.
2. I have looked at how I work and what ways I can maximize my actual day while still getting the things done that I want to accomplish.  This has lead to the realization that I need to wake up early. 5:30/6:00 a.m. and go to bed early 10:00 to do this.  This hasn't been consistent yet either, especially over the summer! Teacher summers allow for some frivolous sleeping behaviours at times.  It is a goal of mine to integrate this schedule starting after Labour Day 2014. (just want to put 2014 so I can't screw it up all next year and then say, "Well you never said WHICH Labour Day!"  Oh man that would be the definition of weak..)
3. Talking with my kids about what they truly enjoy in life has helped me to understand the areas that they are more excited about.  That doesn't mean that I just let them do what they want, or not do what they don't want.  It means that I can be mindful of the areas I need to push them in, while also being more understanding of their areas of anxiety.  Kids are awesome, but sometimes confusing.  They also give me huge amounts of energy some days, but also should probably be put in prison for larceny with the amount of energy they have stolen.
4. Funny story. Weeks into talking with my counsellor I met someone.  We were talking and she was cool and beautiful.  We hung out a bit as friends and I have been seeing her ever since.  She's fantastic and it's really chill and really great at the same time. She thinks my family is awesome, and respects Krista's memory and who she was to my kids and I.  She loves God.  My family thinks she is great too.  That's all there is to tell about that because there are a lot of people who deserve a lot of respect in both of our lives and it would be really disrespectful to talk about a relationship in a blog.  Not to mention creepy.  Also super lame.  The funny part of the story is that I never really got the answer to the question of "how was I going to know how to know that I was ready?" because it sort of answered itself.

Thinking about all the changes that life brings, especially this time of year since Krista has passed, reminds me of the things that have been constant in my life.

I have been loved and supported by friends, family and colleagues. 

My parents and sister have prayed for my kids and I and helped us out and have just plain loved us all the time.  Well my whole life truth be told! Hahaha! My mom prays for so many people and does whatever she can for us.  She has Chronic Fatigue and Fibromyalgia and yet she still does whatever she can for us.  She wouldn't want to receive a bunch of attention for this but too bad Ma. You rule.  My dad has always been a steady, rock solid place where I can take thoughts and problems to.  He is an example to me of how to set aside your own stuff and help others.  My sister and her husband have always been there for me, and even when they have three little humans of their own, she cares about my family too.

My family on Krista's side is unreal.  They are so great.  Krista's mom Beth is a constant in our lives, and not the way that you people with annoying mother-in-laws are thinking.  She is a true blessing to the kids and I.  She is a blessing to all around her.  I am proud she is my mother-in-law and could serve as example for all mother-in-laws as to how to do it right.  My father-in-law Barry is one of the most loving guys out there and although he lives in Delta, I know we are in his thoughts.  Gail, his wife, is such a cool lady too, (along with her family) and she has always made us feel at home when we visit out there.  My sister-in-law Jill is one of the funniest people I know and I love her so much.  Whenever we get a chance to hang out, I usually find myself laughing at some joke with her that no one else gets.

I honestly can't start going through what my friends have done for me because there have been so many things by so many people that I am humbled, and also nervous because I don't want to forget anyone.  (By the way, I'm not trying to say, "Oh I have SO many friends, because I RULE. That's being a jerkface. (reference to my Grade 7 art teacher Mr. Snowden who used to call punk kids "jerkface". ))  Thanks to all the colleagues and church friends and neighbours and NBC coaches and students who have brightened my days.

Father, Son, Holy Spirit, well this is the main point right here.  Hope comes in many forms for many people, but when I get down to the basics of life,  my faith is the main thing that provides it for me.

I truly am indebted to the people in my life.  I am especially thankful for the love my family and I have been shown in the last 5 years.  We have all found ourselves in different places in the last 5 years since Krista's passing.  I hope you continue to find your place in people's lives.

Love is such a good thing to be part of.

So what does this date do to me?  I feel like anniversaries and dates marking significant events in our lives are indicators for us to enter times of reflection.  

Wedding anniversary? Reflect on your marriage.  

Birthday? Reflect on the last year and celebrate it as well as move forward with new thoughts.

  If you are incapacitated by a date I can understand it.  The reflection that is caused by the reminder of that number on the calendar can be unbearable. For some, it will bring you to ruin each time, and for others there is a movement to avoid acknowledging the pain you felt, never dealing with the problem.  For others you will be in ruins, but the more you process through it, you will move forward to a place where you are not in fear of the past rearing its head in the present.

 I feel like I have reflected each year and throughout the years on the things I am learning through this journey (hated using journey just there, but it works).  Personally, I don't want a date to hold me captive.  This date in the year has no more significance than any other date on the calendar if I look at it objectively.  The calendar's role in our life is to mark time.  The dates on our calendar for the rest of 2014 marks time that is not rooted in the past.  The very fact that it continuously moves forward is a tribute to the fact that dates are rooted in the future or the present.  We cannot go back in time and actually relive the past.  (People who own a Delorean with a flux capacitor would argue this.)  We can only live presently, or dwell on the future.  It's not like I only grieved Krista's loss on this date each year.  The grieving was a process that I felt every moment of the day for the first while, then it slowly changed.  Then it would come up out of nowhere and hit me hard.  Searching out what I was feeling and why, was something that I did with friends, family, counsellors.  I still obviously can't make sense of absolutely everything in it, but I am confident I have delved into my thoughts and fears and feelings throughout the last 5 years the best that I have been able to do.  The time for my heart to overwhelm me on this date has passed.  It doesn't mean that I am intentionally attempting to rid myself of memory.  The thing is, pain and anguish should not hold sway in my life, feeling free to join me every time the calendar reads a certain number. (Oh man, I hope I didn't sound like a know-it-all just there...)  

The future cannot be known.  I hope that both you and I can identify the themes in our lives we feel so strongly about, that we will continue to integrate them no matter the circumstance.  Maybe then, we can be on our way to not worrying about the future, and can more easily navigate the dark and unknown paths that present themselves.  We can navigate them because we will be guided by those principles we can't imagine losing.  Principles are different than people, or things.  The problem with those, is that it is not possible to save those things from the effects of time and death.  Learning where you derive your hope from is, in my humble opinion, essential to truly live.  What will you choose as your sign post to guide you no matter the circumstance?

Please understand, I'm not saying I have them figured out.  I will be sorting out stuff for the REST OF MY LIFE.  We're all sorting that stuff out.  If you want to sort some stuff out with someone, some time, just let me know.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.