I start this post with cheer. I haven’t been writing like I’d planned due to the events of last year. So I’m feeling rusty putting taps to keys. But I’m filled with gratitude. Now that this has become more of an annual thing (that will change one of these days… I hope), it’s become my time to reflect on the previous 12 months. And that makes me realize how much has changed and the extraordinary growth that has happened to all four of us. Lucia’s struggles and subsequent diagnosis taught us some big lessons. And, as parents, they weren’t all easy pills to swallow. All of us gained so much from the going through. It’s actually pretty beautiful to think about now that it’s in the rearview. And I thank you all for bearing witness and supporting us through one of the hardest times we’ve endured as a family.
Okay. Time for the updates. The biggest change of the year was my return to the IT channel. My career path took another unexpected turn due to the very unfortunate state of mental health care in our country. Our insurance covered literally nothing of the extensive care Lucia required, so I started a job hunt at the end of January. With an amazing network of incredible peeps, I had a lead and then a job within a month. Miracle of all miracles. I’m now working at Comcast Business as a marketing manager supporting national and international partners in the indirect channel. And I love it. It’s been tumultuous as most corporate jobs nowadays are. I’ve endured two rounds of layoffs and am on my third boss since I started, but it feels like a family and I’ve made so many lifelong friends. I am incredibly fortunate.
We didn’t do much personal traveling this year outside of multiple trips to South Carolina and a couple to Montana. Kenny and I instituted ‘mama trips’ much to our mothers’ collective delight. We will make our third trip back for Christmas marking the first time we’ve been home for the holidays in 20 years. Really hard to believe.
Kenny and I took Sella to visit colleges in Oregon in February and she feel in love with the foggy, green moss-covered state and the craggy shoreline. We left with her heart squarely set on Oregon State and dreaming of ocean and snowboarding within easy daily reach. Though current focuses also include UNC Chapel Hill, Gonzaga and University of Colorado. (Guess which one is our vote? 🤔) Time will tell.
Kenny had a work trip in June to Prague and loved it so much. I was so jealous! But we will make it back together soon. A year without much travel has us set on getting as much in next year as we possibly can.
In March, we lost our sweet Mabel. That dog was just so special. It’s hard to put into words. She just had these eyes that felt like they could see into your soul. The week before she died, I was sick and in bed so we spent those days cuddled together spooning. She had to be touching you at all times. It was so weird because she was running the field one day and — literally — the next was gone. She had been making some odd noises, and that Sunday she just seemed really off. We thought she had a cold. Kenny took her to the emergency vet alone expecting to get her on meds and be right back. Hours later he came home while they ran more tests and did scans. I went back with him to pick her up and that’s when they told us. Lymphoma. The girls came and there wasn’t a dry eye in that place. Even in her waning hours she found her way into every heart on that staff. I held her alone with the vet when she passed. No one else could bear it. I’m crying again just writing this. We will miss her forever. Sweet girl.
Here is something really crazy. We celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary in August. When I think about three decades it barely seems real. And it felt like a perfect capstone to the tests we’ve been put to over the last couple of years. We threw a big party in the newly renovated back yard, rented a fancy restroom trailer, made a huge pot of lowcountry boil, found a signature cocktail dating back to a 1700s Charleston military unit, got our friend Shayne to bring out the live music and had an incredible day filled with so much love. College roomie, Mellody, and her husband, Timmy, flew in and we put them right to work setting up and making homemade biscuits. (Mel brought her own flour and got some pretty weird looks from TSA.) It was such a festive day with friends dropping by to help. I felt like we were in the movie Steel Magnolias. We of course forgot to invite some pretty key people, which made us so sad to discover. But we are going to do it again and soon. The take-away was that life is meant to be celebrated. So much sadness surrounds us and it is so important to find joy. Thank you to all who made us feel so full to overflowing.
Lucia is still in Colorado and completed her Intensive Outpatient Program in July. She seems so happy and at peace even with the stress of work and supporting herself while she figures out her next step and career choice. She has found new love and they are currently living and working in a little mountain town called Allenspark. The community up there has embraced them so fully and it makes us so happy to see. I never thought I’d see that girl who loves the beach and hates the cold find so much happiness in a little Colorado mountain town, but wonders never cease! She is planning to get certified as a cybersecurity analyst while she decides on a degree plan. Which, I mean.. so cool, right?
Sella has a severe case of senioritis and is currently frying her brain for finals week. I seriously saw sparks when she was working on her physics homework. And she just desected her first cat in anatomy. It made her cry when she found pretty well-formed kittens. But she came home the next day all fired up about the heart and lungs. So, yea. I think she has a future in medicine of some sort. I was holding back gags and trying not to hurl. She wrapped up her softball career in the fall and it was bittersweet. And her beloved job at Murphy’s, the local watering hole, ended when the owners decided to sell. It was a rough start to the school year. But with college apps and a pretty full school course schedule, plus the many extra curriculars she is finding by joining friends on campus at CU (insert parental chagrin), we don’t see a whole lot of her. I’m in denial that we are going to be a kid free home in a few short months. How?
In July, I had one of my hare-brained schemes and found a puppy. When I scheduled the facetime with the breeder, Kenny knew there was no way it wasn’t happening. Born in Iowa, our next challenge was how to get her home. First, Kenny and Sella were going to fly there to pick her up. Then Sella saw on snapmaps that one of her friends was in Iowa on vacation. She jokingly reached out to see if he wanted to pick up the puppy, and his family was all heck yea. 24 hours later she was home. Hazel Mae, a flat coat goldendoodle. She is so freaking cute and also a special breed of demon dog. We pretty much all had amnesia about raising a puppy. This little one rarely ever has an empty mouth. Shoes (on foot, off foot, trying to tie), fire starters, wrapped Christmas gifts, cell phones, stainless steel water bottles full of water, coasters, socks, washcloths, pillows, candles, rugs, TV remotes, hats, gloves, sweaters, jackets, backpacks, calculators, pencils, pens, tape, paper, magnets, firewood, rocks, Gemma – poor Gemma, blankets, her foot, her tail, leashes, arms, ankles, shirts that you are wearing, pants you are trying to put on. And so much more. She’s a constant source of laughter and annoyance and a big ole bundle of love. She has definitely helped refill the Mabel-sized hole in our hearts.
So I will close with this. Being right here right now, living in his beautiful state where I can head to the mountains for hikes on the daily, surrounded by a mass of amazing friends and neighbors, with two girls who are both at last thriving and happy, and a husband who drives me crazy, but puts up with all of my willy-nilly that covers the porch with daily deliveries and my cuckoo “Look! We just bought a puppy!” zaniness – and has done so for 37 great years… well, I have so much gratitude and love and happiness in my heart.
I hope to have a humorous post to write much sooner than 12 months from now. But we will see what life decides for me. Wishing everyone near and far with sadness and grief or loss or emptiness, so much love and want to say that you are not alone in this. Merriest of holidays to you all. From us.
PS: Kenny wishes me to add that contrary to what is printed on our Christmas card, he is NOT 57. Yet. (Oops.)
TODAY’S THEME SONG: “And I wish you all the love in the world. But most of all, I wish it from myself.”
-Fleetwood Mac (From our first dance at our wedding thirty years ago.)
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