Up until today I’ve been counting the time since Kaleb passed. The days, weeks, months, marking them off each time a milestone passes. Today as I was thinking about coming up on the 17th week, it made me wonder how many weeks until Tyler and Steph’s wedding (don’t ask how I got from one to the other that would need to go back to the ADHD post from yesterday). Are we closer to their wedding than we are from the day he died? So I counted. We are 166 days or less than 24 weeks from their wedding date. After counting that up, I took the time and wrote the countdown on my daily planner. I’ve chosen to stop counting the days from the worst day of our life and start counting the days to what will be one of the best days of their lives. I’m sure internally I will always know how long it’s been since he passed but I’m going to choose to stop focusing on that as much and look towards brighter days. We’ll be gaining a daughter into our family. One we’ve known for over 6 years already. She grew up with the boys. She knew us both before and after the tragedy. I couldn’t ask to be gaining a better daughter in law than Stephanie. I look forward to always having her as part of our family. She may not be as excited as we are about joining our crazy, loud, quirky family, who can be a little overwhelming, but we are excited about her. I am thankful that she has gone to school with Tyler not only here in Van Buren but in College as well and with Ryan following Tyler down to Tech she has remained close with him as well. They will always have a close bond where they can gang up on each other and share stories from both home town and college town happenings.
I might have to keep things planned in advance for a while, so I better start planning a vacation, but I’m taking back my life. I’m not going to keep focusing on every Tuesday at 4:31. Or the 15th of every month. I’m going to start planning for things that are to come whether it’s a wedding, a vacation, or even just a holiday. It will give us something to look forward to and not so much looking backwards. We can’t go back, we can’t change anything so we need to make the most of our future. so while I’ll find ways to keep Kaleb’s memory alive, I’m working towards not having that day be the first memory that comes to my mind when I think of him. I want to think about his cold bony arms that were always sweaty when he’d try and give me a hug and I’d try and run. I’m going to think about him always letting the dog lick him in the face. I’m going to think about when he told me the day he passed his driving test and I took him to get his drivers license that say day “This is the BEST DAY of my LIFE”. But most of all I’m going to focus on the rest of the family as well. It’s hard not to always think about him, or what he’s missing, or what he would be doing. But those are What ifs. I need to concentrate on the What IS.
So here’s to the future and everything it holds. Here’s to better tomorrows and making new memories. Here’s to a growing family. Here’s to 2016 and all the changes it will bring.
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