writing in pencil

It has been exactly three weeks since that phone call and it feels fresher today than it has for the past couple of weeks.  I'm lost.  I'm teary.  I'm scared.  I can't stop reliving that awful day. I miss him.  So, that is how I feel, in a nutshell today.  The rest is stuff I have written here and there over the past couple of days.

Some of you have followed our crazy adoption story from the inception, when it was a cute, beautiful dream and the super hard part of life was waiting for that first picture.  Some of you started reading when the story started taking some twists and turns and others have maybe happened upon it with the still shocking news of Dave's death.  Nevertheless, the title to my blog still seems fairly apropo.

Dave and I had a sometimes vague and sometimes specific outline of how our lives would continue to be written, but those outlines, sadly, are being erased with our tears and rewritten by God's grace.  As I'm sitting here, I keep trying to write about how December 21st was the end of our last book and now we are starting at the copyright page of a new one, but something about that doesn't sit right.  I think because while the outlines we had drawn will look dramatically different (and right now they don't look inviting), the theme of the book is exactly the same.  That there is only one hope and that hope is Jesus. Sounds too simple, but it's the ONLY TRUTH that reaches deep enough into this crevasse in my heart.  I guess that even makes the end of the book the same as before, too.  And what a great ending.  And all the pages in between will still have Dave written all over them.  He is a part of all of my thoughts, many of our conversations,  and his DNA will also continue to have quite a presence.  

One other thought that has crossed my mind in reference to the blog, is that this continues to be an adoption story.  Not in the traditional sense, but in our family being adopted by countless others.  I literally feel adopted into families as plans for the future are dreamt about.  I'm already picturing how Jim (or Anthony, or Alex, or Marvin or any other willing participants, besides Chuck) will be driving my minivan***, with the louder and needier kids in back, pulling the pop-up, while Monet and I are driving the RV with one or two of the quieter cherubs.  And there will hopefully be so many other cars as part of the caravan to camp.

***Sidebar . . . . I don't have a minivan yet.  Dave was a touch anti-minivan and as my friend Mari says and I echo, "I'm way to cool to drive a minivan."  However, I'm about making life simple right now and bringing our elderly cars into the shop every week doesn't make for a simple life.  Neither do doors that swing way out or cramming 3 kids with booster seats into one row.

Anywho . . . adoption.  Not all of you may know that you have adopted a whole family of "kids from hard places," which includes me.  I, for reals, and I'm not exaggerating, think I would be someone who would never get out of bed, if I had more to think about that feeling what I'm feeling or trying my best to make life feel semi-normal for my kids.  If I had to figure out finances (scary), fill out gagillions of pieces of paperwork, run all the errands, do laundry, call about medical benefits (again scary-scary), call medicaid, do laundry, make doctors appointments for our kids, take our sick dog into the vet, figure out the broken underground fence, order windows, shop for a minivan, sell our cars, start organizing the house, take down Christmas lights and decorations, take out the trash, scoop the poop, cook dinner, do laundry, bathe the kids, clean the bathrooms, vacuum the house, try to finish Maci adoption paperwork, so we can figure out social security, do laundry, and the list goes on an on and on, I would seriously be so overwhelmed and defeated that I wouldn't even be able to start each day.  So, to all of you who are doing all of that, I don't think I am overstating the obvious - our family would be in dire straights without ya'll.  You are literally saving us.  As well as those of you who have given given to the fund and otherwise.  I'll need a dedicated post to explain how each undeserved gift aids in calming my scared self and reassuring me that maybe my kids can still have some normal in their lives.  All that rambling to say, THANK YOU for adopting us and if you didn't intend to, then you are still stuck with us.