The funeral was 6 days after her passing. As I look back t my social media feed, the only thing I posted a few days before the funeral up until the day of was pictures of old memories. Most were from when we started dating. When life was full of mystery and adventure, like it is in any new relationship. You think, “Wow, this person seems great, I cant wait to go on another date!” Then as time passes you think, “Wow, this person really IS great. Its gonna be fun when we go away on our first trip together!” Life keeps moving and one day you realize your thinking crazy thoughts you never thought about in your life, like, “Wow, I wonder if she would say yes if I propose?” Which IMMEDIATELY leads to, “Wow, I can’t believe she said yes!”

Kim was told she could not ever have children, so that night when she told me after work that she was pregnant came as a wonderful shock. This, however, lead to new questions, like, “Wow, I wonder if we are having a boy or girl?”, “wow, can you believe she came 2 weeks early and is THAT heavy?”, “Wow, I wonder what her voice will sound like?”. Just happy mysteries. It’s just overpowering to now know the feeling of how brutally strong life can hit you.

In between the postings of pictures in the days before the funeral, I was creating a list of the things I miss about her and will always miss. See, my biggest fear, still to this day, is Ava losing memories of mom. I refused to let that happen. I will discuss many things I did over the evolution of this blog, but this list was meant as a living, breathing, document, that I could add to overtime. I shared this list on my personal page repeatedly over the last few years. Sometimes people add things they miss about her as well. I did this so I can print it and have it for Ava as she grows older. I know as her memories fade, so will mine. I want to remember every silly, wild, beautiful thing about her mother so I can share stories with her as she ages. This post, which I called Memories is on my personal page, and I don’t think it’s relevant to share here, but I will tell you that if you lost someone, this is a great technique to use to help you remember, love, and process things. It was said that “Grief is love with nowhere to go”.

When she passed, I was asked if I wanted the chaplain to come speak with me at the hospital. I angrily said to get that snake oil salesman away from me because I don’t wanna hear his crap. What God would do this? Oh yeah, I was pissed at God. I can tell you that we have made up as I have grown my own understandings of life and death, but it takes so much time. However, I want to share this….a day or two after everything, I reached out to the priest at my church because now I needed to get Ava baptized. Crazy thing to think of before a funeral but I needed to regain SOME type of control. Control was just ripped from me and I had none. “Fixing” something I saw as a problem was where I was hoping to get comfort. Man, in that first week I had therapy appointments set, meetings with religious teachers, and support groups we were speaking with. I needed to do something to control this from getting any worse. As much as everyone was there to help, I just needed to do it. Most of that has not changed either. I will tell you this though, as much as its nice to feel like you are in control of issues and tasks, it wasn’t until I took control of my thoughts, much, much later, where I started to find some peace.

So, days after saying there was no God and refusing to talk to a chaplain, I was on the phone with my church. Not so ironically, this is what I wrote on the morning of the viewing services: 

“Gonna be one of the toughest days of my life. Thank you to everyone for the support. Ill probably not be in good shape to say it later. Please don’t worry about not knowing what to say. Your presence is what matters most. There is nothing you can say that will hurt me more than I am and there’s nothing you can say to make me feel better. Pray for us please.“

This lead to questions. “Wow, I can’t believe this happened.” “Wow, what do I do now?” “Wow, how will I get through this?”