Sometimes I Smile

I was looking over some of the blog posts of late, and I realized that if one were to be reading or following my blog they may think that I am a big Debbie Downer.  Sarah Sadface.  Wendy Whiner.  You get the picture.  Honestly I’m not.  Not every day.  At least not every minute of every day.  And even when I do feel like a Depressed Darlene I try not to take the world down with me if I can help it.  Maybe just one person each time, and I try to spread it around.

But sometimes I smile.  Like when I see things like this:

                                                            Easter dinner at Mom and Dad’s.

I also smiled when my friends came over to help me put together yet another Ikea product before our weekly “Wine and Greys Anatomy” night.

And when I watched Jaime play volleyball on Easter Sunday:

(They won the tournament, by the way.)

The kids make me smile:

                                                  (Zak came home for Easter, the Good Boy!)

I do admit that I am more often down than up, but cut me some slack – it’s only been (gulp) two and half months.  Every day that passes takes me one day further away from Ben. When I think too hard about time passing I can’t help but think about Raegan.  She is only fourteen, and in the blink of an eye another fourteen more years will have passed.  She won’t even be 30 years old and she will have been without her Sweet Dad longer than she was with him.  I am so afraid that she won’t remember him.  After all, what do you remember from that age?  I don’t remember very much, but then again, I didn’t lose my beloved Dad at fourteen, thank God.

 

Anyway, the point of this post is to reassure people that I’m not a Gloomy Gus every minute of every day.  I still laugh.  I’m sad a lot, but I still laugh occasionally and I smile more then that.  It’s just that I write this blog for myself and I’m generally moved to write when I am feeling particularly down.  It makes me feel better and allows me to think about Ben while still keeping busy so I don’t totally stop breathing.  Because sometimes I think too much or I stumble across things like this, and I just can’t breathe…

Boy, did he ever love his kids.  He was a GREAT dad.  The best.  Even when he annoyed the Hell out of me (and let’s face it, sometimes he did, and you are all liars if you deny that about your own spouse), he was still the best dad.  Ever.  Period.  And generally a damn fine husband too, for that matter.

Those texts were while he was in the hospital.  Eight days before he died.  He loved fiercely.  He fought hard.  I always feel his hand on my shoulder when I sit in his office chair and type on this blog.  I feel it now.

When I feel particularly low, I look at things like this and I smile:

How could anyone look at that and not smile?

Hug your families.  XO