Back Again, But Nothing Is The Same

The reason for my blogging break was the death of one of my best friend's husband. In high school Robin and I were BFF (for those of you under 30: BFF = Best Friends Forever). We remain dear, dear friends to this day. She is one of the very best kinds of friends -- one who you feel connected to even when you're miles and years apart. I'm being sincere when I say this: Twelve years ago, when she met the love of her life, and then seven years ago, when she married him, nothing could have made me happier. Nothing. To be the Maid of Honor in their wedding was one of the proudest moments of my life. I adored Joe. Absolutely adored him. For her I adored him. And I also just simply adored him. So did Braydon. When I got home from work on Thursday, and heard the voice mail message from Robin's sister, telling me that Joe had been killed in a motorcycle accident on Wednesday night, I could not have possibly felt more stunned. Joe is larger than life. Robin is deep in my heart. Their two young children are two of the sweetest, most precious kids you can imagine. The thought of Robin and her babies losing Joe is still almost too much to bear. I simply cannot fathom what she is going through. (click here) We had to drive to New Hampshire, a 10+ hour trip if you consider twin three year old boys strapped into the backseat. We decided the only way to manage it was to break it up by doing an overnight on the way there. We turned it into an impromptu mini-vacation in Providence, Rhode Island. It made us feel good to do something that Robin and Joe would strongly approve of: focus on the love and joy of our little family. We let ourselves enjoy it. We took it easy. We took a ton of photos. We took the life we're living and made the best of it. We took lessons from Robin and Joe and immediately put them into action. The four of us hugged and said "I love you" a lot. It felt right. Sunday we dropped Kyle and Owen off with my parents for a couple of days, and we went straight to Robin. There is nothing like running to hold one of your very best friends in mourning. There is nothing like trying to do the impossible: absorb some pain from your grief-stricken friend. Anyone who's ever had to do it knows what I mean. We did the best we could. But nothing is good enough. The funeral was Monday morning. We spent the rest of the day at Robin's house with about 200 other people. For most of the afternoon, off to the side, were five of us, a tight group of best friends from high school: Jamie, Jody, Kerry, Robin, and I. It was surreal. To say the least. It was not the reunion I had imagined. To have to leave Robin on Monday night was very, very hard. We spent that night at my parent's house. Then made an 11 hour drive straight back to Pennsylvania on Tuesday. We got home at 9:15pm last night. It was hot and dark and the sky was full of stars. Our little family of four ran to the pool, stripped down, and went skinny dipping in the moonlight. It was magical for the boys. It was heavy with mixed emotions for Braydon and I. I'm self-conscious writing about all this here because it seems too sacred to put on a blog. And Robin is a regular blog reader, so I'm conscious of wanting to only honor her in what I write. But I wanted to be sure to be honest with people --- because sometimes we need to take a break from "regular" life for all the wrong reasons. Life is too complicated to blog about sometimes. I am back again, blogging again, but nothing is the same for us here. And that is not a bad thing. Hopefully things will never entirely go back to "normal" again. Life has pivotal moments. This was one of them for us. What we have seen is our dear friend Robin be full of grace and gratefulness through the most devastating loss imaginable. It is almost unimaginable. But in the shadow of humility, watching your friend go through this, the unimaginable is the least that we can expect of ourselves when we have nothing but that for which to be grateful. Thanks for reading. Love to you all across the blogosphere, Heather