Since we haven't blogged for most of the summer, an update is in order. Our summer has been long, at times trying and draining, with lots of twists and turns and ups and downs. We continue to receive tremendous support from friends, family and co-workers. Our donation program to honor Claire and Sarah has been an amazing success, already raising thousands of dollars for the folks at the UAB RNICU. We have kept in contact with them throughout the summer, and they have been very appreciative of all of the donations - they get together and discuss the donation program often and are so touched by all of you who have donated. Katie and I would like to express our thanks as well, this program has been a bright, shining, positive thing for us to latch onto this summer, and it has really been comforting. Katie and I are managing - good days and bad days - but also some happy memories of our girls and appreciation for how they changed us and strengthened our relationship even further. As I mentioned in the last post, it will be a long journey for us and in a lot of respects we're still at the beginning of that road, but so far, we are navigating it pretty well.
Day to day life is slowly creeping back to something resembling routine. We are both back to work now. Our parents, who all rushed here to help us through all of this, got us back on our feet so that we were able to manage for ourselves as the summer went on. We had some projects done on the house and yard, and even managed to get away for a bed and breakfast weekend in July and host our friends Dan and Michelle and their daughter Lily in August (we'll blog about that in the near future).
Katie's medical recovery continues with more progress than setbacks, though more complicated than either of us would have liked. She is doing really well all things considered. We've had a lifetime's worth of health care experiences this year, and we've certainly learned a lot - good and bad - about doctors and hospitals and insurance and medical conditions and more. We are fortunate that we have the education and the resources to get through this minefield, but we have spent a lot of time thinking about the state of affairs and wondering how others less fortunate than us manage it. It's clearer now than ever before how much work needs to be done in this arena. Back on a personal note, we're not out of the woods yet, but Katie is doing really well and is being such a trooper!
With Katie starting to feel better, we got the green light to travel and decided that the first trip we wanted to make was to St. Paul, Minnesota, to visit our family and the many friends we have there from Katie's past. So in early September, we flew up to see the Richards clan...
We packed a lot of activities into our trip. The picture above was taken at a Greek food festival where we met up with aunt Judy and uncle Ken. Besides the tasty food, we also enjoyed dancing with the kids and watching Eleanor go down the inflatable slide very bravely (and bouncily!)We also found lots of time to enjoy the outdoors. We all took turns at riding the "Phony Pony"...
I'm sparing everyone the pictures of all of the adults trying it out, but it was fun! Ben provided some Inclement Weather Grilling...
...and when the weather cleared, Eleanor showed off her new wheels...
A trip to the Mall of America and the kiddie rides within gave Katie more than she bargained for...
And at night, out came the shenanigans...
We also spent a day with our friends Danielle and Chad and their family in nearby Maple Grove, and had a dinner with 4 of Katie's high school friends in uptown over in Minneapolis.
On the last day of our trip, we held a special ceremony for Sarah and Claire. Earlier in the summer, Katie and I decided to spread their ashes in all of the places that would be special to them, where we have family or where we would have traveled together. This trip was our first opportunity to do it, so we asked our family to think of a special place that we could do a ceremony where we could always go back and visit. Ben picked a tree overlooking the lake atop a hill in the nearby park, where he used to sit with Eleanor when she was a baby. It was the perfect location...
So on a rainy Sunday morning, we walked to the park and held a simple ceremony to honor and remember Sarah and Claire. I know that we will visit that spot whenever we go back to Minnesota and think about all of the fun adventures the girls would have had. It was a hard thing for us to do, but at the same time, very much a healing event.
We are both so glad we had the opportunity to go on this trip and spend this time with family and friends, which are more important to us now than ever. And also, just the act of taking the trip, of being healthy enough to travel and fly and have the energy to enjoy it, was a major step for us, another measuring stick on this recovery road. For Katie and I, the Minnesota trip was comforting and healing and energizing and affirming.
So that brings the blog back up to speed. Moving forward, we don't really know how it will all play out. We'll probably have plenty to blog about - Fran's mom is retiring here in just a few weeks! For the first time in either of our post-college lives, Katie and I will have family living nearby. It will be very nice to have her here, and I know we'll have lots of fun introducing mom to Alabama (and Alabama to mom - watch out!)
So we'll continue to blog, sometimes maybe a more serious tone, sometimes a more lighthearted tone (like if we blog about tonight's dinner - ever heard a mariachi band play Pink Floyd? Didn't think so!). You can expect that there will be lots more travel and adventure for us. Our future is a lot less certain than we were expecting it to be, but that doesn't mean we're not going to live life to the fullest like we always have. It's just that now, Sarah and Claire are a part of our lives, and as we move forward, we'll continue to work through it and figure out how best to integrate that into our experience. We just don't know exactly what that's going to look like for the next little while. You'll have to stay tuned. :-)
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