Day Two, 2016

I’ve written before that there are years I can’t write about, years that are full of memories more bitter than sweet, or too painful to put into words.  What I am learning is that it may be that those years outnumber the other years.  Here is the thing, you never know, not one moment in advance, when your life is going to change. 

Saturday morning Kathleen was signed up to sell fudge at the Bethany Elementary School  Craft Fair.  The boys had Saturday school, so I helped Kat load in and set up.  Once she was situated I ran out to grab Sonic for breakfast. While at the Sonic I got a text from my sister Juliet letting me know that her sister in law Geraldine had passed away that morning. Just like that.

No matter how many times I experience that shock, that moment when the entire universe shifts, that moment when your life is split into before and after, I am never prepared for it.  Geraldine is not my family in the traditional sense of the word.  She is the sister of my sister-in-law.  We always said this made us outlaws.  I have known her for 12 years; she has joined my Kinkade family for holidays, baby showers, weddings and graduations.  Ger made the best fry bread I have ever eaten, and told the most hilariously inappropriate jokes.  She made fun me trying to say snow and potato in Navajo.  She laughed with my boys, and at my boys.  Those are the things family does, and that makes her family in my book.

I cried in the car, because a kind person, who loved to laugh, who loved her family is gone, and there is no help for that.  I cried because that is not fair.  I cried because I know too well how hard this is.  I remember watching Kat go through this same loss when her sister passed.  I don’t want that for Becca.  I remember how helpless I felt as my wife went through the worst possible experience that she could imagine.  I don’t want that for my sister Juliet.

I know that there are no words that can make this ok for them, or for the rest of Ger’s family and friends.  I wish that there were. 

I know this is a busy time of year.  So many people are rushing from one activity to the next; parties, church, holiday concerts and performances.  I don’t want to dampen other people’s holidays.  I am not trying to make this about me, or take away anyone else’s joy.  All I would ask, is that in the middle of all the busyness this season offers, that you take a moment to love your loved one, to appreciate your friends and family.  Be in that moment, because it is something you won’t get back.