3 Years

It has been 3 years since my Joe died. In one minute, it feels like forever and another like it certainly can’t even be my reality. I am going to quote a friend of mine here who lost her husband a few years ago and say, “The world is less beautiful, yet more beautiful.” I loved that line and although I am seeing the world through the shadow of grief, I can still see it and enjoy the rainbows, the mountains, the wildlife. It isn’t as vibrant and technicolor like it was before, but I can still appreciate it.

The past two years on this day, we have gathered with Joe’s closest friends: his wife, Michelle, his best friend, Zac, and his friends from the Olathe Fire Department, his Missouri Army National Guard brothers, his high school and college friends, and his fraternity brothers from Delta Chi. One year we had an open house at our place in Omaha, and last year we met at a restaurant in Kansas City. It was kind of a lot of added stress organizing these events when we are grieving parents. This year, God offered us a different option. The wonderful person who normally cooks dinner for our monthly fire department association meetings had surgery a week or so ago. She asked me ahead of time if I would take care of dinner for the March meeting. I never even looked at the date, just agreed to take it off her plate. When I saw it would be March 6th, I realized that it was the PERFECT way to honor our Joe. When Joe graduated from OFD’s fire academy and got his regular assignment to station 1, he was a probationary fire fighter. That means a lot of things but at the fire station, it meant not sitting at the table until you were invited. It meant doing all the yucky jobs no one else wanted to do. It meant not being able to sit in the main room in the loungers and watch TV during down time….until you are invited to do so. One of those jobs he was tasked with from the start was cooking for his crew. At Station 1, that meant 2 crews…so normally 8-9 people. They thought it would be a punishment. He loved it. I can’t tell you how many times I got a call or text from him asking for a screen shot from my recipe book so he could make that for dinner for his guys that night. He wanted to expand their palates and make Japanese curry or Tuscan chicken. He would come home to visit and even cook for us every now and then, which was always fun. How blessed am I that all three of my kids are great in the kitchen and good cooks! Anyhow, we’ll be cooking for our fire department tonight and honoring Joe in the process.

Speaking of Joe….we have often mentioned we feel closest to him when out on a call with the fire department. We are carrying on his legacy and being his hands in this world doing the thing he loved most. I was dreading waking up this morning with the reality of what today signifies. Joe didn’t give me the opportunity to wallow this morning. We were jolted awake at 0445 to a medical call with the fire department. I was concentrating on getting there safely, taking care of the patient and then charting. I could feel Joe so strongly as I stood outside in the cold, crisp air, in the dark with the stars twinkling above, waiting for the ambulance staff to finish assessing the patient in the ambulance before leaving for the hospital. That is going to make today rather long, but hopefully a nap can get snuck in at some point. I am wearing Joe’s firefighter memorial shirt under my own volunteer fire department sweatshirt. They are working in tandem today.

I also wear this necklace everyday and a gold band on my right hand ring finger that has Joe’s thumb print engraved on the outside of it and his name engraved on the inside. Of course, Rich and I both each have a tattoo to remember Joe inked into our skin as well. We may not have a scholarship named for Joe, or a golf tournament, a 10K race or a clinic/school in Africa honoring him like some of our grieving friends do. But we are honoring him every day with what we do. We are living our lives to the fullest as we believe he would want us to do. He always did! We honor Joe with every call or task we are called upon to do with our volunteer fire department within our community. I think Joe would be tickled that we are doing this. What a gift he has given us – that in honoring him, we are able to do such cool things. This would have never been on our radar if we weren’t trying to honor him. We knew it was a sign when we were told this volunteer fire department was number 13….Joe’s birthday.

We will go to the park in town and sit on his memorial bench today. We left today pretty open other than cooking dinner tonight for the fire department. Some of our friends have already reached out to us this morning and I want to thank you for doing so. Our Joe is never truly gone if we continue to tell his stories and speak his name. I live for those moments. Yes, there may be tears, but many of them are in gratitude for having him in my life.