According to many different grief experts, there are five stages of grief…which are not in any order or in any way linear. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance are those typical 5 emotions. However, many therapists and grief experts have added a 6th stage of grief: finding meaning. Grief will always be something you carry with you. Some people say it is like carrying a rock in your pocket. Others say it is like always holding hands with a ghost. Although you can’t move on from grief, you learn to live with it, and that takes time. Rich and I love our kids so much. It is hard to know what to do with that love for a kid that is no longer here to absorb it. Rich and I are always looking for ways to honor Joe in a way that Joe would be proud….and maybe even get a kick out of what his parents are doing out of a feeling of love for him.

One of the things that Rich and I have decided to do to honor Joe is to become volunteer firemen. We originally thought just Rich would do this, but they accepted me as well and with the biggest portion of their calls being medical, it just seemed right that I try to help out as well. The volunteer fire department is just shy of a mile from our house. We went to their annual open house when we were here in June. We told them when we got settled we wanted to join. I think they thought they would never see us again. Once we were done with our travels for the summer, we started attending the Thursday night trainings. Once you have come to three trainings, you can be put on probationary status. Last night was our third night and therefore we were fitted for bunker gear and given pagers and radios as well as getting us set up on their 911 app. Here are pictures of us trying on our gear. We went on our first call this morning…less than 12 hours later.

And here is my favorite sign….

When we got home this morning after that call, we had Joe on our minds. My high school friends from Hayfield High School in Alexandria, VA, had sent us a tree to plant in our yard in Omaha in honor of Joe. Well, that tree is in Omaha and we are here. We had been talking for months about getting a tree to plant in honor of Joe here at our house in Montana. We have a LOT of trees in our yard and most of them are 50 foot pine trees. We wanted something different. We had decided on a quaking aspen tree. They are so vibrant and well-known in Colorado, where Joe loved and eventually died. We went to a nearby nursery today and walked around with Jose, the owner (how fitting as Joe went by Jose in the first grade because it was shorter to write than Joseph…lol). We decided on a tree with a 3.5 inch diameter trunk. It was a larger tree but was on sale because there was a large scar on the trunk, which the tree received when it was a sapling. It is about 20 feet tall….so pretty well established. Jose said with the root ball it weighed anywhere from 1100 to 1400 pounds. It was loaded by forklift into our truck. The hole had to be dug 5 feet across and nearly 3 feet deep. Rich said it was the easier hole he ever dug. (thank you Joe) It was a several hour event….Rich digging and me hauling off the wagonloads of dirt to fill in the sides of our newly poured driveway, about 35 yards away. Rich and a muscled the tree from the front of Rich’s long bed truck to the end. We put his truck’s front wheels up on car ramps to tilt the bed in our favor. We had a tarp under the tree as well thinking we could slide it. Yeah…over half a ton. Right. Slide it. We hooked up a tow strap to the riding lawn mower and wrapped it around the root ball of the tree. The cub had its back tires spinning. Plan C….we had some ramps reinforced with 2×8 boards. We weren’t sure they would hold the weight. Our final plan (D) was to put a pile of dirt underneath the tailgate of the truck and then top that off with two bags of compost and just literally roll that tree off the end of the tailgate and let it fall into the pile of compost and dirt that would be going into the hole with it. We had a neighbor driving by and he backed up and helped Rich push off the tree onto the ground and then roll it to its new home in the ground. It was a labor of love, for sure. It was drizzling most of the day so we were both pretty muddy at the end of the day. We, of course, forgot to cut the binding that was around the top of the tree. It is much harder to do that once it is standing upright and 20 feet tall. Yes, if you would have recorded this whole fiasco and run it at double speed or faster, it would have been hysterical. In fact, it reminded me of the crazy things Joe and Zac used to do together to try and get things done. Anyhow….tree is in the ground…we are both sore and tired….but so pleased with the results.

I think I would like to have a bench there. We’ll see. It was a day of honoring Joe though, and he wore me out! :o)

When I was pregnant with Tim, I had a lot of change going on in my life. Rich was at pilot training in Mississippi, I was in the Air Force as well – as a nurse – stationed at Scott AFB, IL. We had Joe, who was a toddler….under the age of two. I finally separated from the Air Force and moved down to Mississippi to be with Rich. That was the summer of 1996. I was hugely pregnant with Tim at the time and chasing after Joe, who was rather adventurous. Rich was in class all day and studying quite a bit. I changed doctors when I was about 32 weeks pregnant. So not ideal…but definitely better than being separated by several states when Tim was born. So Tim is my Mississippi baby. He was born on the first nice day after a sweltering summer. In fact, my doctor was golfing the day he was born. He had a LOT of hair when he was born. The nurses couldn’t believe he had so much hair! It was down his neck and over his ears. They say if you have horrible heartburn when you are pregnant, your child will be born with a lot of hair. That was definitely the case with Tim! I used to chew trays of ice cubes a day trying to get rid of the heartburn….to no avail. Rich thought he was a strawberry blonde….but it quickly changed to a firecracker red that he still has today.

Tim has always been quiet and intense. Even as a baby, people would comment that he was an old soul….just taking everything in around him. When he was younger, he wanted to be a zoologist. However, by junior high and high school, it was evident he wanted to do something with sports. He played basketball through most of high school and also played rugby. He started studying people’s training habits to see if they would make him better. He was the kid during conditioning who never cheated himself and took the easy way out. He went to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and studied how to help athletes learn to eat better, move faster, and strengthen themselves so they were the best athlete they could be and avoid common injuries. He became a kickboxing coach…and even started up a new gym in Colorado as a manager during the height of the pandemic. (Not easy – but he made it a success) While in Colorado, he worked hard online to earn his masters degree in strength and conditioning coaching. He accepted an UNPAID internship at West Virginia University in Morgantown, WV. He was there, working hard, until he was called to interview for a temporary spot at Stanford University. He did the interview via zoom over his Christmas break and got the job. So we moved him across the country to Palo Alto, CA. He was supposed to be at Stanford for 5-7 months. Tim ended up staying for 18! He recently moved down to San Diego, CA to be the head athletic performance coach for the University of California-San Diego women’s basketball team. Two weeks after starting the job, he got the wonderful opportunity to travel with the team and coaching staff to Italy for 10 days, where they not only played 3 international games, but did some awesome sightseeing as well. This week they just started practices and lifts on their regular schedule. Tim also helps out with the men’s basketball team when he can. As of yesterday, he’ll be working 12+ hour days until March. He is spending his 27th birthday today doing what he loves most…working with athletes and the game of basketball. To say I am proud of Tim would be an understatement. He is the most driven and dedicated person I know. Every athlete that I have met that has worked with Tim gives him nothing but praise. He is a diehard mixed martial arts fan. It is always fun to watch the fights with Tim because he knows so much about the fighters. In his down time (driving to and from work) he is listening to podcasts to better himself as a person, a coach, and an athlete. He is a student of life, and it shows. He is also a fierce competitor. He is a cutthroat Monopoly player and that red hair goes into overdrive when he is losing. Tim is also a dog whisperer. Joe’s dogs and mine are madly in love with him. His lifestyle doesn’t allow him to have a dog, but wow, he is great with them and loves them to pieces. Honestly, I couldn’t be more proud of Tim. (and just when I say that, he usually proves me wrong and does something awesome.) Happy 27th birthday, Tim! I love you so very much! Can’t wait to show you Montana when you life slows down!

Here are 27 of some of my favorite photos of Tim:

Today marks 18 months since our Joe died. I can’t lie. It has been a very hard day. I have spilled a lot of tears and my body has been tied up in knots for the last couple of days because my momma’s heart just knew….knew there was a big day coming. In one breath it seems like it has been forever since Joe died….in the next, there is total denial that it ever happened.

Moving to Montana has been bittersweet. I think the only kid excited about us moving here was Joe and he never got to come here…never set foot in Montana. We have moved to a beautiful spot which we both enjoy the quiet and the natural beauty which is all around us. But we don’t know anyone here yet. It isn’t for lack of trying. Rich is playing hockey now and I am volunteering at the church. We both volunteered at a raptor rehab center for three hours on Monday. It is kind of a no-go for me, and maybe not even for Rich, who loves these birds. These things take time. I always have said in all my moves it takes a good year to really start to feel like you belong. Without kids at home to pull us into sports and school stuff, that makes it a bit harder. Living 10 minutes outside of a town of 5,000 people is also not helpful…but we are trying. Grief really isolates you in general, then to add to just general isolation, well, it made today just a bit harder.

Joe used to call me about every other day or two. He was definitely the most talkative of our three kids. He wanted to stay connected, and I never took that for granted. I loved every one of those phone calls…most of them videocalls because he just liked to interact face to face. He was calling me more before he died because he loved cooking for his crew at the fire department. I think he wanted to be known as the good cook on duty. At first it was kind of a hazing thing for the new guy…but he loved it. I even sent him a fireman’s cookbook at one point for him to use. He would call me and ask for a recipe of something I made. I have so many texts of recipes being swapped back and forth between us. I miss those calls. I guess I miss feeling needed in some way by one of my kids. I always felt like I had a purpose with him, and that is a blessing. I write letters to Joe a lot. Not always every day, but more often than not. I finished my first journal of letters to him yesterday. Today I started my second journal. When I originally started writing to Joe, I picked a pink journal (there weren’t a lot of choices). He was so often in a pink tie or a pink shirt in high school. He would always tell me that “real men wear pink” and that he could really “rock pink.” I thought about going back to read some of the first few pages of this pink journal but the feelings on the pages were so raw….I just couldn’t. I have come a long way in 18 months. My grief will never leave but I am growing around it…trying to live a life for the both of us. So I am tucking away my pink journal filled with letters to Joe in the last 18 months and starting a new journal with a tree on the front of it. We are in the process of finding a tree to plant in our yard for Joe. I had some awesome friends who sent us a tree when Joe died, but it is in the backyard of our house in Omaha, which is now for sale. We are looking to probably get an aspen. Joe loved them….loved Colorado, who makes them famous. To all of you out there with kids…young and old….hug them tight. Tell them you are proud of them and that you love them. Text them if they live far away. You never know the last time you will see them. I certainly didn’t.

Today is the day…17 years ago, that Ling Guang Su became Lily Su Grace Messina. She officially became a Messina today and our family became a family of five. While we always celebrate Lily coming into our family today, I also always pause and think about her parents. Does she have siblings? Probably has at least one..that she will never know. I think of her mom and dad…giving her up so she could hopefully have a better life. I think of her foster mom, who took her in and raised her for over 18 months of her early life. So today I want to share some photos of Lily before we met her….some during her early life in China…and some only hours before we held her for the first time. We love you, Lily Su!

We met Lily 17 years ago today! Her name was Ling Guang Su at the time. She was 20 months old and wore 9 month old clothing. We were required to have her with us for 24 hours prior to finalizing her adoption…which we have always celebrated tomorrow on August 31st….the day she became Lily Su Grace Messina. Today I was looking at one of the many photobooks we have of our trip to the People’s Republic of China to get Lily. We took both of our sons with us to get Lily. They were 10 and 12 at the time and we were there for 19 days. I wrote out her story in the first page of this particular book and I thought I would share those words with you now:

This is the story of a trip to the Far East to bring a daughter to the Messina family. The Messina family was blessed with two wonderful sons, Joe and Tim, but felt there might be a little girl out there in the world who could use our family’s abundance of love. We had friends who had adopted internationally and thought maybe that should be our path as well. Our family and friends were supportive in our endeavors. once we arrived in Okinawa, Japan, we were closer to China than we would ever be and felt the time was right to go searching for the little girl who would be our daughter.

We contacted Harrah’s Adoption International Mission and quickly hired them as our adoption agency. On December 12th, 2005, their fourth Waiting Child list was released to families wishing to adopt. The list contained the names of 40 children: 20 girls and 20 boys from various provinces in the People’s Republic of China. All of the children on the list had special needs of some kind. We poured over the list of children, looking at the little faces and reading their brief stories written by their orphanage directors and their nannies. Joe and Tim looked at the list with us and listened as we read the narratives with the photographs. After some research and talking as a family, we petitioned for a little girl who was called “SuSu.’

SuSu was one of the youngest children on the list. Upon seeing her baby picture the very first time, we all commented on how she had such big cheeks. She had thoughtful little eyes and very little hair as she was very young in the pictures the orphanage provided. SuSu had two strikes against her in China: she was born a girl and she was born without a left hand. Together those two circumstances meant a life that would be unimaginable to Americans. She would not even be allowed to attend school because of her missing hand.

SuSu had been abandoned at the Guangfeng County Government building outside of Shangrao City in Jiangxi Province. She was found in the early morning by two women who were coming to work. She was in a cardboard box and had a blanket and a bag of powdered milk with her. She had been placed where she would be readily found. She was obviously deeply loved by a family who just couldn’t keep her and wanted her to have a better life. Their sacrifice became our joy.

SuSu was found on January 18th, 2005. She was placed in the Shangrao City Social Welfare Institute after being looked over by physicians. They guessed her age to be approximately two week and gave her an official birthdate of January 4th, 2005. This is important in Chinese culture. She was born before the Chinese New Year in 2005 and therefore is considered a Monkey. The director of the SWI gave the baby girl a name: Ling Guang Su. Ling is the last name of every child in the orphanage and relates to the beautiful mountains nearby. Guang is a shortened version of the location in which she was found. Su means plain; white. It was not a traditionally beautiful name of a flower or precious jewel like most girls received. They did not have much hope for her future either, it would seem.

On December 17th, 2005, we receive a call at 0330 in the morning saying that we were chosen to be SuSu’s adoptive family. For months we worked on the required paperwork and in August 2006, we were approved to travel to China to pick up our daughter. We had decided her name would be Lily Su Grace Messina. Even though we weren’t going around the planet to pick her up, just a couple of quick plane rides away, the anticipation of visiting China and adopting our daughter was incredibly high. This is our journey to China to get Lily in pictures and our own words. This trip changed all of our lives forever…for the better.

Lily was terrified when we first met her. She had been taken away from her foster mother that morning….and Director Ye (the orphanage director) had her on a hot bus ride for 3 hours to get to the capitol city of Nanchang. We were waiting for her on the 26th floor of the Civil Affairs Office. There was one other family waiting for their daughter along with us….another American family whom we had actually met trekking the Great Wall of China outside of Bejing the day prior. What where the chances? We still keep in touch…17 years later. Their daughter came in first. Then there was Lily. She was so afraid. She was trying to be so brave…she tried to hold her tears until she just broke down. It was heartbreaking. I knew we could give her a life she would never have in China…and yet, this huge change in her life was really traumatic and very hard to be a part of. The boys were great. They were so excited to have a baby sister that they were doing all sorts of tricks to try and endear themselves to her. They brought bubbles to entertain her with…toys….balls…snacks…and stuffed animals. Unfortunately, she had never seen a stuffed animal before and it petrified her. By the evening in our hotel room that first night, she started playing with Joe and Tim, and snuggling with her Baba (dad). She started pushing me away almost immediately as I was trying to replace her foster mom. I spoke enough Chinese to try and explain to her that I was her new mom and I loved her…but it was a few days of me doing all her daily care activities for her to start to warm up to me.

Now Lily is away in college learning how to make the world a more beautiful place with her artistic talent. She is funny and smart and inquisitive, and I really enjoy spending time with her. She always makes me laugh and I love the way her mind works. I miss her a lot….today especially. We are trying not to be helicopter parents but I will most likely try to talk to her tonight or tomorrow night. Here are some photos from the time we spent in China together….our bonding time alone with our new family of five. It was a really magical time. We had to set a timer for the boys to take turns pushing her in the stroller because they fought over her. She was literally starving….she ate us all under the table for the first six months we had her. We were told that she would be formula fed mostly until at least age two to keep her petite. We quashed that right away. Enjoy the photos…which are photos of photos in a book…so they are a little grainy looking. It was easier for me to find these photos this way though. Happy Gotcha Day, Lily Su! We can’t imagine how boring life would have been without you!

On our drive down to Omaha and then to Kansas City, we drove through Badlands National Park in South Dakota. I have always thought it looked like you were on another planet. It is just so different than other places. Even though there are very few plants/trees that grow there, it is oddly beautiful in its own right. Here are a couple of photos. Yes…it was hot. I think every time we have been there it has been in the triple digits.

I am still playing catch up on all my photos from my camera. These were taken in June when Rich and I first moved up here. We took an afternoon off of packing and went for a little drive in the park. The day prior there were blizzard-like conditions on Logan’s Pass, near the top of the Going-to-the-Sun Road. We encountered some critters. They were shedding their winter coats in favor for their lighter weight summer ones. I seriously just wanted to take a brush to all of them….I am sure they would have felt better! Anyhow, here is why we live here. This “trip to the park” is only 20-25 minutes drive from our house. Totally breathtaking! Can’t wait to see it in the fall! The last photo is of the canola field near our house. The brightness of the yellow when they are in full bloom is amazing!

I mentioned to you all before that Rich and the kids and I went on a short Carribean cruise in early July. There were 14 of us that went: Rich’s parents, their three kids and spouses, and most of the grandkids. We were celebrating Rich’s parent’s birthdays….Rich’s sister’s birthday, a niece’s birthday…a couple of graduations…and Tim’s new job (which he accepted while on the cruise). There were two stops: Roatan, Honduras, and Cozumel, Mexico. These are photos of our family during those two stops. Since there were so many of us traveling, I wanted to there to be one place for them to see these photos…so this was it. We had a lot of fun with animals! Rich even took a few photos of me while I snuggled with a sloth. There are a few photos with Rich’s mom. She has Alzheimer’s and is starting to forget her family. I tried to take a few photos of her and Rich together when it was our turn to watch after her. It is such a hard disease to experience with your loved one….because you are looking at their adult body of a person you have a long history with….and inside, there is a very childlike brain who doesn’t function on an adult level or remember the simplest things. Everyone has to keep a sense of humor because otherwise it would just be too overwhelmingly sad. There were still a lot of poignant moments that I know we will all treasure.

Y’all….I cannot tell you how much time I have spent in a car/airplane this summer – mostly car. But Lily needed to get to Omaha to pick up her car and stuff for college….so Rich, Tallinn, Lily, and I jumped in the truck to make the trek to Omaha….then to Kansas City. What’s another 45 hours of driving when you have already logged 100 hours in the car? I complain because it is A LOT…but in the same breath, I am thankful because I am well enough to be able to travel and my treatment allows me the flexibility to do so. This was a bittersweet trip….our last chickadee was leaving the nest. I am so proud of the young lady Lily has become and it is time for her to strike out on her own and spread her wings. So she left our new place in Montana….AGAIN…to leave huckleberries, jerky, mountains, and wildlife, to head back to Omaha. Montana is such a large state, that the first 11 hours of driving is in Montana alone, as we are living in the northwestern corner and need to get to the southeast corner to get to Wyoming…then South Dakota and finally Nebraska. We stopped briefly in the badlands…and at Wall Drug. Tallinn didn’t freak out over the dinosaur, which was surprising. The acres and acres of haybales were in Montana. We must have seen tens of thousands of them.

We had a small….okay maybe major hiccup along the way to Omaha. Lily had to fill out a lot of online information for Kansas City Art Institute. One of the questions was if she had ever been in Asia for more than 2 months. Well, she was born in China and then lived in Japan. So she answered yes. Granted…this was over 16 1/2 years ago (they didn’t ask that question). She got a text on a Monday while we were driving across Montana with very little cell service, saying she couldn’t move into the dorms on Thursday without a TB test, because she was considered high risk. Lily was vaccinated as an infant in China for TB. It is a live vaccine, so she cannot have a TB skin test like most Americans. She would have a violent reaction to it. So she needed to have a chest x-ray to prove she didn’t have TB. We have moved from Omaha to Montana. We changed our insurance….she no longer had a doctor in Omaha. It was crazy. I was driving and Rich was making calls to our insurance and then to clinics in the Omaha area that had an available appointment on a Wednesday…the only full day we would be in town. Do you know what a tall order that was? We were outside of cell service 90% of the time, so we would find a random spot with service and pull over on the side of the road to make phone calls. We ended up with an appointment at a clinic in Omaha at 0745 Wednesday morning. We went thinking we would only get a doctor’s order or referral for an x-ray and then try to find a place for that…but God was looking out for us. They had an x-ray there and by luck had a radiology tech there that morning. It was all done in the morning and we picked up a letter of clearance from the doctor that afternoon. Lily wanted to go to Dave and Buster’s – a dinner and arcade place, to cash in some of her points she accumulated over our years in Omaha. She bought a radio-controlled helicopter, which she had fun flying in our empty house in Omaha. Our close family friend, Emily Ryan, spent a lot of that day with us. She brought a SPREAD for lunch for us and two pans of scotcheroos – one for the family and one for Lily to take to the dorms to “make friends”. (it worked – it was a hit with her roommate and suitemates). I had to take a photo of the Husker flags at the grocery store….sports are not like this where we live now. I will be following the Huskers from here though!

We left Thursday morning, August 17th, to take Lily to Kansas City. Our house was put on the market the next day. No nibbles yet, but we hope someone will fall in love with it. So not only was the 17th the day we became empty-nesters, but it was also our 32nd wedding anniversary. It was awfully hot that day and we were lucky. First kid of three and we finally got a first floor assignment. Her roommate and best friend from high school, Sam, was already moved in and the adults with her helped schlep in Lily’s belongings as one of us had to be in the shade with Tallinn most of the time. After all her belongings were placed in her room, and her bed was lofted, we took her and went to see Michelle. Michelle had been out-of-state in training for nearly 2 months and had just returned home the day prior. We went out to eat and it was great to all be together. We rushed Lily back to the dorm for a residents meeting that evening and started on our way home. The dorms were all decorated in Pokémon themes and I know both of Lily’s brothers would have approved. By the way, Tim was travelling at this time as well…he got to spend 10 days touring Italy with the UC San Diego women’s basketball team. He just returned last night. He had the same kind of heat the midwest has been having….but with no A/C and no ice.

We left that night and drove through part of Kanas before stopping for the night. We then drove the next day along I-70 until we were in Colorado. It has almost been 18 months since Joe died in a snowstorm in a car accident in Colorado. We had never been to the crash site. We don’t know when we’ll be that way again, so took this time to go and just be there for a little bit. It was 100 degrees…but we were there about an hour, cleaning up the area and adding a few things to the site that the OFD firemen had so graciously placed beforehand. The first photo is how we found his site…the next photo is how we left it. The third photo was 15 minutes after we left…and I believe Joe showing us he was there with us. It was very very hard, but now the tears of Joe’s parents are mingled in the dirt with his blood. We can’t thank James Davis enough for helping to make this a more permanent memorial for Joe. He went there on the one year anniversary of his death and helped spruce it up a bit. I told Rich that I heard Joe in my head the whole time we were driving there telling me that he wasn’t there. I know that…he lives on in all of the hearts of those who loved him. It was something as his parents we needed to do though.

We stayed the night in Fort Collins, our first official time camping in the trailer at a campsite. We left early the next morning and drove to Jackson, Wyoming, where we stayed for three nights. We love the Grand Tetons National Park. We had never been there in peak tourist season though. The weather the first day was a steady rain all day. The mountains were socked in. We still managed to hike about 10 miles that day in the rain. Did you know that after several hours in the rain, raincoats are no longer impermeable to water? We were both soaked to the skin that night. The next day went horseback riding for a couple of hours in the mountains and the forest. Rich went white water rafting in the afternoon and I went to the park to try to take some photos. The clouds weren’t so low that day. You could see the mountains, but it was still pretty storming, which was a cool look. These are my cell phone photos. I hope the good camera photos will be impressive. I always going to Mormon row and taking photos of the Moulton Barn…the most photographed barn in America.

We drove through the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone to head north to Montana. We FINALLY got home Tuesday night close to midnight. We have been unpacking, resettling in, and enjoying the quiet and cool temps here. This was our view on the walk to the mailbox this week. Ready for visitors!

On one of Lily’s last days in the Flathead River Valley, they had a big open house event at the Sportsman and Ski Haus in Kalispell. We raced to get over there and see the birds of prey they had on display. Montana Wild Wings were there with their ambassador birds. They aren’t located too far from us and I think maybe Rich and I will possibly volunteer with them. We had a great time talking with the volunteers about these beautiful birds…some bigger than others. They had some tiny owls! Lily is a huge fan of birds, so this was fun to experience together.