This is the 7th day my Joe has been gone. Does each day get easier? Not really. I had four crying jags in the first 2 hours I was awake today…one before I even got out of bed. It is kind of like this each day….wake up and realize it wasn’t a dream and Joe is still dead. Cry. Ugly cry because it is just so awful. Then I get up and put on my brave face to try and get things done. it is usually works until I have something that will tip me over the edge, and that is most often just a kindness from someone. I have been approached by many people I don’t even know, to share a memory they have of Joe. It hurts, but it is nice. I have an overwhelming feeling to check on Michelle several times a day and I am convinced that is my Joe….nudging me to take care of his beautiful bride. Then usually early evening is good…but night time…when I lay down in the quiet of my bed, my heart and mind travel to Joe again….and to Michelle, who is doing the same thing…but it is 10 times worse for her. Then I sleep and start this all over again. It isn’t what I would want for anyone.

I was finally able to get to see Michelle yesterday. Rich, Tim, and I left at 6 a.m. to drive the 3 hour 15 minute drive to get to Michelle. Wow, I really needed to be able to wrap my arms around her and just sob together. I also needed to be able to hug Joe’s best friend, Zac, a few other of the people in his close, inner circle of friends. All those were accomplished. The Army National Guard Casualty Assistant Officer came to Michelle’s house to talk with her. Poor guy. It was his first time doing this and you could tell he was so nervous. However, blessedly, he had known Joe and had spent time with him in Fort Polk, LA last summer for 4 weeks. When he realized we were friendly people, just shattered with grief, we were able to get a lot done. He spent the whole day with us. The two Olathe firefighters who had gone out to be with Rich and Michelle in Denver, came over with all of their things from Joe and Michelle’s totaled car. They did the tough job of going to the impound lot in Colorado and picking through the wreckage to get all their belongings. They brought them back to Olathe and washed it all and then folded and bagged them up and put them into rubbermaid bins and brought them to Michelle yesterday. I watched with tears streaming down my face as she sat on their living room floor, quietly unloading each bin….touching all of Joe’s clothes and hats…his belt…carefully running her fingers over Joe’s things…then carefully placing them back in the bins. One of the bins was all Rich’s skiing gear that they were carrying in their car with them. Their suitcase was crushed…cracked and broken, but she still wanted to see it and run her hands over it before they took it away outside to be thrown out. Michelle said she had done laundry the day before and had been folding his pajama pants and socks….as they had been in the laundry hamper. I can’t imagine. Her hurt runs so deep and wide…I want to just clutch my heart every time I see her hurting…which is almost all the time right now.

Michelle and I had another good cry, a talk about how things were so unfair. Then we took a deep breath, put on our big girl panties and went to the mortuary. We filled a boardroom….Michelle, her parents, us, Tim, 2 firemen, and an Army guardsman. Michelle did so well keeping it together and answering the funeral director’s questions and making decisions about the services we will have for Joe. It is going to be a great event. Here is the info I wrote up for facebook:

Joe Messina was a wonderful man and he is getting a wonderful send off. Please join our family at the Missouri National Guard Armory (7600 Ozark Rd – Kansas City) Friday, March 18th from 5-8 p.m. for an informal gathering to honor Joe. Saturday at 2 p.m. in the same location, we’ll have a Celebration of Life, which will be more formal. We would love to see you at either, or preferably, both! In lieu of flowers, information on memorial donation sites will be forthcoming. We would love for first responders or people in service to honor Joe by wearing their uniforms on Saturday.

I leave you for now with a picture I love of Joe and Michelle…their love for each other just shines on their faces. I need to write about this but I am still at a point where my mind is muddled and not as sharp. Work things that would take me 10 minutes are taking me 2 hours because my brain won’t stay focused. So more later. I just want to thank the Olathe Fire Department and the Missouri National Guard for being so incredibly wonderful. When I say above and beyond….put that on steroids and multiply it by 100. I am so very humbled by the outpouring of love for Michelle and our family. So I am taking life not even day by day yet, but hour by hour.

I know you all can’t tell, but I have started, back spaced, and restarted this post several times. I don’t know where to begin. My wonderful, fun-loving, gregarious son, Joseph Matthew Messina, was taken from this world today in a car accident in Colorado this morning. His wife, Michelle, whom he loved so much it made my heartache, was in the car with him but is doing fine and should be released if not tonight, then tomorrow morning. She is in shock and devastated along with the rest of our family. Joe, Michelle, and Rich spent the weekend in Colorado snowboarding and relaxing. Joe and Michelle dropped off Rich at the airport this morning…I spoke to them all in the car around 0830 my time. A couple of hours after they dropped him off, they were in the accident. The weather was really bad. I was able to call Rich and let him know at the airport and not to get on a plane but to find a way to Michelle, who was all alone in a small rural hospital. Praise God for good friends, as Kevin Graefe, a college friend, came and got Rich and took him to Michelle. He helped remember who they were talking to and helped secure her release so they could take her to a major hospital in Denver to get further treatment. They are still by her side, and hope to be able to take her to Kevin’s house once her small surgical procedure is done. Rich’s brother, Joe, is flying to Denver tonight to be with Rich. Joe and Heather arranged for Tim to fly home to me tonight. He should be here in an hour or so. A very special thanks to Wanda and Ed Oslica, who stayed all day with Lily and me….made phone calls to Missouri on Michelle’s behalf and helped me remanence about stories about Joe, and their son Zac, his best friend. Church friends came with paper goods and food, hugs and prayers. Thanks to the Emily Ryan, RoseAnn and Tom Harvat, and Tanner, Mick, & Kaysie Wiebelhaus for coming to just sit with Lily and me today. I have never cried so much or so ugly in my life. The pain of knowing that my son is gone is overwhelming. But I want to make this positive….and about Joe.

I have received so many texts and messages on social media that I am overwhelmed. People have reached out to me from all walks of Joe’s life….whether it be Army buddies, firefighting brothers, Delta Chi brothers, or simply childhood friends of his from all over the world…the messages are streaming in. It is a testament of the kind of person Joe was. He was the life of the party. He had a huge heart and he made me very proud. I loved being around him because he always made me smile. He didn’t even have to try. I feel like the light of my life has dimmed dramatically today. Joe was a huge supporter of my photography. He loved the photos I took and pushed me to get them on platforms where they could be noticed. That meant the world to me…that he was proud of what I did and found it interesting. He called often and almost always called using videophone so we could see each other. Joe loved his little sister, Lily. When she was really little, for years she sat on his lap during Mass, usually finger wrestling. Joe had two dogs, Moose and Jenna, who thought the sun rose and set on his attention. Half of the time he called me, he would be on his day off from the fire department, he would be in bed and snuggling with a dog or two. They will miss him terribly. Then there is Michelle. He fell so hard in love with this girl 8 years ago. They were finally married on October 17, 2020. Not nearly long enough for him to love her the way he felt she deserved. I told people so often how much I enjoyed spending time with the two of them because they were such a neat couple. The playfulness they had between them was adorable and it made my heart swell to know they had each other.

Please pray for my Joe, for Michelle, our family, his fire department (who has been amazing), his Army National Guard unit, and his friends. He had so many wonderful friends who loved him and although I already knew this, it has been really powerfully underlined today. Although I am absolutely devastated by all that has transpired, I do feel the love of everyone trying to support us. Please know I am just not up to responding back to most of you right now. It isn’t because I haven’t seen your messages or appreciate your kind words. I just can’t….I just can’t….right now. I am leaving you with the last picture I had taken with my Joe (I always called him that as there are several Joes in our family). This was a few weeks ago on my 51st birthday when he drove up from KC to surprise me. People, hug your children…tell them you love them. Let them know how much you care about them…how proud you are of them. I was blessed to know I was dying and told him as much whenever I could. This may be the only gift of a stage IV cancer diagnosis. My beautiful boy, my handsome son….until we meet again. I love you.

My dad turned 75 on February 28th. I was blessed to be able to travel to Houston to help him celebrate! I spent a week in the Houston/Cypress area and got to have a lot of fun spending time with my parents and my brother and his family. I got to go to two of my nephew’s basketball games (which my brother is the coach), and got to watch my sister-in-law, Mayra, and Craig down several pounds of crawfish, as they are in season right now. My parents successfully ordered a new mattress for their bed…I am sure there is film footage somewhere of my mom lying on a mattress in the furniture store and me bouncing up and down on the other side to see if she can feel the movement. (insert heavy sigh and eye roll here) I was super blessed to be able to see, hug in person, and go galivanting into the Texas countryside with my Scottish friend, Finona. I knew her in Norway, and she was my cancer buddy throughout the last 2+ years. Fiona is such a support to me…I don’t think she will ever understand how much our friendship has meant to me over the last couple of years. It is so much easier to open up to someone who is in the same place as you are. We were both bald together….sick and in pain together…and now both healthier but still living with that cancer cloud over our heads. We haven’t been able to connect the last few times I have been down here so this was a very special treat for me.

The highlight of my dad’s birthday was several calls from family as well as a mysterious knock on the door around 8:30 p.m. My brother, Craig, is a lieutenant in the volunteer fire department here in Cypress, Texas. He was on duty Monday night and decided to bring his firetruck and three crew members over to my parents’ house for ice cream and cake. When they left, they put on the lights and gave the siren a low whine before pulling out to go back to the station. I am sure the neighbors’ tongues were waggling the next day!

Here are a few pictures from my phone from this last week. As always, I had a great time!

I flew down Thursday to Houston to spend a week with my parents. It has been cold and rainy. The sun finally peeped out on Sunday and the temps are starting to regulate, although still below normal for here. I am having a blast spending time with my brother and his family. I already got to see my nephew play basketball, and will see one more game of his before I fly back on Wednesday. I was hoping to have wonderful basketball photos of Alex for my Week #8 photo, but I was called to be the scorekeeper in a pinch. Maybe for Week #9! I realized I needed to get some photos done and with limited lenses available to me and the weather being icky, I decided to give you a taste of my parents’ home. My mom is an avid quilter and you can tell that immediately. She has quilts on every bed, small lap quilts on the backs of couches and chairs, quilted wall hangings…quilted table runners, and extra quilts in every bedroom closet. Then my dad. His mind is failing so quickly now…but when I think of my dad, I think of his nearly 30 years of military service. His dress greens are hanging in the closet of the bedroom I am staying in. I took off the plastic and took a photo of his uniform…and also a small section of the quilt hanging on the wall in the room I am staying in. This is the taste of home for me….things that makes me think of my home where my parents live…quilts and uniforms. The photo I am choosing for Week #8 is the ranger tab photo.

I have been doing spring deep cleaning in my office….it has felt like spring here though I know it won’t in another 24-48 hours as the normal winter cold plus a bit more sweep in. However, it is currently 64 degrees and I spent several hours on the back deck enjoying the sunshine and taking some photos of this dashing guy. The first photo is the one I have selected for my week #7 photo. He kept cocking his head to the side as I was tempting him to sit pretty by talking to him about bubbles….his favorite pastime. The last one is the one I am going to use for the photo of Week #7. He has loved being outside in the warm sunshine today. I took out his bowtie this afternoon as he loves looking so dashing.

I was all set to do this challenge of a photo per week and my world was dumped upside down with a LOT of travel. Luckily I was driving and all the camera gear could come with me! I am playing catch up now. I had too many photos to choose from! Anyhow, I realize I only had put week one in….and we are in week seven now. So here are weeks 2-6! Eeks! It is already Friday and I need to get a photo done for this week! Okey Dokey! Gotta brainstorm a bit on this one!

Week#6 A bald eagle watching the world go by from his perch on a tree…taken in Omaha, NE

So my husband, as a former Air Force pilot, really loves bald eagles. He can spot them so easily and I have more than once nearly gotten whiplash when he has slammed on the brakes to see if that clump in the trees is actually a bald eagle. Nine out of ten, it is. He has eagle eyes. (see what I did there…) Nebraska actually has a large population of migratory eagles. There are a lot of eagles that nest here in our cold winters (which I guess they prefer). Who knew? There are places in the Omaha metro that you can spot bald eagles. You can also choose to travel to locations with dams especially, that eagles like to hang out at in large groups this time of year. So below I have some photos of bald eagles. Some don’t look like bald eagles because they are fledglings…teenagers. They don’t get their classical look of a white head and tail feathers until they are about 4 years old. Some of these photos were taken locally and many were taken at the Gavin’s Point Dam in Yankton, SD, on the border of Nebraska. All of them were taken in the bitter cold, because that’s when they like to be out and active. I have a very strong telephoto lens that I use for these shots. Obviously it is easier when they are sitting still versus flying!

We have been to Moab before….traveling from Colorado Springs to Las Vegas and back for Black Belt Seminars with karate. However, that was a long time ago and in the heat of the summer…with two active elementary school boys that I had to keep my eyes on or they would fall off a cliff or climb up something they couldn’t get down. Honestly, this was the first 15 years of motherhood with those two. A lot of fun and adventure…heavy on the adventure…and a lot of it a blur. This time it was just Rich and me. It was January. Not the time of year that most people venture out to National Parks. However, I am beginning to be a big fan of winter visits to parks. Although we have a National Parks pass, most of these parks are not manned during the winter. There is just not enough traffic to warrant the man hours. It wasn’t that cold. If you are from Florida, it may have been chilly, but Nebraska weather makes you hearty. We rarely even wore jackets. I didn’t have to wait for people to get out of my shots. That is huge. I do have some people in some of my photos of arches, but I did this by design to show the size of the arch. We stayed for a day and a half and hit Arches a few times (that is where I took the astrophotography photos) and also Canyonlands National Park, which I had never heard of. Both of them have gorgeous vistas and the red rocks with snow on them were particularly stunning, I thought. Of course, I am a winter person! The sunsets were amazing. The first day was crystal clear skies and the second had clouds…so I had a lot of God’s wonderful creation to work with. If you don’t know my husband, Rich, he is a big kid in a 53 year old’s body. He is always up for an adventure and something that makes my heart leap into my throat. On this trip, I met him challenge for challenge of sitting out on a ledge over a several hundred foot drop. I am not fond of heights, but was not going to let him out-do me this time. We were lucky enough to bump into another couple at a gorgeous arch and have them take our picture together. Funny enough, we had met two couples while in Moab and it was so deserted that we bumped into both couples in town and in both parks. If you want a little less stress with a National Park visit, go in the winter! Just make sure the roads are open! Moab is such a great place to go…I felt like we were on another planet a lot of the time.

We quickly stopped in Las Vegas. It was on the way and we could put Lily on a plane to fly back to Nebraska directly so she wouldn’t miss any more school. Rich played in a couple of poker tournaments and Lily and I went for a 6 mile jaunt down the strip and back people watching. We happened on an open mall and they were all decorated for Chinese New Year, so that was a wonderful find. I didn’t carry my camera with me, so most of these were from my phone. We had a good time and were able to put some miles on our legs after being in the car for so many hours. So Lily hopped on a plane headed for home and Rich and I kept driving…on to Moab, Utah for our next stop.

To break up the drive a bit heading back to Nebraska, we stopped at Sequoia National Park (then realized due to a recent snowfall that only 6 miles were open to the public!) and then went on to King’s Canyon National Park to see if we could actually see some giant sequoia trees. We had a great time and although the parks are actually connected, due to snow-packed roads, we couldn’t pass through. We decided the nearly 2 hour drive would be worth it and spent time in both parks. The second day, they had opened Sequoia National Park further, so we went through there again before heading out. Here are some of our photos from those parks and the motel we stayed at. They had sheep and goats and lots of hummingbirds as well as a beautiful hiking path that made me feel like I was in Scotland with all the boulders sticking out of the ground. The weather was pleasant and although we had a lot of fog when we were off the mountains, it really made for some cool photos. We even got to see the sun set above the clouds on our last day, which was absolutely gorgeous. I am a sucker for old barn photos and there were several on our way back and forth between parks. Tons of fruit and nut tree orchards as well. Interesting fact….we found HUGE pinecones and figured they were from the giant sequoia trees. Nope! They have small, tight cones. The large cone from the smaller sugar pine. The redwood trees actually have even tinier pinecones than the sequoias. I have a photo of Lily holding a sequoia cone. Sorry for the amount of photos…but know for each one, there is 5-10 I am not showing you. I had such a marvelous time!