A Goodbye Year

This year has been a Goodbye kind of year.

January - We saw the "new" house for the first time and Mark fell in love with it. He could talk about little else and for the first time, in so long, he seemed so excited and happy to talk about house projects.

Feburary - I turned 26. Inching towards 30 which very much makes me feel like I am saying goodbye to the "young adult" years of my life.

March - Mark's knee surgery meant the season of our lives, the one that started with that arrest in December of 2011, was finally coming to a close. Mark would finally be able to enjoy evening walks, crawling on the floor with Anna, hiking, etc with our family.

April - Matt and Jenn announced they were planning a move back to South Dakota - going from 50 minutes away to 20 hours away. The next day, the phone call that Grandma Chico had gone Home to be with our Lord.

May and June were spent working on the new house, each day a happy reminder that life continues on, and a sad reminder of the house and memories that we were leaving behind.

We moved into the new house on July 6 and finalized the sale on the old house on July 19th. And then...it wasn't our "old house" anymore...it is someone else's "new house." Our "new house" was becoming home.

The first weekend in August we packed Matt and Jenn's house into a moving truck and after a Mexican feast, we said our tearful goodbyes. I love this year. I am thankful for this year. I hate this year's goodbyes.

As we look ahead to Labor Day Weekend on the schedule, I thought "We should stop by Grandma's Saturday night" only to remember that Grandma's is just an empty house. As I woke up today, on a rainy friday, I thought "I'll call Jenn and the kids and see if they want to play" only to remember it's a 20 hour drive.

I vote no more Goodbyes this year.