The Mountains & the valleys

My blogger friend, Laura, told us about a website where you can have your blog printed and bound into a book and I have been ready to do that. I need to do it a) before the book gets too big that I won't be able to afford to bind it ;) and b) to put it with my pregnancy journals and stow them away....somewhere...for my girls, should they ever have any interest in this stuff called life that I am experiencing. Anyway, I have been waiting for the perfect post to end this part, called Book I, or something like that.

I guess what comes to mind is how I have changed since Chase died and who it is, exactly, that I am now. The thing is, I'm still not sure. And don't know that I ever will. For when Chase died, he took part of me with him. And just as I feel like I didn't get to know him, there's a part of me that I won't ever get to know.

Of course there is telling in what is not here. I do know some things just merely by what is not in my presense. The first thing is this.....Before Chase died, I had a feeling, or a curiosity, or a premonition, if you will. It had started a long time before April of 2009 and I don't know exactly when, but I had some sort of "feeling", and I don't know a better way to describe it, that something bad was due for our family. I had often thought about the devestations that happen in our world and how lucky, incredibly lucky, we were to not have experienced any such tragedy, to not have cancer or diseases or have someone close and dear to us have to experience that, no natural disasters to take our possessions or damage our outlook on life. Our kids have all of their grandparents and were lucky enough to know several of their great grandparents. And most of all, Patric and I were healthy and fully capable of providing ourselves and our children with enriched lives. I am not an overly obsessed worrier, but I found myself increasingly worrying about something happening to someone close to me. It just seemed like were were playing a game and had escaping all of the bad things that happen to people. We were lucky. And I say that all the while admitting that we had our share of professional and financial troubles. I just felt that as bad as things got in our pocketbooks, we were so lucky to have our health and our family.

Then Chase died. And though a lot of events happened that day and up to that day that gave me the premonition that something bad was forthcoming, I never expected to lose my child. But it happened. It happened to me. It happened to my kids, Patric, our family. We lost a life; forever ripped from our hearts. I would like to say that for this price, I no longer worry that something bad will happen to us again, but I can't. Because I know that life offers no guarantees. Nothing is given to us. We are dealt a hand and we must decide what to do with it. And the only thing I can say is that I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. I might do a few things differently, mainly because I feel love in a different way that I used to. I feel things differently than I used to. I feel differently than I used to. And I guess that is a little bit of who I am now. I know that the mountain that we have come upon in living without Chase has not defined us, rather it has shown us a deeper perspective of who we are. We never thought we could live on, but we are. We. Are. Because such is life and we have to decide how we are going to Live. On. Our kids think and feel differently, too. I can see it in their eyes. I can feel it in their touch. I can hear it in their words. Losing Chase and trusting that they will get to see him again has given them a faith that not very many know. A perspective like this is something that their lives would have been fulfilled not to have known. But as life would have it, they now feel, love, and see things deeper than they did before April 17th. They know how to survive in a way that we never could have taught them. They watched Chase fight and they know that they have it in themselves to fight, too. They know that family means we all stay together and though we might not be able to see Chase, we feel him and we know he is there. And Chase feels us. He feels our love. He has to. How can he not?

So it is with this post that I close this journal and move on to the next one. I can't really call it a Chapter or a Book because I don't feel like have have achieved anything or reached a goal or started anything anew. All I know is this life will go on, our stories will continue and our love will always endure. I won't say that there is always tomorrow, but I do know that our family is definitely more than forever.