Superhero Princess

You have to be pretty football oblivious to not know what the Chicago Bears did on Thursday Night.  Due to the answer I received Friday Night, I counted Hannah in that category.  On Thursday morning, I asked Hannah (I have been told I talk too much in the mornings) "what are the bears going to do today?"  She responded, "I don't know, baseball is boring." She was right on many levels.  Baseball has been pretty boring especially being a Sox fan.  However, today (1 month into season) was the sox first (and quite possibly only) TWO game winning streak. Audrey and I at Guaranteed Rate Field  On Saturday, March 16, the Bears traded away Justin Fields.   It made me think of the day that Hannah, Audrey and I had hoped to see Justin Fields at Bears training camp last year.  I had Bears training camp tickets for August 10, 2023.  But Audrey didn't meet Justin Fields that day.  She met Jesus that day.  Like Audrey, Justin Fields had norm...

On Sunday, Hannah and her cousins helped clean up Blackhawk Springs Forest Preserve to celebrate Earth Day. Earth Day is not a sentimental holiday like Christmas or Valentine's Day.  But, I did start to think about Audrey.  What would she be doing?  After Hannah and her cousins cleaned up the park, I know exactly what she would be doing. She would be rolling around in the grass.  I have never seen anybody as happy as Audrey was to roll around in the grass. She also really loved to just lay on grass.  She didn't discriminate, she loved real and artificial grass.  It reminds me of how her ABA therapists and us once used some artificial grass my parents gave us to have Audrey want to lay down when she had to be indoors.  Audrey sure loved laying in some nice grass.  Happy Earth Day Dree. Earth Day is a good day to remember to be a good steward of our earth.  It felt good to help clean up a bit.  It felt great to think of Audrey. It also f...

It was 5 years ago today, that Audrey first walked.  1,826 days ago, Audrey's first step was the easiest.  Not the hardest.  Yes, you heard me correctly.  We will get to that in a little bit.  I remember April 20, 2019 as a pretty glorious day. Her smile shows how proud after walking for the first time. There must be something magic about the springtime, specifically the middle of April because 2 years ago from yesterday was when Hannah first rode her bike confidently without training wheels Hannah joyfully mimicked Duke Caboom from Toy Story 4 as she rode through the NIU Rockford parking lot. That was her first time riding, but not her best.  Last year, she rode over 16 miles in a leg of a Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) day.  As a seven year old, she did a 20 mile practice ride.  The best is yet to come, because one day I see her riding an entire week of RAGBRAI. That wasn't the same for Audrey.  On April 20th, 2019,...

May 1- Superhero Sprint May 2- Soccer May 3- Inquiry Night May 4- Star Wars and Hollywood May 5- Dree in DC May 6- Dree VS the Nightlight May 7- Good Morning Dree It's been almost nine months.  We have been through Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's Day, and Easter. As May comes up, my birthday is coming up.  The thing I am going to miss the most is Audrey blowing out my candle on  birthday cake. She loved blowing out the candle even if it wasn't her cake. For Audrey's birthday, Amanda and I (along with the support of our family and friends) are excited to dedicate some things that would make Audrey and her friends happy.  May ends with a way that we are going to celebrate Audrey's birthday. In the immediate weeks after Audrey's passing, we wrote in a the book that the hospital Child Life Services made us with Hannah and Audrey's hand prints.  That lasted a few  weeks into each of us writing in the book nightly. When we got 1 pag...

After 8 months of not having Audrey with us, some of the every day interactions we had with Audrey have become less present in our memories.  While there is not an hour that we do not think about and feel her absence, it is becoming clear to us that she has not been here for 8 months, and we don't want to forget anything about her. For this reason, Amanda started the process of writing down all of her memories about Audrey.  This is a serious and emotional undertaking for her.  I appreciate what she is doing, and I can help her by filling in some holes with my perspective. I appreciate what she is doing. Her endeavor has inspired me to look at some memories of Audrey.   In addition to articulating memories of Audrey, during this period of grief, I have felt much guilt.  One of the senses of guilt has been that in 8 months since Audrey has passed, we have been able to do many things that weren't a logistical possibility with Audrey.   This past Sun...

Two days ago, my sister texted me on sibling day.  I am incredibly blessed to have a fantastic sister.  I thought that it was nice that she texted, because she thought might be hard for me to see all of the cute posts of siblings on social media I thought that Sibling's day was just a social media holiday.  It turns out that the origin of sibling's day  was a way of memorializing the founder's sister who had passed away. The Sibling's Day Foundation stated on their website- "Since 1995, the initial goal of the Siblings Day Foundation (SDF) has been to establish a national day of recognition for brothers and sisters, to be called National Siblings Day, held annually on April 10th. Siblings Day follows the spirit of Mother’s and Father’s Day, an uplifting celebration honoring people who have helped in our development and who have shaped our values, beliefs, and ideals." The day Audrey was born, My mom asked Hannah if she wanted to see Hannah.  She initially said...

This Lenten season has been 40 different days this year.    Last year on Maundy Thursday was Hannah's first communion on Maundy Thursday.  Last year, Audrey cheered on her sister as she took her first communion.                                       This Lenten season, our pastor made a devotional on lent as the 4 seasons.  For Fall, it referenced John 15:2 and the difficult work of letting go. It's been hard, but out of all the seasons, I am working on pruning back the branches of my life.  Other things get in the way, and I have been working on cutting off branches of the fruit tree of our family.  There are alot of branches that get in the way of Hannah, Mandy and I celebrating Audrey and  Last Easter was the last Easter we all had together on earth. It does bring up some guilt, because I missed the Easter before, as I was out of town.  It was a short...