I wasn't sure I would be back...

The past year brought so many good things. Amazing, soul lightening, beautiful things.
A wedding, a step daughter (so that makes FIVE daughters!) amazing growth in our business, new friends, and... A baby!!
Well not quite yet. BLT and I got married last April. It was perfect. Everything I could have dreamed of. It was intimate, romantic, colorful, and whimsical all at the same time. It may be the only wedding where Dr Seuss and Kermit the Frog were both quoted - and there was heckling and audience participation to the extent that we all laughed until we cried.
By July I was pregnant, and our little one is due just two weeks before our 1st anniversary. We are stunned to have found out recently that this little blessing is a boy. After five girls we are thrilled, but I won't lie, I'm kind of scared shitless at the idea. We have about 15 weeks until he makes his appearance and it still brings me to a halt and causes a little trickle of panic in the back of my mind if I really stop to think about it. I have no experience raising boys. I have no nephews. Dear God please don't less me screw him up.
With all the good has, naturally, come the bad. That has kept me away from my blog here more than anything I think. While sharing positive news is fun and uplifting - well the negative is harder to dwell on and to share. This Summer, at the same time our son was conceived I lost my Papa J. Even now, all these months later I'm sobbing while typing. It's a huge, gaping hole in the lives of my kids and I. It hurts. A lot. He knew he was dying and we all got to say goodbye. And then, in 24 hours, a man I loved my whole life was gone and his absence is so keenly felt I just don't have any words to adequately express what I'm feeling.
Managing and maneuvering through my own grief has been hard. Doing the same for my children has been a gut wrenching experience.
But we are here. We celebrate our victories. We still cry over our losses. There is love, and laughter, and new life around us - and we carry on.
I think I'm ready to stop hiding from it all and get back to recording what I'm feeling. It's less raw now most days.
I wanted to hold the good close and keep it private. Like a warm protective blanket. To just relish in this family BLT and I created and to selfishly keep all that joy to ourselves.
I also wanted to avoid the pain of putting into words, of seeing it in the harsh black and white on the screen, that Papa is gone. Thinking that as his life ended this new one came into being should feel like a blessing, but it doesn't. More than anything I wish he could have met his only grandson. I would have loved for my son to know the gentle, renaissance man that he will be named after. It will forever be one of my regrets. But I am ready to share the burden of that grief in some way. Perhaps doing so will help ease this broken heart I'm still carrying inside me.