Father's Day

I wasn't super happy about Father's Day this year. I was in a weird mood and I kind of wanted to just skip it, but I also wanted to do something that Jon would have liked. I decided we needed to go on a hike somewhere and then have rootbeer floats. That seemed appropriate. The kids and I talked about a couple places we could go and decided on Guillemot Cove. I woke up pretty cranky and the kids weren't helping. They typically come into my room every morning and we snuggle for a while before starting the day. Well, this morning they came in and declared they didn't want to go for a hike. It put me in a worse mood so I told them I needed to sleep longer and they left. When I woke up the second time, I felt more able to face the day. I packed a lunch and water. With one child loudly protesting he didn't want to go, we were off. 

To get to the trail, we drive through Seabeck and it was so beautiful that day. I thought about how Jon loved riding his motorcycle out there because of all the curvy roads. There is a particular spot, Big Beef Harbor, where there is an incredible view of the water and the Olympic Mountains. The water was a chalky pastel teal color (I had read in the news it was due to a plankton bloom) and there were several people there taking pictures. 

We got to the trail and headed down. It's only a little over a mile trail through the woods. There were a lot of families out, which was nice to see, but it also stung seeing complete families together. At the bottom of the trail, it splits to the left and right. We first went left to find the Stump House. Along that little path, Matthew found a spot he wanted to explore. 

After a bit of climbing and swinging from the branches, they were ready to continue.

Here's the Stump House in all its glory.

Just across the trail is another huge stump that the boys were way more interested in exploring than the House. 

Now we were ready to head to my favorite part of this hike: The water and mountain views. 

Freaking gorgeous!

I totally staged this. They wouldn't spontaneously hold each other like this! 

There was an eagle and a heron at the water being all majestic and beautiful. We walked all over an oyster patch for a while. Sean sliced his leg a bit. We all sank in some mud. The boys each "rescued" a seastar. 

Who cares about soggy shoes? Evidently not these fellas. 

I tried asking each of the kids what they would like to do for Father's Day in the future to remember their dad. They didn't really have any ideas. I said I would like to be outside because he loved to be out in nature. Matthew actually expressed some deep feelings he had about Jon. It was interesting hearing him open up, and I'm so glad he did. We were able to have a good discussion and see ways that he and Jon are very similar. It's been very interesting (I need a different word, but I don't know what it would be) listening and observing my children in how they carry on after Jon's death. They are so resilient and I'm in awe of them often. 

I mentioned that the hike isn't long, only 1.1 miles. However, there's a pretty good incline. We gain about 380 feet in that mile! We stopped to rest a couple times, but we made it! 

I really wanted to stop at Big Beef Harbor if it wasn't crowded, and we lucked out! We saw why so many people were there taking pictures! Besides the beautiful color of the water, there were so many eagles feeding. We counted 15 bald eagles and we're pretty sure one golden eagle. We sat and watched them for about 10 minutes. The boys said "this is epic!" several times. 

They are hard to see, but I promise the eagles were out there.

As promised, we cooled down with root beer floats. 

The day started off with me saying to myself over and over, "Today can kiss my ass." I'm glad the day improved significantly. I'm still not happy about doing this parenting gig alone. However, I am glad I get to watch my boys grow into pretty amazing people. I'm grateful for them every day. Even the hard days. 

Complexity of Memories

I’ve been doing some cleaning and organizing and purging of stuff around the house. During this process, I have found old letters between Jon and I. I’ve read some journal entries of a particularly rough patch in our marriage. I had forgotten some details of that time. Mostly, we had a good marriage. We loved deeply. Which makes the last several months of his life so confusing and frustrating. I don’t get to have some questions answered so I won’t get closure I want so much.

I’m taking a writing class right now and I’ve had to go back in time a bit to recall details of different life events. It hasn’t always been easy. I realize I’ve stayed busy enough to not dwell on the sadness of missing Jon. I understand why some people decide to not ever talk about a loved one that has died. It hurts. It hurts more to pretend they weren’t ever here, so I’ll keep thinking about Jon. I’ll keep taking about him. And I’ll keep crying over him. And I’ll forever be glad he was mine for a while.

Smiling. And meaning it.

A few months after Jon died, I was having a conversation with my cousin about how I wasn’t sure I would ever feel full happiness again. I had been able to smile and laugh, but there was always an underlying awareness that Jon was absent from my life and that diminished the joy of whatever was happening. I still feel that way, to a degree, but I don’t feel the heaviness of it as much anymore. And I’m grateful for that. I miss Jon all the time. I’m always aware that my husband is dead. I never forget that my children’s father isn’t around for all the events and milestones in their lives. I’ve also been able to continue my life and find things to be happy about. I recently changed my profile picture on Facebook to one from the cruise. I like how happy I look in it. When a couple of my widow friends commented on the joy in my face, I remembered that conversation with my cousin that was so long ago. For me, this feels like progress. Remembering my grief, but not letting it rob all the joy I’m having is a gift. And I’m grateful for good times and good memories.

Cruisin!!

Last fall, a friend of mine asked if I had plans for spring break, which I didn't. She invited me to go on a cruise with her. I thought, "Why the heck not?" and booked it. The kids and I chose some shore excursions to do, and excitedly watched as we got closer to our departure date. The week before we left, Matthew got sick. He had a fever that just wouldn't go away. And he was coughing a lot. I knew he wouldn't be allowed on the boat if he was sick and I was getting nervous. I took him to the doctor to make sure it wasn't the flu. It was just one of those "let-it-run-its-course" things. My favorite!!! (Insert eye roll here)

Poor little dude was NOT himself.

Day 1: Portland to LA
The day we left for the cruise (Matthew was finally acting normal again), we woke up at 4:00 in the morning and flew to LA, and met up with our friends and got on the boat. Oh! And I ordered an Uber ride by myself for the very first time. Once we got settled into our room, we were so tired and I just crashed. Aaaaaand, I ended up sick with the virus Matthew had just gotten over. Awesome. (insert another eye roll here). We ended up having dinner and then just hanging out in our room and going to bed early. It had been a long day.

Sleepy, but excited travelers.

Mini golf on the ship!

The kids loved their window perch in our room

Day 2: Pacific Ocean

We were out on the open ocean. It was sunny and beautiful. The kids swam and went down the slide several times. They also hit the soft serve ice cream machine a few times. 

Day 3: Cabo San Lucas

As we were coming into the bay, we saw a couple of whales breaching. It was so cool! We also saw a stingray jump out of the water a couple times right by the boat. And there were some huge birds flying all over. We found out later they are called Frigate birds. The boys continued their daily ritual of a round of mini golf after breakfast, followed by ice cream. 

We decided to stay on the boat that day and just take it easy. I was still dealing with a fever and I knew the next couple days were going to be pretty active. It was so nice because so many people left the boat that we sort of had free reign of many of the activities. The kids went down the slide a bunch more. They lounged in the hot tub. We all ate ice cream. I read a bit. It was a lovely day.

The boys in their perch

The sunset was so beautiful that night. 

Day 4: Mazatlan

Our excursion for the day was a turtle sanctuary and beach resort. The baby turtles were so cute. This sanctuary has been operating for almost 100 years. They have a bunch of nests that they manage and they watch when the turtles hatch and head to the sea. The ones that don't start walking to the water, they keep for a couple years until they get stronger. Those are the ones we were able to interact with in this big pool. The boys were so giddy to be able to hold the little babies. 

This is one of the nesting boxes and we could see a little one hatching and coming up out of the sand. They were going to be released the next day. 

After playing with the turtles, we went to the resort and the kids played on a giant inflatable slide. Sean visited the ocean for a bit and Matthew swam in the pool. I sat in the shade and enjoyed the warm breeze. 

When we got back to the boat, we needed to refuel with more soft serve ice cream.

There was a paper airplane competition and it was really cute watching the boys very carefully folding their planes. Sean took the lead for a bit, but then it was snatched from him. It was still a fun time.

Day 5: Puerto Vallarta

Our excursion for this day was another beach resort. There was a ropes course the kids were going to do there. While we were on the boat ride out there, we got talked into an animal encounter with stingrays and a sea lion. 

So stoked for a boat ride.

When we first got to the resort, there was a yummy buffet lunch ready for us. It was so good. I finally had some Mexican food. I love guac!! And the desserts were also delicious. 

Then it was off to the ropes course for the kids, but first, flamingos!

Ok, I'm going to interject a story here. When we were setting up a time for the ropes course, the guy asked if I was the only adult in my group. I told him I was. He said there was a part of the course where an adult needed to pull a donkey up a hill, but he assured me it was fine because there was someone that could help me with one of the boys. When I got to the place where the boys got geared up, the lady there asked again if I was the only adult with my boys. I said yes again. She said ok (but I could tell she didn't love that). Everyone else there only had one child participating, so no trouble there. The other lady helping asked me one more time, if I was the only adult with my boys. I was so close to shouting at them "Their dad is dead, ok? It's just me!!" But I remained calm and knew it would all work out. Once we got closer to the part where the kids were going on the donkeys, she said that she would take Matthew and show us all how we needed to lead the donkeys up the hill. It was totally not a big deal at all, because she was there to help anyway. Ugh!!

Back to pictures of the adventures! 

After the ropes course, we hurried down to the animal encounters. The stingrays were so cool. The one we got to touch was named Goliath. Matthew was really excited about this. For a while his favorite animal was a stingray, so this was pretty special. There were some other rays swimming around us too, and they would rub against our legs. 

Next up was the sea lion. Matthew was not getting in the water with it. It was pretty intimidating to be so close to an animal bigger than me. He felt like a big, wet dog. 

We only had a little bit of time to play at the beach. I wish we had another hour to just relax, but we needed to get back to our ship. The crew on the boat was super entertaining. They put on a show for us and they were just all really nice and funny. Matthew was exhausted though, and slept through it all. It had been another full day. 

 Day 6: Cruising back to LA
This was a windy day, but still warm and lovely.

There was an egg drop in the afternoon. We were given instructions and a few hours to make our devices. Then we all gathered together to get our eggs and to see how our apparatuses turned out. Most of them were successful and all the kids got medals. It was a very well attended event. 

 

I was feeling mostly better, but still a bit tired, so we watched a lot of cartoons in our room. 

Day 7: Final cruising day back to LA

This day was so windy, the kids decided not to play their daily mini golf game after breakfast. But you can bet they didn't skip their ice cream!

  

They came up with a little game of rocking these chairs all over the deck. Funny boys

We went to an activity to learn how to fold towel animals. It was fun and followed by a towel-animal puppet show. 

Here are the animals that were left for us each day

Stingray

We think a lobster

Dog

From this angle we thought it's a crab,

from this angle, we thought it's a frog.

Elephant

Love

All in all, we had a really excellent time. I felt like so much of what we did was geared for the kids. I think if I hadn't been sick I would have done more of the night activities. Even with that setback, it was still so nice to get away and be warm and have something other than school to do for a while. I sure wouldn't mind going on another cruise some day.