This post will take you through our growth in the last five years, as well as how we celebrated Art on his death-anniversary. We have learned that the fifth year is a weird one. About half-way through year four, we started to feel alive again. It was during our Summer of Self-Care that we started feeling so ready to embrace life again. We started to finally feel like ourselves again for the first time since before he was diagnosed. Yet, we still are not our old selves. We are better. We have learned new things on this crazy grief journey. We are at a place now where we have started to evolve. Part of that evolution even consists of starting this blog.

While we are still and always will be heartbroken that he died, we are at a place where we can appreciate who we are becoming because of his death. That is why, instead of crying and being devastated all day, we decided to CELEBRATE our dear Art’s existence on this earth on his fifth death-date. We feel like this was an important milestone for us.

It took five years for us to get here, but we are finally at a place where on December 15th, we were able to talk about him without crying. In fact, we laughed! We told stories of funny things he did and found ourselves actually enjoying the day together with happy and sad hearts. We have learned that in our current lives, happiness and sadness often come as a combination. We even took a memory that made us a little sad, such as a family beach jumping picture we took before he was sick, and recreated it on the 5th anniversary. This new photo signifies the new lives we are creating, but never forgetting him and how we are the women we are today because of him.

Shell Here!

As I look back on the last five years, I stand in shock sometimes at how far we have come. I will never forget the paralyzing fear I felt in the beginning when Art first died, or the agony of not knowing how to go on without him. The depth of my core just wanted to be with him, even if that meant leaving this life. No one wants to talk about the deep pain with grief or the thoughts of leaving this life. I did not see a future without him; he was and still is the love of my life. Yet everyday, something inside of me fought to put one foot in front of the other.

I remember for the first few weeks, I made myself get up and out of bed, wash my face, pull my hair back into a pony-tail and get dressed. It felt like I was carrying around a thousand pounds while accomplishing these tasks, but I knew I had to do it. Even if I spent the rest of the day crying, at least then I knew I accomplished one task for the day. Every day I watched the sunset and I would say to myself, “I am one more day closer to being with you my love.” 

When I recall these days compared to where I am today, I am proud of how far we have come. I am reminded that every day is one day closer to healing a pain I thought would never leave. Healing does not mean I do not still love Art. It means that I can enjoy the life I was left behind to live. I can now laugh and not feel guilty about it. I can go out and do fun things and enjoy my life. I see life differently now and I enjoy the little things along with the big things. I do not take one day for granted. I enjoy the beauty of nature so much more now because I can actually see the gift of nature. I cherish every moment and record every memory in my mind.

Now I wake up each day grateful that I get another day here on earth with my daughter. It does not mean I no longer grieve. I still grieve and will always grieve for my love. I still cry over missing my husband, but I have just accepted this as part of my new life. Greif never really leaves; we just learn to thrive with it.

As we sit in the world of a new pandemic and learn the new normal, I can feel my grief creep up. I catch myself wondering what it would be like if Art was here and healthy. I am grateful that he is not here during a pandemic with cancer. What a fright that would be! I also wonder what he would be saying and doing during this pandemic. The not-sick Art would be happy to be home with his girls. I think he would be a little concerned about the pandemic, but he always saw the brighter side of things. I can happily know today that I see the brighter side of things myself. He would be proud of me for that.

As a world, we will get through this pandemic. Some will come out stronger and others will not. I know that I will come out stronger because I have already survived the unimaginable, and that has made me stronger. I hope you take the time to see the little bright things in life and enjoy the time with your families right now. If life teaches us anything, it is that we get today and a choice on how to live it. Choose joy and happiness and to live strong. We will get through this and everything is going to be okay, it always is. Remember that.

Jay Here!

The pandemic going on is scary, but we can try to embrace it. There was a time when home quarantine would not have changed my life at all. Yes, my mom and I would travel after my dad died, but we were basically hermits when we were home. We would go out and do things sometimes, but I wouldn’t have been upset to have stayed home. I liked being home. I’ve always been an introvert, but it intensified a lot after my dad died.

I was twelve years old, and I had watched my father take his last breath. I was twelve when I started to grapple with human mortality and start thinking about life on a deeper level. This forced me to grow up quickly. I was a twelve-year-old thinking about philosophical topics that even adults try to avoid. I was like a fifty-year-old having a mid-life crisis, but in the body of a twelve-year-old. I looked at other kids, and I did not want to hang out with them. How could I? It seemed unimportant to me. I was ready to hang out with adults, but I was still just an awkward twelve-year-old. To me, the idea of not leaving the house and not interacting with anyone would have been heaven. That time in my life is when I truly fell in love with books. The characters were young like me, but they were dealing with important problems too. I could relate to them. If quarantine was going on back then, I would have been happy to just read Kingdom Keepers and not talk to anyone for a month.

This made me pretty frustrated with the quarantine, because where was this five years ago?! I would have been completely content to stay home! But now that I want to go out and do things, everything is cancelled? Not cool!

I was going to the gym everyday with my mom (and leg pressing 150 pounds, thank you very much) and I even made plans to go to WonderCon with a friend. But just like that twelve-year-old who had to adapt to a new life, adapting to a new pandemic is just a part of life now. I can see the change in both my mom and me, and I am grateful for being able to see how far we have come in 5 years. Stay strong everyone, be safe and healthy. Use this time to read a book!

Final Thoughts:

As we conclude this post, we just want to say that our journey has been long and hard, but also rewarding. We are so grateful to be able to reflect back on where we were five years ago. We were dealing with double grief after two dear members of our family died. Our idenities suddenly changed to being a forty-three-year-old widow and barely twelve-year-old girl with no dad. The mother–daughter bond we share is so strong, and the fact that we both lost our fathers within two weeks of each other bonded us closer. All of that feels so long ago now; I guess that’s just a testament to our growth.

Five years ago, we were both so scared for the future. We had no idea what it held, and how we were supposed to go on. It felt like our family was completely destroyed. We were just a happy family, so how could this happen? Yet, five years later, we are learning to create new memories and traditions together. That fear we felt is still present in smaller quantities, but overall the crippling fear is a distant memory now. We have reached a part of our journey that enables us the freedom of appreciating what happened to us. We still miss them every day, and it is still hard, but we have learned to be kind to ourselves and accept grief as a part of our journey. We hope you can find some comfort in our blog knowing that you are not alone.

Here are Jay and Shell’s tips for learning how to appreciate and celebrate the memories of your loved one on their death date:

Jay and Shell’s Tips

• Talk about your loved one. Even if you talk about them all the time or you rarely talk about them, tell funny stories and remember the good times on this day! It is important to keep the memories alive, and this is the best way to do it.
• Write a letter to your loved one. It can be about anything you want to write about. Find a quiet place to read it aloud like you are reading it to them. It may sound corny, but it can be healing.
• Plan a fun day of activities you enjoy. Self-care is essential on this day. Start planning your first day out of quarantine!
• Listen to your feelings. Pushing them away will not do you any good. If you need to take the day and be by yourself, that is fine too. There are no rules!
• Listen to your body.
• Remember that there are no rules to grief. What’s important is that you do what you need to do to take care of yourself and not anybody else. This day is about you and your loved one!
• It’s okay to laugh, and it’s okay to cry too.
• Make sure to appreciate yourself and how far you have come on your own grief journey.
• No matter what you decide to do with the day, always be kind to yourself.

Here is an example of how we spent our day on the fifth death-date:

We chose to sleep in, which was part of our self-care. We get extra emotional when we’re tired, so that rest was needed in preparation for the day! Then we headed to our favorite beach, the same one we went to when he first died. We wanted to do our jumping pictures and watch the sunset (click here to visit our About Us page to see our jumping pictures!) We told stories and reflected on our growth from the last five years.

Then we went to our favorite vegan restaurant, where we laughed and told more stories about him and enjoyed our time together. We may or may not have also stuffed our faces with vegan ice cream. Then we headed to our second favorite place and finished the night at Disneyland! We always took pictures as a family in front of the castle, and that is exactly what we did. Our family photo of three is now two, but in our hearts, we are always a family of three.

We know these grief times are not easy especially now with COVID-19, but we hope that you won’t feel alone on your journey because we understand what you’re going through. We just ask that you always be kind to yourself.