Peace and love to you all.

While the 28th of February is when Dad went into the hospital for the last time, today is the one-year anniversary of when he left all of us to join his parents and others in Heaven.

It is hard. It is very hard. 

We're here and he's not and it does not seem fair. There is no sense in death, no rhythm or reason. All we can do is trust in God and that He needed Dad at that time.

March 10, 2022 was the worst day of our lives. March 10th every year is likely to be the worst day of the year. But we are here, we will endure, and we will love and heal. Bit by bit, slowly but surely. We will heal. 

We just wish it didn't hurt much as we do. 

Hug your loved ones. They deserve it and so do you.

Thanks be to God. 

Peace and love to you all.

Apologies for the lack of updates recently. We here at the Cross Household have been going through a heck of a time with illness. First Mom came down with something, then I got it, then Adam got it...it was a cascade of our bodies hating us. We all seem to be on the mend, at least physically. It's emotionally that we're going to have to manage.

It was a year ago today that Adam and I came home from grocery shopping to find Dad in a state of distress. We thought it was a panic attack. It wasn't.

It was a year ago that I brought him to the walk-in clinic rather than the ER. They got him in quickly and started giving him oxygen before calling the ambulance. 

It was a year ago that I left to go pick up Mom from home. As soon as I left the room, that was effectively when Dad left us. 

It was a year ago that we raced to the ER, only to get a call that we needed to immediately come back to the walk-in because they were having trouble bringing him back.

It was a year ago that the world collapsed and my emotions shut down and I went into 'operational mode'. We were running to the car when I got the call that they had stabilized him and were bringing him to the ER ASAP.

It was a year ago that they had to cut his wedding ring off, which broke my mom's heart into a billion pieces. 

It was a year ago that an extremely kind doctor sat us down and told us it was not good.

It was a year ago that our family became something different, even though it took several days to become official.

Today is tough. Is going to be tough. Will have been tough. But we're here and we have each other and we have you all. We are thankful and grateful, even when we hurt, for you in our lives and God in our lives. 

Thanks be to God.

Peace and love to you all.

I hope you are all having a nice start to the year! It's hard to believe we're already in 2023. 

January 14th, though, is a special day for our family. It is and was my Dad's birthday. Every year, he would be so excited for it. He would talk about it being a national holiday and take joy in a day celebrating him and his birth. Even in the last years, he still found happiness and good days in his birthday. Having the day without him feels wrong, somehow. It always will, I imagine.

But we did the best we could to honor him. We went to Hu-Hot for lunch and I made sure to get the Shoyu Pepper sauce on my food, even though it's like tasting a peppery version of hot coals. We ate and talked about him and enjoyed being at his favorite restaurant. 

What we didn't do, though, was turn today into some morose, sulking day. Was it tough? Yes. I don't think any of us feel particularly good right now for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which was remembering that he's not here anymore. But we were determined to celebrate and then live the day and live our lives. As much as we miss him, and we do, we cannot put our lives on hold indefinitely while mourning. We can't and he wouldn't want us to. 

So, happy birthday, Dad. I know you're celebrating up there, even as we hurt a bit down here. We love you and we miss you.

​Thanks be to God. 

Peace and love to you all.

I hope you all had a lovely, comfortable, joyous Christmas full of laughter, love, and gifts galore. Up here in the Dakotas, we had a lot of snow. Still do, in fact, to go along with temperatures so cold that you actually have a physiological anger response to the bitterness. Suffice to say, we have been indoors quite a lot.

December has been a busy month, with Adam's and Mom's birthdays back-to-back along with the Christmas festivities. We have been celebratory and found a lot of joy in those times. Sure, a lot of pain as well. For Christmas, we eschewed several traditions we had done in the past simply because they wouldn't be the same or would hurt without Dad here to take part in them. However, we did keep some alive. The decorating, the clam chowder, the early mornings, and the beauty of the season all were in large amount, though nothing in more volume than the love, anticipation, and celebration of the birth of the Christ Child.

In times such as these, whether someone is grappling with personal grief and worry with deaths, financial worries, or anything like that, or if people are looking at the world on a large scale with trepidation for the simple continuation of life and happiness, emotions and worry can become overwhelming. We can become lost in ourselves and what we feel. Those are normal reactions and God feels our pain every step of the way. The thing is, in this season, God provides us all a reset. A rest. A moment of unadulterated joy as His Son enters the world. A child of light and dedicated love that is sent to take away the power of death and sin from our lives. What greater gift is there than that? 

This season can be difficult for so many and, if you are one of them, know that you are not alone. You are prayed for and loved by more than you know. And as we approach the New Year with the chance to try again after what was, by most accounts, one of the worst years in recent memory, we still get to enter a new start with the knowledge that God is with us and has given us what we need, even if it doesn't always feel that way.

May you find peace and love and stability and rest in this holy time.

Thanks be to God. 

Peace and love to you all.

We have the turkey.
We have the stuffing.
We have the potatoes.
We have the gravy.
We have the yams with marshmallows.
We have the corn mix. 
We have the sparkling apple juice.
We have the Macy's Parade.
We have the Cowboys playing.
We have the dog show.
We have the decor and the plates and the napkins and everything that makes today Thanksgiving.

The only thing we don't have here is my dad. 

It's been an interesting day. With just the three of us, more of the cooking duties fell to us than we expected. Doing the yams or mixing up the gravy, for instance, were always my dad's job. He would prepare the turkey just so and, if it worked or not, it was the fault or blessing of the turkey. He was a presence in the kitchen that was missed (at times). 

It was tough not having him at the table with us. 

But on this day of thanks, we have so much we are grateful for. Our friends and family who have been with us throughout all of this. Plenty of food to eat and a nice warm house around us. Our cats who are pains but adorable. Laughter and teasing and jokes. More things than we can mention. And, of course, the years we got to spend with Dad. It wasn't enough, no, but then can it ever really be enough? We always hope for more time in our lives. More years with those we love. More years to simply be. Maybe, though, on a day like this, we can just be thankful for the years we have. The days and hours we have right now that we are blessed to live in this beautiful, wide world of ours. 

So, today we are sad but we are grateful for so much, none more than to God for allowing us the time to celebrate with one another. 

May you have more blessings than you can imagine today and every day.

Happy Thanksgiving. Thanks be to God. 

Peace and love to you all.

Every year, I knew the holiday season (including Thanksgiving) was in full effect when I would smell peanut brittle being cooked upstairs. Every year, Dad would make batch after delicious batch of the hard, sweet candy and mail it off to family, making sure to keep the best parts for the four of us. It was a tradition and something he loved doing.

So, when he passed, one of the questions that came up was whether or not it would continue to be prepared and sent out. I offered to take on the mantle, having helped and learned how to do it from him last winter, and that was that. However, now that it's November and time to actually make the stuff, I was...apprehensive. How would I do? Would it be awful? Would it be even a little bit as good as Dad's?

Well, I made my first batch this afternoon. And it was perfect. Exactly the right amount of peanuts and brittle and sugar and everything. It was like Dad had made it instead of me. There were tears, I won't lie. It's...hard to put into words what continuing a tradition feels like. On one hand, you don't feel ready. On the other, you feel as if you have to be. It's tricky.

Right now, it's tough. I feel both closer to Dad and miss him that much more. I hope he would be proud at how I did. I like to think he is. 

I hope you eat something sweet today and think of those you love. 

Peace and love to you all.

Well, it's happened. We fought it as long as we could, but snow has finally come to the Dakotas. It wasn't as much as we were expecting (small miracles!), but it seems likely that we won't see grass until April or May now. Yes, winter has arrived and the sweaters need to be pulled out of storage, the shorts need to be put away, and the cars need to be checked daily to make sure the dang batteries aren't dead.

This was not Dad's favorite time of the year. Sure, he loved Thanksgiving and Christmas - two dates that we'll address when they come - but the actual season of winter? No, thank you. On a day like yesterday or today, there would have been grousing and complaining about the stupid roads and how cold it is and why do we live here again and how he couldn't wait to go down south and start life down there. He would have been grumpy about the roads being icy and the knuckleheaded drivers. But he would have taken Mom to work and said goodbye and, secretly, been happy that he could do that and keep her safe. A task that now falls to us boys, although we're not doing it every day because we have our own things to do!

As we move into this season of cold and hibernation, it reminds us that in all of life, there are seasons of life, love, rebirth and then seasons of death and mourning. We cannot have the former without the latter, much as we want to. So, because Dad lived a life as rich as he did, so too must we forge a new path through the snows of life after him. Along the way, there will be high points and low points, but the cold will come all the same. Sometimes thriving is possible. Sometimes simply making it through is enough.

May you stay warm, stay comfortable, and stay loved as the seasons change. 

Peace and love to you all.

I hope the shift into autumn for you has been comfortable, at least as much as it can be. I know that pressure changes and the like can cause headaches and colds and all that lovely stuff. So, stay warm and comfortable now.

October is nearly done now and we change into the season of holidays. I won't lie. This is not a time I'm looking forward to. The next several months are going to be tough. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, my dad's birthday, one year from him going in, one year from him passing...there are some major emotional dates coming up and all of us are already pretty tired from weathering the storm as is. 

We're all just worn out. This is a tough season for Mom because Dad always loved this time of year. When the weather got cooler and they could sit out on the patio and talk without worrying about the sun baking them to a crisp. When they could put puzzles together on Sunday mornings after coffee and doing the crossword together. It's been an adjustment and not one that is all that easy to manage.

Add on top of that sicknesses, car stuff, work stress, and just general Life Business and we all kind of need a week straight to sleep. Of course, that brings its own issues, as I myself have Dad in my dreams pretty much every night. 

But we're trying. Mom has a book club that she loves going to. D&D is starting up for me again soon and I've been out with friends a few times. Adam keeps on trucking with Tennessee football and fantasy football (one is doing considerably better than the other). We're looking for nuggets of hope and joy in the middle of the mudfield that is life right now. We're trying and that's the best we can do right now.

We hope, as always, that your lives are full and thriving wherever you may be. If you have time, spare a prayer for us as we go into this new season of celebration with bittersweet anticipation for the days to come. 

Love, as always, to you all.

Peace and love to you all.

Today was my (Aaron) 36th birthday. It was the first birthday that any of us have had without Dad around and it was strange. Some of the traditions and things that we usually would do just weren't in place and I don't know that they will be again.

However, it was a genuinely good day. We went out to lunch to a place here in town called Crave and it was delicious. We walked around the mall a little, ran a few errands, then came back and spent the day relaxing. For dinner, we cooked a couple beautiful steaks, sat the table, ate, laughed, and enjoyed each other's company. It was a day without pressure. A day without having to run around and do this or that. 

It was...nice. 

I'll be honest and say that it has been rare since March that any of us have had an unequivocally good day and even rarer that it's we've had one together. 

I still miss him. We all do. There were some tears when looking at pictures or finding notes left around, but there was a lot of laughter as well. Going out, having a nice meal, wandering the mall, and all of that was freeing in a way that is hard to describe for anyone who hasn't been there. 

It was a day of healing, even just a little bit, and for a birthday, I could not ask for more.

May you have days of healing and joy ahead of you. 

Thanks be to God. 

Peace and love to you all.

It's been six months.

Six months since the worst morning of our lives.
Six months since we said our goodbyes and let you go with God.
Six months since our family quartet officially became a trio. 
Six months since we had to learn how to live on our own, without your presence.
Six months of open water, struggling to stay afloat.
Six months of emptiness in the corners that once were filled with laughter and advice and maddening comments while watching TV. 
Six months of doubt and worry for the future.
Six months of puzzles being packed away, never to be touched again.
Six months of sitting out on the patio with an empty seat across from us.
Six months of stepping into the office and, for a second, wondering if you were out and about and running errands.
Six months of wondering what to do next and how we'll go on.
Six months of going on anyway.
Six months of missing you. 

It's been a half a year already and it feels both like forever and just yesterday.

The holidays will come and they will hurt and we will keep doing our best to live our lives, even though they aren't going to be whole ever again.

It's been six months, Dad, and we miss you more every day.

​Thanks be to God.