6 months

Laura here. I usually write for the blog anyway, Troy usually does the final editing.

I miss Jenny so much. Today is Wednesday, November 26, 2014. It is the day before Thanksgiving. I have so many mixed feelings about Thanksgiving this year:

• dread for this happy occasion without Jenny
• sadness/grief/loneliness that Jenny is gone
• excitement to be with family for Thanksgiving
• happiness to be with my parents and with Jenny's parents and family
• and fear about how I will react. Will I cry the entire time? Worse, will I not be able to cry at all? 

Because today also marks 6 months since Jenny's passing.


6 months. Six months. S-I-X  M-O-N-T-H-S.


Thanksgiving was Jenny's favorite holiday. It's mine, too. (Who doesn't love a day dedicated to good food, good company and lounging? And giving thanks, of course.) But I don't know that I'll want to eat a whole lot this time around. I don't know that I'll be able to eat. Grief takes away my appetite.

*sigh*

I hope everyone has a wonderful, thankful holiday. I hope you are surrounded by good food and good company. I hope we all remember to be grateful. I hope we all remember to express love to our loved ones.


Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Playing Catch Up

It has been a while since our last post, and a lot has happened since then.

There have been a few times that we wanted to update the blog, but every time I (Laura) logged in, I saw the last post, and became too sad to add anything.

*Sigh.*

So here's what's been going on since July (not necessarily in chronological order):

We celebrated 4th of July in Oceanside with a bunch of my family. This is only one family (from Utah). I don't think we got a group picture of everybody, and this picture isn't even everybody in this family, but it's the best picture I have from that weekend. Yay, cousin love!

Diamond and Chloe made the first steps to becoming friends. From the safety of Troy's backpack.

We hung out with Brooke, Erika, Harold and Major in San Diego before they moved to Washington D.C.

San Diego is nice. That's Mexico in the background.

CSUN's Music Therapy program turned 30. CSUN Music Therapy alumni went and bugged the director and founder of the program - Ron Borczon.

On CSUN grounds. College students are funny.

It took me a month to get the cats to the vet for routine shots. Diamond destroyed her previous carrier, and when she was forced into this new one, she forced her way out. No words can describe the frustration.

I quit my job. My co-workers threw me a farewell party, and one of my co-workers (also named Laura), gave me farewell flowers. The note says, "Laura, I hope your last couple of weeks here are happy ones. Laura" So sweet!

Troy quit his job, and his co-workers threw him a surprise farewell party.

We moved to Phoenix for Troy to go to school. It was a bittersweet farewell from Long Beach.

Our first (and second and fourth) meal(s) in Phoenix.

Our first encounter with the local street youths (in a neighborhood around the corner from us).

Diamond and Chloe are still working out their issues.

But they're friends, whether or not they realize it yet.

Phoenix was hit with a few monsoons.

We found a bird struggling to get dry after all the rain.

We went to the Phoenix Temple open house.

I went back to Long Beach twice. The first trip, I went back to assist my friend in the birth of her baby. (She's a really good friend.) And the beach was calling me.

The second trip was an overnight drive-there-and-back-really-quick-trip, and Troy was able to join me that time. He also let me french braid his dreads.

I dressed up as Cleopatra. Troy "dressed up" as a Batman Fanboy.

Troy got a cat toy stuck in the ceiling, and Diamond almost convinced herself she could jump high enough to reach it.

Chloe discovered a new favorite observation point.

I ran a half marathon. It took me 2 hours, 33 minutes, and 11 seconds. I almost fell over after I crossed the finish line.

Thanks for reading this very long blog post! Till next time, internet.

8 Weeks Today

In the last post, I (Laura) mentioned that I attended my first birth as a doula/music therapist. The very next day, my best friend died.

Jenny texted me a selfie, back before selfies were a thing. Back when cell phone pictures were new and exciting, when cell phone cameras weren't as good as the average stand-alone camera.

I wanted to mention her passing in the last post, as it's the biggest news of my life. But it didn't seem appropriate to lump that in with all the regular stuff going on. It also seems disrespectful to not mention her at all, so Jenny gets her own blog post. I thought about posting this the day after the last post, but I was too sad at the time to do any editing.

What a love.

Jenny and I have been best friends since we were 8 years old, when we met in 3rd grade. About a year and half after we met, my family moved across the street from Jenny's house! It was very exciting. My parents, and her parents, still live on that same street. 

I have 4 brothers, and 3 of them have awesome wives. Troy has 2 awesome sisters. But sisters-in-law are not the same as sisters (as fantastic as my sisters-in-law are in their own right). Jenny is the closest I've ever had to a sister. We grew up together, and I have no idea who I would be today if I had never met her. We were supposed to continue to grow up together, and I don't have a clue as to how life is going to be without her from now on.

High School Europe trip - here we are, somewhere in Europe together.

 Us again - in France, on a boat.

In my parent's kitchen.

In my parent's front room.

In Jenny's parent's front room.

When Troy and I got married.

Such a beauty.

Today (Monday, July 21, 2014) marks eight weeks since her passing. Each Monday is another reminder that she's physically gone. I know her spirit still exists. I know we're still sisters. I know she still loves me, her family, and all her other friends. I know we'll see each other again, in another life.... But her absence hurts so much.

I found this last weekend, cleaning out the computer desk. I started writing/drawing an epic letter to Jenny back in 2007, but the pad of paper got misplaced during my many moves. I found it again in 2012, and added some more notes/drawings on two different occasions, always with the intention to fill up the entire pad of paper and mail it to her. I found this pad of paper last weekend, and realized I had no one to send it to anymore. 

(How I felt when I realized I had no one to send the letter to anymore.)

It remains unfinished. Troy told me I can still write to her, which is true. I was never supposed to keep it, though, and seeing it again fills me with more waves of grief, regret, sadness and longing.




                                                          *sigh*

Some days are better than others, but I'm trying to still find ways to laugh. I'm trying to still look for and find all things silly, weird, and funny. I'm trying to still be silly, weird and funny. It's one way to connect with Jenny, one way to feel close to her. (Explanation of this picture: I wanted to take a picture of the sun bather in Hyde Park [I mean, c'mon! Look how hairy and gloriously unashamed he is!], but didn't want to look like a creep, so Jenny was my decoy.)

(What would life in the Bay Area be without at least one blurry BART picture?) Again, some days are better than others. But I'm trying to find ways to be happy, if for no other reason than to live like she did. I'm trying to have (and spread) hope, faith, and love - in her honor. When I do, it's another way to remember and connect with Jenny.

I love you, Jenny. I miss you terribly. But whatever the afterlife holds for us, I hope we can do everything we did here on Earth (and more!). And I hope that includes running around in handmade-from-Berkeley mukluks again. I'll keep my red and blue ones till then.

Since Last Post

So much change in so little time!

Back in April, we hung out with Erika, Harold, Brooke and Major. It was nice to have Harold home for our visit! Soon after we visited, Harold's job confirmed they want him to move to Washington D.C. We will miss having them within driving distance (soooooo much!), but we are so excited for this new opportunity for Harold and the whole family. Congrats! *tear*

Too bad we didn't get Harold in this picture. 

Back in May, Laura did a doula training, and then attended her first birth of some good friends from church. Laura is venturing out into a new field of music therapy - labor and childbirth! She did two trainings with a wonderful music therapist over the past year about how to use music therapy techniques in childbirth education classes and in labor/childbirth. Our lovely friends from church let Laura practice her newly learned techniques when their sweet son came into the world, and it was one of the most beautiful experiences of Laura's life.

You can check out the group practice Laura is in (with two other music therapists/doulas), and learn more about doulas and music therapy, here: http://soundbirthingmusictherapy.com

***Clarification: Although Laura's views on pregnancy and childbirth have made a complete 180, that does not mean her views on having kids HERSELF has changed any. Still not interested.***


Besides, who needs kids when you can have cats???

Chloe loves Laura. And Laura loves Chloe!

Chloe loves sleeping on Troy's pillow. And Troy loves sleeping.

Diamond loves Troy.

Diamond loves pineapple.

Diamond loves getting her chin scratched. She's still making up her mind about Laura, though.

We Are Too Busy

It's April already, Geez Louise!

Highlights of January:

We went to Vegas to ring in the new year. We saw the Blue Man Group perform:

They were so good!

...and stood in the middle of an intersection with a million other people and counted down to 2014. 

Link to video of the Tom Foolery

Laura "Sings" Auld Lang Syne

Laura got a hair cut! New year, new 'do.

Laura was attacked by one of the patients at work. It sucked. No major physical damage, some bumps and bruises that went away pretty quickly, but it was still awful. She took 2 weeks off of work, and is still dealing with worker's comp stuff.



Highlights of February:

We got a new cat! Her previous owner died, and we took her in so she wouldn't go to a shelter. She's 4 or 5 years old, and her name when she came to us was "Little Girl". We renamed her.

Introducing Meow Diamond Phillips. We usually just call her Diamond.

Unfortunately, Chloe and Diamond don't get along. We have the apartment separated by a baby gate some friends are loaning us for the time being (thanks!). Chloe jumps over the gate when she feels adventurous, and jumps back over when Diamond chases her out. (Diamond is too big to jump over the gate.) There's hope, though. Diamond is very cuddly:

She loves Troy so much. She tolerates Laura.

Diamond is sweet when she wants to be. My guess is she's still grieving the loss of her previous owner, and her old home. That's a lot of change! New home, new owners, and now a cat she has to share that with. She was the only cat in her previous home. From what we've read, it can take up to 3 months for the transition period. So, let's hope we get the baby gate down for good in the next month or so...



Highlights of March:

Phil the Ford Focus hit 100,000 miles!

But don't you think taking a picture of 99999.9 is more fun?

Laura ran a 10K. Her goal was 65 minutes, and finished at 69:41. Pretty good! They had photographers scattered throughout the race taking pictures, and put them online to access for free, but Laura isn't really a "photo ready" runner. You can tell it's a struggle:

Laura riding the invisible bicycle. (The photographer caught me mid-"Whoo!")

I swear I'm running, it's just hard to tell with that other lady making it look so effortless.

That's more or less it for now. Till the next time, internet!

More Stuff Going On

Last post was before Thanksgiving, because it's been crazy busy since then!

Laura's parents came down for Thanksgiving weekend, since our work schedule didn't make it easy to drive up to the Bay Area. Jason and Liz came to hang out, too. We all brought food, so no one had to make the entire Thanksgiving meal on their own. 
  

Liz here manually whipping the cream since we didn't have beaters. Worked surprisingly well.

Team Raptor was delegated the turkey, since we were hosting. Laura doesn't eat meat very often, so Troy made the turkey. His first time! Good job, Troy!

"My only goal in making the turkey is that nobody dies."

The following week, Team Raptor was in charge of the ward Christmas brunch. Laura has very little Christmas cheer, so she wasn't planning on attending the Christmas brunch, till they asked her to be in charge of it. And it didn't turn out to be that bad. There were delicious homemade waffles and Laura got to dress up as an elf:

Thanks for all you did, co-person-in-charge Sandra! And thanks, volunteer Santa!

The next week, Laura ran her first 5k event: The Ugly Sweater 5k.

Again, Laura has close to zero holiday spirit, so her ugly sweater wasn't holiday themed. It was just ugly.

Luckily, this guy had enough holiday spirit for himself, Laura, and Troy.

"Laura: I just ran my first event. 32 minutes and 30 seconds. Feeling pretty good.
Troy: Good form, good form."

After running for 32:30, Laura was overheated. Sooo....

                                                                       
After Laura showered off all the grossness from running a 5k and then rolling around in dirty ice, Team Raptor drove to Arizona to see the Davis family. Laura had to work on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (that whole week, actually), so we took a short weekend before Christmas week to hang out with some family.

Family time at the Mesa Temple.

The Christmas lights were nice.

There were a lot of people there who also wanted to look at the lights.

Hopefully next time we'll be there when Harold is in town.