May 2022 was one of the hardest months I have ever experienced. Mark's Dad passed away on May 2 after years of battling cancer. I did a short post about it here. Saying goodbye was and is still so hard. I miss him all the time. I did have the privilege the last few days of his life to help be with him and try to calm him and keep him comfortable and safe. It was a difficult, yet sacred experience. I am grateful for the opportunity it gave me to express my love to him and to hold his hand.
We said goodbye and as we began planning his funeral family started coming into town and flowers and cards began arriving for Alice.
Mark's birthday and Mother's Day (on the same day this year) landed two days before the funeral, so we had the family that was here over for some hot pot dinner.
This was a very hard time for the boys. They loved their YeYe so much. I don't remember taking this picture, but I think I wanted one for Mother's Day. Next year they'll both probably be taller than me.
Monday evening we held Daniel's viewing and then the funeral was on Tuesday. I am so grateful for all the love we felt from so many friends and family.
There was a lot of family that came into town to support Alice and pay their respects. It was nice to see them all and spend some time together.
After the funeral we helped Alice go through Daniel's things. We were very happy to learn that both boys wore the same size shoe as Daniel. YeYe would have been very happy that his shoes and some clothes could be used by Brian and Timmy.
We spent a few days with family in town. I am so grateful we all had each other during this time.
Following the funeral services, we knew that we had to keep moving on with our responsibilities and life in general, although that wasn't an easy thing to do. Timmy had a dance performance and the boys had school. Mark had to go back to working.
Brian and Timmy competed in the district track meet. They both did great!
They also had the amazing opportunity to perform at Abravanel Hall with the Utah Youth Symphony.
They are in there somewhere in that sea of cellos.
While we were at Abravanel Hall, Mark was fixing some broken water pipes out on the farm.
The boys started their firewood selling business.
They also helped to get our summer farm camps all planned and advertised. All the camps filled up and it was looking like a good summer of money making opportunities for Brian and Timmy.
The end of May arrived and we got to celebrate Timmy turning 12! Timmy is such a great kid. He is fun and kind and happy and full of life and energy. He requested a banana cream pie as his cake, to eat out at Braza Grill and to go ice skating as a family. We were all looking forward to a great day to celebrate the best 12 year old!
Timmy was very happy that Braza Grill was stalked up on his favorite chicken hearts!
After our great dinner at Braza Grill, we went to the rec center to go ice skating. Sadly, I wasn't even there long enough to get any pictures. On my second time around the rink, my skate caught the ice funny and I fell backwards and came down hard on my left hand. My left wrist hurt pretty bad when I fell, but I thought it was maybe just sprained. I hobbled off the ice to recover thinking I would be back on in no time. But, I pulled my jacket sleeve up and saw immediately that my wrist was definitely broken. With a sad heart I told Mark my wrist was broken from my fall and I needed to go to the doctor. We had just arrived to skate so we left the boys at the rink. We stopped at urgent care and they said with that bad of a break I needed to go to the ER. So Mark dropped me at the ER and went back to pick up the boys. I felt so bad to ruin Timmy's birthday event.
Many hours later after several uncomfortable attempts to reduce my arm and a bunch of x-rays, I was able to go home. I had to visit an orthopedic surgeon to see if I needed surgery or not. This picture was after the first time reducing the arm.
In the doctor's attempt to keep the bone in the correct place, this next picture shows to extreme angel at which my arm and hand was casted after they reduced the arm again. It was stuck stiff like this and held bent up passed my elbow for weeks until I could get in to see the specialist doctor. Finding a way to sleep was pretty rough. Any pressure on those fingers poking straight down like that was very painful.
May started painful and ended painful. I was still reeling from losing Daniel and the thought of starting my summer one handed like this was tough on me. I cried a bunch and felt pretty pathetic in general. Mark was truly amazing at helping me. And I then cried some more with gratitude and sadness he had to do so much. So began Summer of 2022.
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