First Father’s Day

Seems like I can’t have a post about “lasts” without following that up with a post about “firsts”. Meeting at 18…falling in love…going to college together…figuring out the adult world….Jason and I shared a lot of “firsts” with each other. Some of them were very intentional. For example, neither one of us had flown in an airplane, seen the ocean, or been out of the country. We really wanted to do those things for the first time together…and we did…mostly. First airplane trip…he flew to Denver first for a work conference and then I met him a few days later…still counts…lol. The vast majority of those “firsts” were happy and made some of the greatest memories.

Then 26 months ago…another “first”…first time we heard the word “glioblastoma”…and suddenly the “firsts” aren’t marking happy events, but sad. First surgery…first seizure…first nosebleed that won’t stop…first fall…etc. And those sad “firsts” have continued for the past 10.5 months…except now I’m facing them without him.

Today was an especially hard first for the kids and I…First Father’s Day without Jason. The boys both had tennis matches this morning and Anna worked all day. I was feeling rough and emotional this morning so I stopped by Jason’s bench and calmed myself down a bit on the way to watch the boys play.

Jason would have thought watching tennis on Father’s Day morning the perfect way to start the day. The boys both won their matches so that was a bonus.

We had decided that we weren’t going to go out to dinner for Father’s Day, but make some of Jason’s favorite foods at home instead. We made ribs on the grill…cheesy potatoes…green bean casserole…and bread pudding. It all turned out great.

And then we topped the day off by playing Clue together. I teased Anna that she plays Clue just like Jason used to…takes forever to decide on her guesses and her game sheet looks like hieroglyphics…lol.

Today I’m trying to focus on gratitude that my kids had their Dad in their lives as long as they did. That they are all old enough to have many years of great memories of their Dad. His kids were always his biggest priority. He was always so proud of them and wanted them to be happy. Even when he couldn’t remember the day of the week he wanted to make sure he was at every tennis match…and he absolutely loved the times when his “Annie” was home from school. I know he’s smiling down at them now and so proud of them.