Light - Chested

I hope your birthday yesterday in heaven was fabulous.  I hope we made you proud. Your love continues to spread into all of our lives.

It is amazing how one day can be so amazing, and then there are days like today where the realization hits that Frankie was killed only 18 months ago today.  Today had its ups and downs.  I shared laughs and tears at lunch with Amanda (Frankie's sister) and an amazing friend I met who he trained with at Fort Riley.  Dinner was spent with good friends we made in Hawaii.... but there was a cloud on the whole day, because it is the 27th. It was hard to lift that cloud.  It is hard knowing that when I drive to the cemetery, that I will be doing this the rest of my life, until I am in the grave with him.

A year and a 1/2.  It feels so long ago.  Today I found out more information about how Frankie was killed.  Facts I did not know, or that were somehow skipped in the investigation report.  How am I just finding this out?  It is tough to take in, but I am even more proud of him.  He is a hero, and deserves the highest honor that I will fight my entire life to get for him if I have to.  A year and a half later, my love --- ugh.

I love him more today than last.

I will love him forever.

So far it is not easier, and sometimes I wonder how breath continues to fill my lungs.

And I know it comes from him.  From the love he breathes into me.
And when I feel it, my love, my heart beats so fast and so hard I get all "light - chested"  like we used to say, and I know you are here, and I know that you will continue to fill me with your love all of my life.

That smile on my face now is from the love I have been so blessed to feel.
That motivation to continue comes with the hope that I will live my life to reach you someday.

I miss you Frankie. I love you. As you did to me --- I will make you so proud.

Missing You ---

 Missing you, by Jem.

Forever Forward

                                                    

I saw this poem on another blog and wanted to post it on mine:  


"It isn't letting go

its going on.

It isn't only shadows 

and it isn't only dawn. 

It isn't GETTING THROUGH IT 

...it's letting it come through me, 

not living in the darkness 

though the darkness I can see. 

Its living with the sorrow 

but finding memories sweet. 

Its knowing that it takes both sides 

to make it all complete. 

It's soaking up the sunshine 

along with the rain 

Its learning to let laughter 

live side by side with pain. 

Its knowing that the past 

won't change a love that's real 

or take away the joy you brought 

or the sorrow that I feel. 

Its knowing tears and laughter 

can live on the same face, 

and your impression on my heart 

can never be erased."


The only part I don't really like, is the beginning about going on.  I hate anything with the connotation of "life goes on"  or "moving on"
I understand that life goes on, trust me.... when it felt like the world should have stopped moving...It didn't.....
but for me it is about moving forward --- trying to embrace life again, with all that has been taken from me for now.  
I am trying to keep that all-important eternal perspective.  I like to say I am moving 
FOREVER FORWARD. 
 And somehow I know Frankie is always by my side, and will be my side 
physically again.  


"And so make life, and death, and that vast forever one grand sweet song." 
- Charles Kingsley


With every setting sun my love grows for you Frankie.  A hui hou!