On y va!

Off to France I go! I think I am prepared as one will be. Aside the activities happening during Le Mans race week, everything is pretty much up in the air. I’ve been looking up activities and listing things I want to do. I reviewed the Le Mans week schedule trying to pick and choose what activities I’d like to participate in, but I haven’t taken a good look. While I am in Le Mans, I’d like to do some half-day excursions around the Loire while I am there (if time permits). I have a list in my head of what gifts to give — in fact, that’s why I got a suitcase to pack gifts when I return.

Scatter

I am so sleepy. I went to a friend’s birthday dinner last night. I need a couple cups of coffee.

The other day I released my first post on my project log, The Buoyancy Blog Project. This blog will remain a personal blog while Buoyancy focuses on resilience whatever that means to someone. It could just mean keeping ourselves afloat or it could be rising and thriving — there’s no “correct” way. I’m no therapist but I wanted another outlet to express myself and connect to people who have gone through a hard time. In that blog, you won’t find toxic positivity and meaningless platitudes and solutions. I plan to only post once per week.

Love is all around us

Donation day

Tuesday, April 18th was the day I was looking forward to: donating money to an organization my husband volunteered at. He volunteered for this high school robotics group for a couple of years and it brought him a lot of joy. I proposed an alternate universe where he had a crowd like them and he’d have a better childhood. I dropped by the school on a good day because the robotics team was in Houston for Worlds. They had no idea about the donation. I suspect they’ll learn about the donation when they come back home later this week.

Feeling chill

We are halfway through April and it’s now over a month since I lost my husband. The other day I got his ashes. The urn has not arrived yet at the funeral. I’ll pick it up next week. Right now it’s in a plastic box. Who knew a small dense box would make me feel so happy, it would hold so much meaning? On Thursday, his army unit had a service for him. It was a three-hour drive from Los Angeles. It was a short casual service, but going there would mean so much to him. On Thursday morning when I got the call from the funeral home that he was there, I stepped out of work (I worked remote that day) to pick him up. It was timely. He was present in all the services, and I know he’d like to be present for his unit’s service.

I can only give this eulogy once

…so I will make the most of it!

Here is my eulogy. I needed to share not just the good things but also the struggles that made him who he was. Unfortunately, I don’t have a recording of reading the eulogy but I do have this draft below — I apologize for the typos. I highlighted certain sections in blue because I did consider omitting these parts in the eulogy. Gladly I did not omit anything when I went up to speak. My husband got the eulogy he deserved. Honestly omitting the “bad” parts would have done him a disservice for the sake of making a few people feel good about themselves.

Enjoy!

Grievances from my husband

Trigger warning: Death, loss, and grief

Taking care of you does not stop…

Trigger warning: Death, loss, and grief

Thank you all for the comments and support. They mean so much to me! I was hoping this week was going to be the week to respond to everyone and comment back. I’ve planning his funeral and this week was my first week back at work (more on that in a bit).

Here are my thoughts of the week:

I think I’ll be busy for a while

Trigger warning: death, loss, grief

Also another warning: here’s a bunch of disparate thoughts.