Very raw day

Today was a day of acknowledgment and it was a very hard day. I've been wiped out both emotionally and physically. Shortly after finishing up writing here Tom got up. I had just finished reading an email from a faraway friend and I wasn't totally composed from it. It didn't matter, neither was he. He walked into the kitchen and said...I'll never get away from it. Everything reminds me of him. I asked him if he wanted to read the email and told him about my post here. He said he wanted to read both and he did. It was extremely difficult but for the first time Tom didn't hold back. I think it was good for him to see we were on the same page, that he wasn't alone in how he felt. While we were a mess externally, I think it was a bit healing internally.

All morning long I kept hearing the kitchen door. It was the wind, a cat or one of the chickens. It was never Billy like I thought it was and the crying would start. Every trip into the kitchen came with a glance out the backdoor to see what he was doing, if he was coming up. And then I'd remember and the crying would start again. As much as I missed my kids (they had spent the night at various places), I was thankful that they weren't here. Danielle had slept in and Sean had gone back in for a nap, allowing Tom and I some alone time to talk....much needed alone time.

We lost track of time and before we knew it Tom's older brother was here to pick him up. They were heading to the funeral home to make arrangements. Now I was alone with Sean and Danielle. I was exhausted and Sean was taking full advantage of my slowness. He got into Olivia's barely touched birthday cake, getting frosting EVERYWHERE including plastering his hair before I could get to him. While cleaning that up he got into Liz's backpack and found her mascara, making himself a unibrow and a goatee by the time I caught up with him. It was then that I decided....I need a nap. I woke up Michelle and asked her to babysit so I could jump into bed for a while. Sleep was slow to come but it did eventually arrive, lightly. Still it helped. I was trying to decide if I wanted to try to fall back to sleep for the third time in an hour when Tom came home, so I got up.

I needed to get some fresh air so snuck outside (because Sean wouldn't think of allowing ME to go out without him lol) and visited Tom. Then the hustle and the bustle of the house started to return. A friend brought Jake home carrying the supplies he needed to do a major Egypt project, which is due tomorrow. My parents came over for a visit. Della brought Eileen, Olivia and Luke home. They had posters and cards they'd made and lots of stories to tell. Pat came over after dropping Alex off at work and hung out. Val came home and John came over shortly after that.

It hit me that I had to feed these people...but what? Tom saw me rummaging through the freezer and told me to just order pizza and wings. It was nice to not have to think about or make dinner, but OUCH! Oh well, at least we had the extra cash to do it and it was yummy! I had an OMG moment when I looked around me and realized...I'd forgotten Carrie wasn't home! She was at Tom's oldest brother's house and I'd totally forgot. Luckily he lives in the village and the kids could pick her up when they picked up the pizza and wings. Drew and Allison came in shortly after the pizza got here. Cory was here as soon as he got out of work. I sat here, looked at my overflowing livingroom full of pizza eating kids and thought...I AM SO BLESSED!

And on that note, I'll end this and head to bed. But first I'm going to go down to the big girls room, give Val a huge hug and wish her a Happy Birthday.