Dear Jack,

Dear "Jack",

15 years ago I was getting ready to marry you, yet I didn't know my own identity yet. 12 years ago I was a lost girl. 12 years ago today I didn't know it yet but my whole world flipped upside and would send me into a tail spin. 12 years ago you passed away in the middle of the night from what they said was a seizure. You never really had your Epilepsy treated or took your medication as directed. Your friends said my actions were the cause of the stress on you which lead to the seizures even though you had them since you were 16 when you drove your bicycle into an oncoming car. 12 years ago you left a scared 3 year old boy alone. When I received the subpoena that you had died and that your mother would take Mackenzie from me. I felt the world had really beaten me down and I had no one to help me up, dust me off, or push me forward. I had one personal had Skylar. She was so little she couldn't even talk or give me a kiss. She was just a few months old. In the years that followed I knew I couldn't let the children down. I couldn't let the world keep me down. I couldn't let it keep beating on me. I had to stand up and be tall. I eventually rose from the ashes and became the strong person I am today. 

One one of our first dances we danced to My Heart Will Go On. We saw Titanic at least 12 times in the theater and danced in the aisles of the theater because we were virtually alone or at least it just felt like it to a naive 18 year old girl.  When we got married I told my mother I wanted the song played during the beginning of the wedding or at LEAST compromise and be our first dance. She said it was morbid. My friend Megan sang From This Moment On by Shania Twain while I walked down the aisle and our first dance as a married couple was My Heart Will Go On. Ironic isn't it? That was probably one of our last dances as well. 

I hope I can remember enough of the memories we made and enough of the memories of you to share with Mackenzie and Skylar as they grow older and ask questions about you. Eventually I hope to be reunited with Mackenzie and I will give him the art work you left me and memories that are only stored in my head, my heart, my soul. I need to do a better job of journaling them for the kids. Not here it feels to private to share here on this blog. I am surprised I am being compelled to blog this now but in a private journal just meant for them.

Two very special people in your family followed you to Heaven. I read about your dad passing away 9 years almost to the day you did. You know he meant the world to me even if he hurt me in the end. I am sure your Maw-maw also found peace. I hope they are watching over and protecting Mackenzie for me. 

Love,

"Rose"