I feel like I am finally ready to tell a bit more of my brother's story. Right now I am just talking about when I found out. If I am ever ready to talk about more, I will.
Since it is a lot to take in and too much for one post, it will come in parts. Much like I do now that he is gone. Take it for what you will.
In the long run, it all started Thursday, April 19, 2012. My husband and I were closing on our first real house. We were moving out of our two-bedroom loft that we had long since outgrown and moving into a house that we would most likely spend the rest of our lives in. We were beyond excited.
We dropped the kids off at school in the morning and headed to the bank to sign the papers. Our lives were about to change. Everything we had ever dreamed of was about to come true with the flick of a pen.
Once the deal was sealed, we headed to our dream home to paint and get some things settled before the kids were due to get out of school. It was glorious. We drank it all in. This new beginning. This opportunity to provide a real home for our children. A place for them to learn and play and grow and feel loved.
We spent the day focusing on the kids' rooms so that they would be done when all of our worldly possessions were moved into our new house the next day. We wanted the kids to feel settled immediately. We wanted them to come into the new house with a sense of peace and familiarity. We wanted them to feel like they were home.
Once we had done all that we could do, we begrudgingly removed ourselves from our new home, picked the kids up from school and headed back to what no longer felt like our home for one last night. Though it was the place that we had brought both of our babies home to, it was no longer our home. It was just a house. Our new home was sitting alone and lonely, hopefully as giddy to be filled with new life as we were to fill it.
And then we tried to sleep. The lack of walls that a loft provides keeping everyone constantly just at the edge of sleep and just at the edge of waking. My son and daughter waking constantly at the wrestling of the other. Dreams of soon-to-be-fulfilled dreams kept my husband and me from ever truly achieving sleep. We were buzzing with the possibilities our new house held.
Read on:
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
