
The past two months have been really difficult for our family — the very short story is that my Dad went into the hospital at the end of June for a routine, in-patient procedure of his heart condition and after two rehospitalizations, he passed away at home last week.
It has been and continues to be an emotional rollercoaster ride — with crushing grief right up alongside joy-filled moments of togetherness.

The precious gift of a good Dad for my 47 years of my life makes his loss incredibly difficult. I know how blessed I am to have something worth grieving, but boy is it awful. I am thankful for the many, many memories that my Dad was intentional about making with us and I’m extra thankful for these past two seasons where we were able to live closer. It still seems impossible that I will not see him in this life again.

In the midst of this journey with my Dad and family, regular life stuff just continued on, even though it felt weird at times. We wanted to continue to celebrate life together in the midst of hardship and anytime we could, we brought the celebration to wherever my Dad was in that moment.
Part of this summer’s education was introducing our kids to the mid-state fair — they had a blast, but couldn’t believe that one corn dog could cost $17!!!

Jason took Mabel on their annual overnight backpacking trip, into the Jennie Lakes Wilderness this year.

Jason & I each marked another year onto our lives —

Our family had the incredible opportunity to attend family camp at Mount Hermon this summer. I had not visited this place for 15 years, but grew up attending most summers. It was such fun to introduce the kids to this wonderful experience.

We also got to go visit some neighbors from our compound in Guatemala at their forested, off-the-grid home in Northern California. It was so special to get to see them again and to see their California home/life.

Mabel got to celebrate her birthday a few days early together with her cousins and my Dad, then she proudly made her own cake on her real birthday.

We started our new school year – with big 5th and 3rd graders!

Interspersed with all these moments was so much time with family, what a beautiful thing.

I haven’t been able to get this picture of my Dad holding Mabel in his amazing, workworn hands out of my mind…

And I am having a hard time getting my brain to understand that the kid’s grandpa who: read them stories, took them on tractor and go-kart rides, wore silly unicorn masks for birthdays, drove them around in his classic car, made special “papa tom style” cereal for them to eat and dressed up as Tigger for Halloween, is no longer here … but I am so thankful that he was all those things for the time they had together.
