Peace by Ree

(Posting a photo of a sticky bun and hot chocolate from the Merc because it’s cozy and yummy.)

Thank you all so, so much for your sweet thoughts about Charlie over the past week. It was very sad for our family and your kind, beautiful messages helped us to realize how special the ol’ guy was to so many of you. We will miss him but we have so many wonderful memories.

What I haven’t gotten to tell you until now is that right after I posted about Charlie last week, we had a very sad, sudden death in my family—my brother’s son. He and Alex were babies together, he went to Colorado on trips with our family in his teen years, he was a beautiful, beloved child, and it’s been a wrenching loss for everyone. I’m not going to write much about it because it isn’t my story to tell, but I knew there wasn’t going to be any way I could refrain from telling you what’s been happening in our lives over the past seven days. I’ve been blogging here for over ten years, you’ve been there with me through thick and thin, and it just didn’t feel right not to say anything.

We got back last night after a long weekend in Dallas with family. I curled into my bed in a fetal position and cried—it just overwhelmed and enveloped me and I couldn’t escape the sadness. But this morning I woke up giving thanks for the times we had with him and remember Mother Teresa’s words: “If we have no peace, we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”

And I was reminded that one of our vocations as human beings is to be there for people who are hurting, whether in body, mind, or spirit. And for Marlboro Man, the kids, and me, that will be how we shift our grief—being there for our loved ones who are hurting the most.

And that does bring a certain sense of peace.