365 days~12 months~52 weeks~8760 hours~525,600 minutes

Anyway that you look at it, it's a year.
A year of seemingly endless tears.
A year of trying to make sense of God's will.
A year of getting out of bed in the morning,
even when you don't want to.
A year of being as angry as you've ever been.
A year of wanting to crawl into a cave and hide.
A year of trying to put it out of your mind.
A year of making sure you remember even when it's hard.
A year - an entire year.

I know from the experience of losing my Mama that it's the hardest day there will be. It makes it permanent. For the first 364 days you somehow rationalize that it's not real - that you're having a nightmare and you'll eventually wake up. When it becomes a YEAR, there's no pretending anymore. It's life as you know it and there isn't anything you can do to change it. Life goes on whether you want it to or not. God wills it to go on and it does.

After a year passes you catch yourself before you grab the phone to call him. You catch yourself before you look in the direction of where he should be. That awful pain in your heart catches you before you move.

It's been a year and although a year is a long time, for us surely it's only been a few short hours. The pain is still so fresh and our wounds are still open. Why is it harder today? We have gone on breathing everyday just as God willed and then today we awaken and it's January 10, 2007 all over again and we don't understand how it's been a year when he was JUST HERE. He was just here. It hurts - it hurts as if it were that day again. You relive the day just as it was all day long. Where you were, where he was. What you did, what he did. You remember the minutes, the words spoken, the smell of his shirt. Surely it hasn't been a year, and yet it has.

Jesus himself spoke the words, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." We have made it through the last year simply resting on Jesus Christ. If the Lord wills it, we will make it another year and then another... and the wounds will remain but God will comfort us and PRAISE GOD - WE WILL SEE HIM AGAIN ONE DAY!

A year has passed and we mourn him still. We love him still. Today even more than yesterday, we remember this man whom we loved so much. Because it's been a year today since he met his Savior face to face and at least today, a year later, we can say thank you God for taking him home to be with You in heaven.

I took this video just a few hours before Daddy Don died. Jake was spraying him with Silly String in our living room and they had so much fun. It's been too hard to post it until now, but this is how we want to remember him. Laughing and playing with his grandchildren - that's what his life was all about.

We love you Daddy Don and we miss you.