Hello! Hey, it’s Me.

Winding through Winder

Colin and I are in Winder, Georgia to visit with Dallin’s family and attend his funeral and memorial.  We drove down yesterday, leaving at about 8:30 a.m.; the drive took about 7 or so hours with a couple of stops and a long-ish lunch.  Traffic was minimal, although we did get stuck in southern NC near Charlotte in a bit of a bottleneck jam.

We arrived yesterday and took a long dip in the hotel pool.  It was refreshing!  We grabbed a bite to eat across the street before Dallin’s memorial last night.  We then wound through Winder, heading about 6 miles in the wrong direction looking for the funeral home.  My GPS found four segments of this road with the same name, and I just picked the wrong one.   After driving back into town and seeing a bit more of Winder, I found two local police men who gave me directions, and we finally made it to the funeral home.  I was frazzled and frustrated and ready to cry when I walked in the door!  Colin was a little monster!  He was running all over the place and would have nothing to do with hanging out with Heather’s kids.  Oh, well…he’s 2.

Andrea looked great!  She has such a strong support group - lucky girl!  She is a mother with a life outside of motherhood, a fact I am severely jealous of!  She takes ballet and recently preformed in a recital, she has some church activities, she plays Bunco with a group of women - this is a life.  I want a life!

Anyhow,  it was great to see her family.  I also saw a friend of Heather’s that I attended middle school with.  That was interesting.  He’s living in Atlanta now and came up for the memorial last night.  I spent some time chatting with Heather and Andrea’s parents and sister Sarina.  All the while, Colin ran around like a wild child.

Today is the funeral.  I’m not sure if I’ll actually be able to go to the funeral.  Heather has arranged for someone to watch Lucas and Jordan during the funeral, but I’m not sure Colin will be keen on staying in an unfamiliar place with people he doesn’t know without me; and I’m certainly not taking him into the church for the service.  We’ll see how it goes.

Delaney is staying with my parents - she spent the night at their house while Colin and I are in Georgia and Chris is in the mountains (Chris is on his guided fly fishing trip that I gave him for his birthday).  It was hard to leave Delaney yesterday!  I’m sure she’s doing fine and she was excited about staying at Gremmie and Poppy’s house.  But this is the farthest away from her I’ve ever been and this is the first time she’s been away from home without a parent.  My heart is stretching and stretching to absorb all this emotion of the weekend.  I’m exhausted!