up north

The kids had two weeks off school and so I took a week off too to travel north with them.  First stop, Andy's family for our belated Christmas.  It was so good to see everyone, Nina, Poppy, aunts, uncles and cousins.  But it was oh-so-hard too.  It was the first time I had slept inside this house without him.  The house that is so familiar it could belong to my own family.  This house where the kids raid the fridge without asking, where the coziest of chairs cradles me while I knit, where the dog is always welcome and the ice cream always flows.  This house where Andy grew up.  This bedroom he slept in, this den he watched movies in, this kitchen he ate in, this yard he played in and this pond he learned to skate on.

It was incredibly emotional to watch Andy's dad so patiently teach Elsa how to play hockey.  How to hold her stick, pass the puck, move her skates.  It could have been Andy out there.  It should have been, with his dad and his daughters and me.  She took to it like it's in her blood.  Maybe it is.  Her Poppy, her dad, her Uncle Matt...I felt the two brothers cheering her on, propping her up, so proud to see her on the ice with their first teacher.  Bittersweet just isn't enough word for these moments.

We gathered together and planned Matt's memorial service. (January 26, posted on Facebook).  I like to think we held each other up.  But I can also feel us all in separate places in this tangle of loss and grief.  We are each our own person within our intertwined stories of Matt and Andy.  I am so grateful for their love.

After a few days in the Cities, Amy and her kids and I headed further north to Deep Portage Conservation Reserve (where Andy and I met) to witness winter. Our friend Dale welcomed us with open arms and Winter Camp it was!  There was easily a foot of snow and we skied, and skied, and the kids went sledding and built snow forts and ice skated and ran around the lodge playing top secret games and drawing ducks on the classroom whiteboards.  We soaked it up because it was perfect winter conditions.  And I held Andy close as I skied those Northwoods for the first time without him.  Pushing the edges of my grief to make sure we continue with the things he so loved.