Our year has come and gone it seems in the blink of an eye. I had to ask myself where have I been? I can’t even begin to remember much about the day to day activities other than go to work, sleep and repeat. I’m sure many of you have experienced this same thing especially when dealing with tragedy, grief or brokenness of some kind. The days just seemed to run together as we all tried to manage our lives without Seth, celebrating highs and hugging on each other in the lows. We all as a family have tried to stay as busy as possible and pass the days spending as much time together as we can. We have attended events for Seth and had the opportunity to meet other Gold Star Families. This has been both difficult and also rewarding as we build relationships with other families that have felt our grief.

The opportunities to share Seth’s life story have only begun. There have been times of joy and sadness as we have celebrated birthdays and weddings, Seth’s favorite holiday, Independence Day, Thanksgiving and his birthday. Which really knocked me for a loop as just realizing over and over again he is not here. I had to work on his birthday as did Mike and Gini and Amber. We are all struggling in our own ways and I’m sure that will change as time here on Earth goes by. We have all taken turns writing his blog post and Facebook post, sharing any memories that we have for the day. This Christmas just felt so empty as we all tried to talk about what Seth would be doing or how he loved the time coming home to see as many as he could. Shooting his guns and eating all the food he could and well taking naps.

Today is the last day of 2023! I don’t even know how this has happened. Our family had some happy and difficult times through the year, most recently was Mike having an auto accident and now a massive heart attack. That will be a process as he has bypass surgery in a couple of months. We celebrated Jaxon’s 5th birthday today and got to see him happy and playing with his best buds, he had a blast. We got to hang out with some of Seth’s best friends and all the babies. Tonight we get to have Sophia and Gabby and celebrate bringing in 2024! I am sure they will stay up longer than I will.

We have our focus this year on Seth’s blog page and nonprofit. We want to make sure we share Seth’s story as many times as possible. With as many people as possible . We have some big plans and want to see this year start off running. I would like to share a special gift that Amber created for Mike and myself that will both keep Seth’s memory alive and never forget all of the wonderful memories we all made with him during his life.