The moment I knew he was gone, I switched into “emergency” mode. Actually, I’ve always been decent in emergencies, only crashing emotionally when they were over.

For his whole life, he had dreamed of having a BB gun. I say his “whole life” but he was still a little guy. The requests for this item actually began around age five, after seeing his older cousins, and they resurfaced every Christmas.

Christmas was a special time for us. When the kids were young, the day was usually spent with extended family, where the cousins performed an annual Christmas pageant in Grandma and Grandpa’s living room.

I lost my mom fifteen months before Nathan. Unbeknownst to anyone, she had pancreatic cancer that had silently been ravaging her body. From her diagnosis to entering Heaven took less than two weeks.

The dreaded question seemed to be everywhere after Nathan died. “How many children do you have?” Nearly every new person I met seemed loaded and ready to ask. It was as if I had a sign on my back.

The last few weeks have been difficult. Grief is funny like that. Like a lion stealthily hunting its prey, you never know when it’s going to sneak up and grip you again. Nathan loved Thanksgiving. It was his favorite holiday. He loved to eat.

Welcome to our blog and thank you for taking the time to let us share our thoughts with you. We hope in the posts to come that you’ll find encouragement, inspiration, and challenging content that is useful to you. However, for our inaugural post, we simply want to introduce ourselves and Our Hearts Are Home.