Home to an empty house…

(wrote this on the airplane)

Today the girls and I are headed home from Hawaii. It has been a wonderful vacation full of smiles and laughter. We swam in the pool and ocean. We jumped in the waves, boogie boarded and saw sea turtles. We toured the Dole Plantation, did the world's largest maze and swam in a waterfall. We went to a Luau, hula'd on stage and shopped in the International Marketplace. Every now and then I had to stop myself from saying "Can't wait to tell Daddy about this!" or "oh, Daddy would like this!" While snorkeling Hanauma Bay, Marley and I went out alone and as I watched her snorkel (kinda gracefully, I might add) I choked up and wanted to cry. I know he is watching her from Heaven, but it's just not the same and I know he would have been so proud to see how brave she was to go out so far. I also know he would've loved to watch Presley jump into the pool and swim back and forth over and over again all by herself. 

So now, we are headed home. And there is no one there to greet us. It sort of makes me feel like "why go home?" And I know the real answer is that I have all my friends to come home to and a wonderful job and that is what keeps me going, but having no one home makes the mind wander. I often think that I know why widows and widowers relocate after losing their spouses. It's hard to return to where we had so many good (and not so good) memories but it's also difficult to leave. The girls and I will eventually move out of the house. The house we've lived in for just a few years but the last house Neil lived in. The house he started to die in. The house where Marley and Presley will remember their daddy the most. 

On our last day we took a catamaran ride straight out from the beach. Marley laid on the front with her cousins and had THE BIGGEST smile on her face the whole time. I love that she is so adventurous. The joy in her face reinforced the feeling inside me that she is going to be ok. Ok from all the tragedy that she has been through. I know it could be worse, but I don't want to focus on that right now. For right now, the pain she's felt in her short 7 years is plenty, and seeing her so incredibly happy and full of joy eased my heart pain and worry just a little bit. 

And that felt good.