My Year of Firsts.....They Never End

While attending Jared's second Memorial service, the one held in Tennessee, I visited with some friends and the family of one of Jared's former soccer coaches.  His coach had taken his life a year before Jared. His young daughter and I were talking and in a shaky voice from behind tears she said, I just finished my year of firsts.  I had to ask her to repeat it, but when she did it finally hit me, I am just beginning my year of firsts!  How will I make it through this?  WTF?  Someone take me out of this nightmare!  PLEASE GOD TAKE ME NOW!

Well in just 9 short days I will complete that calendar year.  What I have come to realize is this, my firsts without Jared will not end on June 14, 2015.  Is that a good thing?  Is that a bad thing?  Is it just a thing?  See this year has thrown a few things that I wouldn't have thought of a year ago.  I never thought I would have started a foundation, talked in front of groups of people at schools and organizations.  I never thought I would become an advocate for the AFSP.  I also never thought many other things.  I never thought I could look at another picture of him and not cry.  I never thought I would be able to smile again.  I never thought happiness would ever be obtainable again.

While the year of firsts are coming to an end, it hit me this week that my "firsts" without Jared are really just beginning.  I had my first holidays and birthdays and all that we think about.  Yet I have many more firsts to go through.  I also have been through my first graduation that Jared should have been a part of and will attend my second tomorrow.  I have the first yearbook he should have been in as a senior, but he is remember on a memory page.  I still have to go through lots of first.  The first baby will be born this fall into the family that will never know Jared, only through pictures and stories will the child come to know him.  The first funeral since Jared's.  I pray that doesn't happen anytime soon.  The first new car.  The first vacation without him.  We have done that one.  We actually did that during the week of Easter, our wedding anniversary, and what would have been Jared's 18th birthday.  Our first puppy that never met Jared.  I have done that one too.  First new job since he passed, first trip home, first friend getting married, first friend having a baby, first, first, first.  They simply will never stop.

When I realized this I almost had a grief attack.  Then a calmness came over me.  It is ok. He will see everything, even if we can't see him.  It is ok, because as long as we continue to have those firsts, we are still alive.  It is ok, because Jared wants us to be happy and enjoy life.  It is ok.

I do look forward to the first time I see his beautiful face again.  I do look forward to the first time I feel him near me again.  I do look forward to the first time I smell him again.  I do look forward to the first......

I am not sure what other firsts are on the horizon, but I know I will be ok.  With Jared as my Keeper, I am ok.  I will continue to listen and be guided through my life by God and Jared.  Jared continues to say it is not my turn, so until it is, there is work to be done.