All Souls Day

Rest In Peace!!

Douglas M Barlay

we are almost at our one year anniversary of loosing our dear husband and father.
i find myself trying to remember exactly what we were doing each day.
trying to remember the last Mass we attended together.
the movies that doug and koen would watch over and over again in our bed.
what milestones katharine was working toward.
how the big girls were growing up quick

i found myself in the garage this morning going thru a tool box.
i actually dumped on accident a tray of stuff....
i laughed as i could hear him in my head shouting (not harshly) 'what are you looking for sheri?'
he never liked his stuff being touched...
Good Lord that man had more 'stuff'

i like it when i find a scrap of paper with his handwriting on it.
when it was strong and deliberate...
not light and sketchy as it got toward the end

i opened a box of feet...
Feet...
who has boxes of feet????
my darling hubby did.


i am a wee bit desperate to find his bowling ball.
his buddies are having a get together at a local bowling alley in a couple of weeks
and i would love to display it...or have each guy take a throw with it.
it was left handed of course
and yellow.
i have no idea where he got it....
or how long we had it...
i'm quite sure it made its way around the world.

mr. k is getting so big now.
i find myself staring at him and then talking to Doug in my head.
saying things like:
'he has your knees'
'can you believe how protective he is of katharine'
'wonder if he'll drive like you'
'good thing he is left handed...cuz he'll be able to use tools like you'
'how beautiful our children are...and can you believe how smart they are?'

i'm wondering if this time a year ago if we were in the hospital, i'm pretty sure we were living with the hum of the oxygen tank by now.
i think we knew that blood clots had formed
and we had begun that second by second watch to be sure a clot hadn't gone to his lungs.
little did we know it already had.
i think i still thought that we'd be getting thru thanksgiving and christmas and wondering if we'd enjoy spring together.
i never imagined that we only had two weeks left.


i looked back at this blog..

we were enjoying a visit from one of Douglas' classmates, Tom and then we enjoyed going to vote together...the first time ever that we voted for the same candidate!


the tears come easier these days...i'm figuring it is because the anniversary draws near..i'm hoping that goes away soon...the tears i mean....it just wrecks my mascara:)