UK game 2012: 10/20/12

 

The Shelton Family and us at lunch.

 

Me and the girls loving the CATS (even though they are terrible)

 

Future Delta Gammas at the DG house at UK

Emily and Morgan love hanging with Brian, Bruce and Brad at the game.

Tailgating with my girls. Hannah will get to go next year.

So I am way late with this picture update but nonetheless. We finished up art therapy that morning and went out to lunch with some dear friends that we met at Norton Hospital. The Shelton's appointment was always at 11:00 am while Emily and Morgan was at 10:00. So they came early to and we stayed late to hang with them. The Shelton's lost their dad about two months ago to brain cancer. We have a lot of unfortunate things in common but a wonderful friendship has blossomed over time and we are thankful to have them in our lives.

 

After we finished up at lunch we headed to Lexington to tailgate with the family as we have done for many years. I thought that being on campus would be hard but if you can remember it wasn't the first time I had to go to the annual event with just me and the girls. Last year Craig was planning to go but with a last minute stomach issues he opted to stay home and we went with out him (sobbing most of the way down I64). Although it was a relief to not have that stress it was difficult to be on campus without him. It was hard to look at the Blanding tower and have great memories of freshmen year and not have him there to share it with him. His fraternity house is no longer the Lambda Chi house, another fraternity is in there, but the library that we walked to together still sits between the two houses. Some parts of campus are really different than when we were there but it still jogged great memories. When I think of how sick Craig was then it makes sense that he is no longer with us but if you travel back in time 15 years then my life makes no sense and quite frankly the week after the trip was really hard. I enjoyed the game and the tailgate but to think back to all that has changed since we walked that campus was a lot to digest. It really took my breathe away. I wish I would have blogged more that week. This always help work through some of those unsettling feelings but I didn't. I should have. I have learned that I need to take the time to digest good memories as well as the bad memories of the past 2 years. The healing process is not about just sitting around and crying it really about taking the time to reflect on the good and the bad. My goal has always been to walk through the fire rather than around b/c that is what is going to make the person that God wants me to be. Taking time for myself to just think/blog/chat is all apart of that.

We did have a great time. They girls love being with family and I feel very fortunate to have such a wonderful group of guys for them to hang out with. They have wonderful role models of Godly men all around them and I am really grateful for that. And we can only assume that basketball season will be much better than football season. Go CATS!