Dear Hugh, It has been a long time!!!

Dear Hugh,

It has been a long time since I have written to you and after eating at the Pho place which I traveled via golf cart, I just had to share my day with you!!! The Pho place made me think of you and how you loved the ritual of fixing your food and how by the time you got it all like you wanted it, we were all finished!!!!  Bless your heart, you liked to take it slow on EVERYTHING and not just asking me to marry you. You took life real slow.  I wish you had been slow to exit but that was not in our control and I sure loved the time I had with you. I still relish it and thank God for it and share it with others.

I started a blog called My Happy Ass life after you left and then when COVID hit, I started a live cast each day to give people something happy and joyful to think on.  You would be proud of it. I make sure that I have something to share each and every day at 7:45.  I also turned it into a podcast with the help of a wonderful lady named Ashley!!!!  You would really like her.  She is kind and creative and very soft spoken and seems to go at a slower pace so for sure you would like her.

Guess what, not sure if I told you but I am sure you know!!!! Britt released her first poetry book, called We are all Wildflowers. You were her inspiration on several of her poems. I can pick them out in a flat minute because she really has you down in words.  

I share on Happy Ass so many of the lessons I learned from you and the things we did as a couple to stay strong as a couple. People love that you are called my keeper husband and that you called God, Dad!!!!  I love to tell stories about how kind and generous you were to me and to all of God’s kids. In fact many of my messages are about how we are to love God’s kids.

I do lots of stuff on instagram too!!! You may think that is silly but I suspect you would have loved it too because you always encourage me to be unashamedly me!!  I still tell stories and share pictures of our life together. Doing so keeps you alive just a little bit and that makes my heart grateful.

So when I was meeting with my insta coach Jessica she asked me what were the times that are the hardest without you?  She wanted to know was it the holidays, the special days?  And for me it is the ordinary life days that I miss you the most. I miss you telling me that I am adorable and that you believe I am an angel. I miss you telling me my mama would be proud!!!  I miss you watching Downton Abbey and calling me My Lady and I calling you My Lordship!!! Ha Ha we know I would not have survived in that era! I would have been burned at the stake!!!  Blasphemy, that girl thinking she can do anything a man can do!!!!  

I miss kneeling with you beside the bed in gratitude and sometimes in deep concern for our kids. They are doing GREAT by the way!!!! You would be so proud of all of them. They are SOBER!!!!!! The seeds you planted finally bloomed and blossomed and hear and see you in them all the time.

I still get my wicker basket down with all your letters and I smile and I cry and I thank God that even though you are no longer here, your love for me and others lingers.  I used the one this past week that said God is either NOWHERE or NOW HERE. All you have to do is rearrange the letters and God is there. That is the best way to arrange my life so that God is always NOW HERE!!!!

I promise I will keep on trying to make you and mama proud, but I sure miss you. I don’t have my biggest cheerleader and supporter any more so I try to memorize the things you said and thankfully I can go back over all the words that you wrote to me to carry me through.

The full moons still make everyone that loves you think of you!!!!  Opey still writes a gratitude note to you in his journal!!! So many people still tell me that their sobriety began at our table!!!!  You have changed so many lives and the biggest one is mine.

I really miss you!!! I really do!!!!

Grateful,

Karen

Ps. I am thankful that God saw fit to let you be in my life even if only for a little while because it has made a lasting impact on my life!!!!

Pps. Dang I still have not met my word quota today!!!!  I am only at 1565 and I am supposed to be at 1666!!!  I would explain but you probably already know!!! I guess I better write another affirmation!!!

Ppps. I know there is no such thing as 3 p’s and an s but guess what I went back and added some words so…… Ta Da, I am over my word count for the day!!! Again, I will explain later.