Month: May 2016

Dear Lauren,

Hi Boo Boo Boo Boo Boo! I miss you so much. I can’t believe it’s been a month since you’ve left us. Not day, hour, or even minute goes by where I don’t think about you. Whether it’s looking into Evan’s eyes, looking around the house full of stuff we purchased together,  listening to music, or even just a beautiful blue sky there are millions of things that make me think of you.

I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to throw random pictures randomly into my letter to you. You know how much I love looking at us!

The other day I channeled my inner “you.” While driving home from visiting you at the cemetery, I blasted my “Hip Hop BBQ” Pandora station. As I proudly displayed my semi-awesome (but nowhere near as awesome as yours) rap skills, a fun memory popped into my head. Do you remember when we were driving up to Jacksonville last year for Memorial Weekend and we were blasting rap music? Then you realized that we were saying all the bad words, which we shouldn’t be because “Fig” was always listening to us while he was in your belly and we had to be good influences. So you decided to continue to listen to the rap, but to self-sensor everything. Those were the funniest rap lyrics I’ve ever heard.

That memory popping in my head while I was driving home made me laugh while rapping, then it made me sad. I hope you were looking down laughing at me as I probably became the only person in history to rap:

“3, 6, 9 damn you’re fine move it to you sing it to me one mo time
Get low, get low [6x]
To the window (to the window), to the wall (to the wall)

while crying.

I miss you so much. Every time I close my eye I re-live our last few months together. Our cruise, our first Christmas, our New Year’s Eve in the hospital, the laughs and smiles we shared even when times were tough. Seeing your smile every time Evan was brought to you was amazing. I think the hardest thing to re-live is our last few days together. I am so thankful that we got to say “I love you” to each other one last time before you fell asleep. I am so thankful that I was holding your hand for your last squeeze before you left us here. I will cherish that moment forever, no matter how much it hurts to re-live it.

I miss you, but I am so happy that you are no longer in pain. I miss you, but I am so happy that you are up in Heaven, watching over Evan and everyone else. A lot of people tell me how they feel you everyday. The Girls sense you a lot, they love it when it seems like you’ve taken over a DJ at a club and control the music for them!

You touched so many people in your way too short of time on earth, even some that you’ve never met!  I’ve asked everyone to email some of their favorite stories with you to the email address that we set up for Evan. As he gets older I’ll read some to him, and when he’s old enough I’ll turn the email address over to him so he can learn more about you himself!

I made you a promise that I will raise him to the best of my abilities, and I will live up to to that promise. I promised you that he would know you, as well as he possibly can, and I will live up to that promise. I know you didn’t want him to grow up without his mother and in a way, he won’t. We have so many people who cannot wait to tell him all about how amazingly awesome you are. You will always be a part of his life. Of my life. Of Our life.

I started packing today. I know I already told you about the move back to Michigan. I know we were planning on moving there next year, but it’s going to be easier on Evan and I if we move sooner. Evan will have all of his baby friends, and I’ll have my close friends to sit around the fire with. Plus it is wayyyyy cheaper to live in Michigan than Florida! Don’t worry boo boo, we’ll come visit all the time!

I’m so happy that you convinced me to buy that camcorder. While we only used it a few times, I have those videos that I can show to Evan so he can see you interacting with him as a baby! I was watching them all the other day. This is one of my favorites, do you remember this day??

Anywho, I won’t keep you much longer. I know you have to get back to showing Tupac and Biggie how to rap and twerk. I’ve said it a million times, and I’ll say it a million more: I love you so much, and I miss you. Thank you for the happiness you brought to me. The laughter you gave me. The miracle of Evan. Thank you. Thank you for everything.

Love Always,

Michael “Boo Boo Boo”

I was lucky enough to have Lauren as a date for two weddings in Michigan. (I also crashed a wedding that she was at in Florida, but that’s a different story.) Part of me felt a little bad for her, because both weddings I stood up in, which means she sat alone.

The first wedding was in November 2014. It took a lot of convincing (mainly on how to make it work without her missing any time at work), but after asking her a few different times, she decided to go with me. It was one of the coldest Novembers that I can remember. I suppose that could be all in my head, seeing as the past 5 months had been spent in Florida and Louisiana, but it was still freezing. I felt so bad for Lauren! I picked her up from the airport around midnight, as she took the last plane out after work that day. We took the scenic route to our hotel, so she could see 8 mile. She wanted to take pictures of the street sign to send it to some of her friends.

The next morning was the wedding. We woke up a bit early, so I could bring her to National Coney Island so that she could experience the deliciousness that I had told her about before. After breakfast we headed back to the hotel so I could complete my groomsman duties and she could get ready.

A few days before the wedding I warned her that she was going to meet my family while in Michigan. What I didn’t realize until the night of the wedding reception is that she was going to sit at the same table as them. Lauren was a champ though! She held her own during the questioning stage from my mother. I had told my sister Emily to shut it down if it started getting too crazy. I also used any excuse I could think of to go visit the table.

That night was full of laughter, dancing, drinking, and eating. It was amazing. The next morning was not as amazing. We flew back down to Florida the next working, with our flight departing at 6:00am. That my friends was not fun, not fun at all.

HOWEVER! When we landed back in Florida, it was officially Lauren’s birthday celebration. I’ll go into that detail another time.

After we landed back in Florida. Smiles for our excitement for the birthday celebrations to come!

The second wedding was in July 2015. Just over a month after Evan was born we took our first family flight up to Michigan. By then everyone either knew Lauren from the first wedding, or just from the stories I posted online. Everyone was so excited to see her and Evan.

Once again I was standing up in the wedding. This time around Lauren was sat with friends, so I didn’t have to worry about running interference as much. We brought Evan to the reception for the first hour, then sent him home with my parents so Lauren and I could play! We got our drink on, our dance on, and our photo booth on! The entire time she had a smile on her face. You would never know that she was just in the hospital three weeks before then!

Lauren had the most contagious smile around. It was impossible to be mad around her. It was impossible to be mad at her! It wasn’t fair, it caused me to lose all of the few arguments we every had.

Evan has her smile, her eyes, and her laughter. Hopefully he’ll also have her dance skills, because he doesn’t want mine. Everyday I look at him and see her at the same time. That’s the only thing keeping me going right now. I know it’ll get better eventually. I’m nowhere near that though. I’m currently at the stage where every time I close my eyes I re-live the last 6 months and ask “what could I have done differently?”

Thank you all again for everything. I love you all. If I could, I’d visit you all and give you a hug and a high five.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day. Evan and I will go spend some time with her at the cemetery, then probably go for a nice walk. I’ll tell him some stories, then show him the video below of the two of them laughing up a storm back in January.

“Good people drink good beer.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

“I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.”
― W.C. Fields

So as many of you know, Lauren was a wine person. However, she did not discriminate. She was always more than happy to drink a beer with me, or a make us some of her amazing mixed drinks. I thought I knew drinking…then I met Lauren. She could take one look at you and know what drink you needed to either match your mood or fix it up.
In my last post I mentioned that we turned a lot of TV shows into drinking games. I went into her phone where she kept them so I could share them with you. So now, whenever you are watching Modern Family or Impractical Jokers, you can play the game we played!

IMPRACTICAL JOKERS DRINKING GAME
Take ONE Drink Every Time…..
Someone looks directly into the camera
Refuse to complete a task
Does something embarrassing in front of a large group of people

SAL
Falls down laughing
Acts feminine
Is grossed out by something
Says “Sorry”
Says “Oh no”, “Oh man”, or “Are you serious?”

JOE
Noses somebody or something
Yells for Larry
Makes up a word
Shows his stomach

MURR
Covers his mouth laughing
Gets called a “Creep” or “Ferret”
Has to touch somebody
Gives someone an evil look

Q
Wears a hat
Wears an American Flag scarf
Calls someone by a physical attribute (“mustache”)
Gets called Rosie O’Donnell
Talks about being single or his cats

Take TWO Drinks Every Time
Someone breaks character to laugh

Modern Family Drinking Game
-Gloria says “JAY”
-Manny is wearing a hat (2 drinks if it’s a fedora)
-Manny says he has a crush on a girl (drink twice if he is going to do something about it!)

-Cam refers to growing up on a farm
-Cam uses his hands when he talks
-Cam freaks out while parenting Lily
-Mitchell rolls his eyes
-Lily is onscreen and being held

-Claire points her finger
-Phil makes a pun
-Luke hurts himself
-Alex insults Haley’s intelligence

She taught me so much in our much too short time together, and not just about drinking. I miss her so much.

When I was going through her phone for the games I also came across something she wrote about me when she was going through treatments. I broke down as I read it. I’m going to share it here, not to toot my own horn or anything like that…just because to me, it means so much to me that she didn’t want to forget these things.

So I never forget what Mike has done for me..
He treats me like a princess, he makes me laugh and he makes me happy.
He doesn’t always like what I like and I love that!
He tries so hard to make me happy and he really does
He gives me my time and space
He says he doesn’t mind my snoring– lets hope that’s actually true
I have fun with him… Always

He also wrote me a wonderful letter telling me how much he loves me
For my birthday he got me a gift everyday for seven days which included
A Game of Throne figurine
A beer game
A beautiful MK watch
A beautiful “karma” necklace
A wonderful arrangement delivered from 1800 flowers
My favorite candy and scratch off tickets– lots of scratch off tickets through out our relationship actually
A desk calendar
A beautiful MK purse
Cards Against Humanity– and a bunch of expansion packs
These cute lids for mason jars that I wanted
A couples massage!
A night in an awesome hotel suite
Tickets to go see Hannibal Buress and dinner
An upgrade to first class on our way back from Michigan
A private flight up and down the coast– I got to fly the plane 🙂
A birthday dinner with all of my friends

On top of all that birthday stuff he also got me:
A Redwings shirt
A car phone charger
A regular phone charger
When he missed me he sent me the pearl of love necklace
For Christmas he sent me an early Christmas present- my 32″ Samsung TV! It’s awesome!

And I can’t forget all the awesome dates we’ve been on and things we have done together

 

People ask me all the time how I’m doing. I answer the same way every time. I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t. Some minutes I’m fine, some minutes I feel like the world is crashing down on my chest. Luckily Evan seems to sense when I need a smile or a hug, and he always delivers.

Some things I can do “normally” with no issues. Some things I go to do, but can’t, because I feel a break down coming. And some times something that I did normally yesterday I can’t do today. The other day I couldn’t watch Netflix. Weird, I know.

My grief therapist gave me a sheet of “normal” grieving reactions. Out of the 50 or so items on the list, I think I’ve experienced 30+ of them so far.

People also ask me what they can do for me. Honestly, not much. Mainly please don’t get offended if I don’t answer your call. Or if I take two days to respond to your text. Some days I don’t feel like communicating at all.  Some days I only want to talk to certain people. Or text. Or facebook message.
At the same time, please don’t be afraid to reach out. Even if I don’t answer, it helps getting texts, calls, messages, or even cards in the mail.

This entry has been somewhat of a downer…I promise the next one will have more fun stories and memories 🙂

The happiest, most beautiful woman in the world and the luckiest bald bearded dude

 

 

As many of you know, my beautiful wife Lauren passed away after a serious battle against cancer. She had been out of work since December, and I had been home taking care of her. She passed away without life insurance, so all of the funeral costs were out of pocket. We have been blown away by the outpouring of support of donations and love. Thank you all so much. If you have a chance, please visit our GoFundMe fundraiser (https://www.gofundme.com/knmv7f7q) and give it a share. Any funds that we raise over the cost of the funeral and bills received during Lauren’s treatment will be put in a college fund for our son Evan. Thank you all again.