My sister said it best with her blog title, "Is there an expiration date for feelings?". I went back to work the day after I flew in with the kids, and seemed fine. Mind in a fog, but fine. Saturday I worked over 13 hours (no sitting) and found that serving was not as easy as it used to be, I couldn't seem to focus straight and I was "slow". Sunday I went to work and was in the bar serving, and after I dropped someone's calazone (it takes 15-20 minutes to make) I just couldn't seem to keep my thoughts straight. I was forgetting things, taking too long because I had to double back on my trips, and just a space-case. I literally felt a "fog" over my mental state. My co-worker was awesome and was really acting like a teammate and without any prompt from me, was picking up where he saw I needed help. Finally, I told him why I was so "out-of-it" and he empathically understood...he had the same thing happen to him once and he had got the call on his way in to work...that was the absolute worst work day of his life. Anyway, later an associate came to work and wanted me to share a drink with her so I did (after work of course) and following that we met some co-workers of mine at a local sports bar. It turns out that a co-worker had lost his son some years ago on the same day as Jon's death. As he grieved and I comforted him, he began to seek my grief. I only told him how my brother gave the best hugs in the world, and that I'll miss his, "I love you more". He wanted me to grieve, and when I didn't he complained that I was too strong and needed to relax and let others in. I decided it was time to go. I told him I grieve, but in my chosen times. He smiled. I left.

Chosen times? Obviously I can't do it well. My work is affected, my mental state is 'fogged" over, and my thoughts and emotions run from molasses slow to melted butter fast. How long is this acceptable? I want to get over this, but yet I want to hold onto my brother. I realized the other day while lying in bed that my brother was my chosen "alpha" in regards to my kids. Mark is their dad and their teacher of life, love, etc., but for the aggressive, outdoors, physical fit type-I had chosen Jon to lead them. Did I ever tell him this? No. Wish that I had? Yes. Mark is devoted and loves his kids more than life itself, there is no disputing this. Does he have a fierce passion for the outdoors that makes one deeply desire to share it with others and give them an intimate outlook on Nature? No, and that is okay, but I do want my kids to have this and it was in Jon that I had placed my hope for a man to teach them. Jon loved my kids, he adored them. Sometimes I have wondered, if we lived in OR would he have done it? Would the knowledge of my kids and what he meant to them been enough? Or was his pain just too deep? These are the "what if" questions that can not be focused on, and I know that reality is that I am in ND and nothing could have changed that. I made the choice to follow my husband, and that is all there is to that. I chose my married family, which is proper and right. Home is where your heart is, and maybe that is why I have no home though. I am trying to be in two places at once; I feel "at home" amongst my family in OR, but feel I should be with my family in ND.

I placed more on my brother than I had ever told him. I placed the teaching of the outdoors to my children, I leaned on him when ever I saw him, I sought great hugs from him (and always found them), I sought a feeling of comfort from him , and I gave him great responsibility in watching over my children as he played with them. I had copious amounts of trust in him. Maybe I placed too much on him, but I hope that I had given him back an equal share of love and strength. I told Liorah that I was surprised that his love for her was not enough to keep him from hurting her so much, and she said, "i thought he loved you more." And I was amazed. Honestly I do not think that he loved any one of us more, but I thought he would have felt a "commitment" to Liorah. He was one of Liorah's best best friends. However her statment has caused me to ponder, "What do I mean to my brother and sisters? How am I defined in their eyes? What is my value to their life?" What I want is: to be their strength when they feel weak, to be one of their best friends-feeling that they can share anything and everything with me, to have their trust and confidence, to be their solace and their energy. I value them SO much that I want them to have no doubt as to my passion for them. Jon has awoken that, for that I have to thank him.

Perhaps Jon awoke within all of us the desire to stand by each other with more fervent purpose and to be more accepting of one another, to verbalize our love and commitment to those in our life, and to show our passion for what we value in life. Perhaps our family would have slowly withered to tentative commitments, had he not awaken our senses to what family is and what it means. I wish that Jon was here to experience this awakening, I wish that I could say to him all the things he gave value to in my life, but now I'll have to convey that through how I act towards those that are left. This will take a bit of time, but hopefully when my mind clears I will have become better in my conveyance of my passions and my love to those in my life.

PS.
Had any other person in this family have done this, Jon would have been so pissed that he would have wanted to raise us from the dead just so that he could murder us! (lol)