Category: Personal

Parenting, Personal

Preschool: This is How It Starts

Ashley

Today, I took you to school for the first time. I was nervous about how you would do. Would you protest when I tried to leave without you? Would you cry when I was no longer in your eyesight? Will you make friends, be kind, and always try your best? (Spoiler alert: you did great!)

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The thought of sending you off into the world is crushing. But each moment since we brought you home has inched us closer and closer to this. From here on out you will need me less than you did the day before. But I know you’re ready, even if I’m not. After spending every day together for the last three years, what parent could ever truly be ready for this?

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I’ve learned that while you may feel like you’re mine, the truth is that you never really were. You are meant to be shared with the world, to be your own unique person with dreams that far exceed any dreams I could ever possibly have for you.

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So on this day as I leave you in a classroom for the very first time, I promise you I will always be your home base. I will always be in your corner. And I will always believe in you.

Loving you is the easiest thing in the world.

Personal

Signs from Those We Love

Ashley

Do you believe in “signs”? Like the kind that are sent from up above, the universe, or loved ones who have passed?

I do, and now I have proof.

Two weeks ago we set out on a family vacation to visit my parents new home in South Carolina, but it unexpectedly turned into a cross-country road trip when my grandfather suddenly passed away. We knew he was sick; he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer the week before, but none of us expected him to leave us so quickly.

Prior to the news, we went about our trip as normal, surrounding ourselves with the ones we love as we knew he would have wanted.

It was in our final day exploring Charleston that we drove past a restaurant with a literal sign that can only be described as serendipitous.

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You see, my grandfather was always called “Paw Paw”. And we saw this sign on the last day that he was alive. It was like he was there, smiling with us and approving of our little adventure of making memories and loving one another. He passed early the next morning, and we hopped in to the car and drove the 11 hours to Ohio.

Life is unexpected, and difficult. But it is full of beauty when you’re patient enough to look for it, and I’ll always keep looking.