Today is eight years since Brian died which is hard to believe some days.   No matter what my mind always replays those memories but this year has been a little different because I’ve noticed that Hayden is also remembering him a little more the past few weeks and keeps mentioning memories he has.   He was 8 when his dad died and was also the last one of us to see or speak to him that early morning that he left for the airport but never flew anywhere.   He is now 16.     The other day he said he often thinks about what life would be like if his dad was still here and what their relationship would be like.   I often wonder that as well.    Haley was 4 when her daddy died and is now on the verge of 13.  She really doesn’t remember much of him.  The past 8 years have gone by in a flurry. Full of grief, joy, new adventures, raising kids, mourning, learning, growing, disciplining, making decisions, etc.   To say that I am a different person than I was 8 years ago is of course an understatement.   It’s a term coined “post traumatic growth”.    Yes, I have PTSD, like when I got woken from sleep last week by a phone call of a man saying he was “so and so with the Overland Park Police Department”.    Hayden has been home on quarantine due to a covid exposure and had gone to McDonalds drive through with my permission.   He had rolled through a stop sign and instead of him calling me when he got pulled over it was the officer.   He wanted to confirm that I knew he was out and also that he had permission to be driving a rental car.   This would be triggering for me anytime but especially days before the anniversary of Brian’s death which involves those famous scenes of police informing me of bad news.  It took me a while to calm myself down.   It wasn’t the news of Hayden getting a ticket for running a stop sign (welcome to parenting a new driver and also why he was driving a rental car in the first place–long story), rather the abruptness of that unexpected call that took me right back to that night/day that he was gone and all the feelings that come with that.    So amidst the PTSD that shows up in lots of different ways, I have also experienced a large amount of post traumatic growth in so many areas of my life that are directly related to my trauma and losing Brian.     I see life differently and I think differently about life and how we treat other people and death and life after death and what happens to our souls, etc.    It’s pretty woo woo for a lot of people but for me everything that I have learned has given me great peace that I really don’t think I would have had unless I experienced what I have.  Now I have started meditating and manifesting and I’m really on fire.    Just ask my sister who I excitedly inform on an almost daily basis.

So Hayden was listening to a song the other day that he said dad used to always play and he was curious what songs he had on his iTunes account.   Brian had a wide range of taste in music like I do and we talked about him listening to Christian worship music one minute and then somewhat vulgar rap the next. Haha.  Totally Brian.    After this conversation I pulled out Brian’s old iphone 4 (which looks and feels so tiny next to our modern phones) that I keep in a small chest with other memories of him.   I had to throw a charger in there too because we don’t have those types of chargers now.      Anyway, once the phone was charged when I went to his iTunes app this is what popped up and was the last thing he was listening too.   I’m sure I’ve seen that before but it just made me so sad to know he was really trying in those last days but we didn’t know in time, or he didn’t let us know.  Just seems like a really unnecessary death, like any death is actually necessary though I know. 

I also flipped through the pics on his phone camera roll again which is always a bad idea but couldn’t help myself and stopped when I saw pics of this chair that he took over 8 years ago.  He would often take pics of things when he was out and about to show me later that he thought might be good in our house.  At the time he was wanting a new chair in our master bedroom which we never got but just a few months ago I got two new chairs to put in my office which is really supposed to be a dining room but that’s beside the point and lo and behold if those chairs I bought aren’t the same model and brand of chair with same colors and an almost identical pattern as the one he took a pic of over 8 years ago.  Like barely different.  Crazy to me that all these years later I would pick out almost the same thing.  I’m sure I saw that picture in his phone years ago so maybe it was in my subconscious when I saw these but still weirded me out  and excited me at the same time.   Like he’s still helping to pick things out or he really knew my taste so took a pic of something he thought I would like and years later I bought them myself.  Interesting to me at least.

Hayden seems more like his dad every year.    His girlfriend has a birthday next week and Hayden has been gathering, buying and making all kinds of things to put together in a basket for her complete with captioned pictures and all kinds of things she loves which is so sweet for a 16 year old and exactly like his father!    Brian frequently would make gift baskets for holidays and such with items he would hand pick.  Not just buy a pre-made basket somewhere like I might do.    I told Hayden how his dad used to do that and how he put so much thought into gift giving.   It’s cool to see those same traits emerge in his children when they have no idea he would do stuff like that.    All the Kolb boys actually have certain characteristics or mannerisms that are totally Brian.   He lives on in this way and I try to appreciate it and the memories when I catch them.    So here is to another year of surviving, and even thriving.   My new business is starting to take off and I just know deep down that he would be super proud and excited.    We miss you Brian.   xoxo

(this blog hosting site will not let my pics upload so I gave up on trying but did add them in the comments of my Fearless Widow facebbook page)