A Sweet yet Sad Day

Today marks a full decade since my brother Raimond died. In some ways it seems like yesterday and in others it seems so incredibly long ago. What really weighs heavy on my heart sometimes is the fact that my memories of him and his life are cut off so abruptly. I distinctly remember where my life was at when Raimond died - 18 and about to graduate high school and go off to college. With him, he was 21 and about to become a father. Looking back now, so much has happened in my life since then and sometimes it is just so sad to think about the fact that he will never know about it or be a part of it. Of course, the biggest example of this right now is the impending arrival of his very first niece, who will be left with only stories of her uncle.

What is really special to both of us is that we have decided to have our baby's middle name be Rai in honor and memory of her uncle (and of course, on days like today combined with these pregnancy hormones, just thinking about her middle name makes me emotional...) As today is such a bittersweet day, we usually keep it pretty low key. Marshall wrote me a beautiful song for Valentine's Day (which I will cherish forever) and I made him a Build A Bear with our baby's heartbeat inside. We are also planning on going out to dinner tonight, but we will see how that goes as Marshall has been throwing up all night and is currently in the bedroom laying down flat on his face. I really hope he starts to feel better as being sick and nauseous is terrible! Either way, this is just another day in the many that I have had the pleasure of living and I do appreciate days like today as reminders not to take the small stuff so seriously.