Bummer of a birthday...can you help me?

So today is my birthday. I am once again turning 28 years young...and will always be 28! My 28th birthday was possibly my best birthday and turned into one of the most defining years of my life thus far. Since then, birthdays have just come and gone. I am not a big birthday person. I do love a party and seeing friends and family but birthdays are just a marker to pass time in my life.

This year, I made absolutely no plans for this special day. I was thinking I might have a special dinner with my hubby and the girls and that's it. Then the week before this birthday was a doozy to say the least.

First, earlier last week, our best friend was in a motorcycle accident. He's okay now but he did have major surgery to fix a broken left femur and broken collar bone. I spent a lot of time at the hospital with his fiancé one of my best friends. She had sat with me years before in the hospital with my late husband. It brought back a lot of memories...some good and some sad. It was a rough week. He is out of the hospital and I just got off the phone with him. I know they have a long trek but he's on the mend. Please pray for them if you think of it. They have months of recovery ahead and hope to have him walking down the aisle to marry his beautiful bride in just under 2 months.

Then Saturday hit and the Waldo Canyon fire was endangering our city. I watched the smoke roll in as I sat at the hospital visiting on Saturday. Obviously a lot has changed since Saturday. It was a forest fire and turned on our city. Many loved ones are evacuated or on pre-evacuation status. Some have lost homes. Some we not able to get to their homes in time and all their possessions and some animals were left behind. Life looked gloomy on Tuesday.

BUT, I just want to say how proud I am of my community. We have joined together and everyone is giving a lot! It's amazing.

This morning, however, I woke up and allowed myself to cry for the first time since the fire happened. If you know me, you know I don't like to cry a lot. I am the strong one. You may also know that I will, in a quiet moment, give into that pain and take time to just let it out. Strange that the day I got there was the morning of my birthday. All I could think is how can I make this a good day.

This is what I want...

I want to donate my birthday to the Waldo Canyon Fire. 

Here's how:

I would love to hear stories from everyone about ways they are helping this community. If you are doing something, have done something or want to do something, will you consider sharing your story with me for my birthday?

I want to hear stories about all types of things. Such as:

• Financial give to Care & Share or The Red Cross
• This is a great way for my out of town friends and family to help this community
• Donating items or time to charities
• Goodwill is taking donations
• Care & Share is taking food at their location as well as the World Arena & Walgreens locations
• Praying in a city wide gathering joining with the community
• Many local churches are hosting pray meetings around town
• Taking in evacuees
• I have heard about some going as far as Littleton and Pueblo
• Preparing to take in evacuees
• Helping local evacuation efforts at the 4 Shelters in town
• Catholic Charities was looking for breakfast items to feed people at Cheyenne Mountain HS as well as volunteers.
• Give some relief to families of the firefighters you may know
• Take a meal
• Make a play date for kids
• Just don't show up at the fire station to donate (that doesn't help them)
• Be creative and find little ways to help in any way you can!
• Have fun and share your stories!

Take pictures and share with me all your stories. I would love a day or week full of stories about how people are reaching out to this amazing community.

You can email me at morrisonmail999@gmail.com or share on my FB page or in a private FB message. You can comment on this page (just know that comments are moderated by me so they don't appear right away).

I would love to compile stories and share a blog in the future of all the ways people have giving to this amazing community. 

Please join me and celebrating my birthday by finding a way to give back! It would be the most amazing gift and might just turn this bummer of a birthday into the best birthday ever!

He should be 35

Last Friday, March 23rd, would have been my first husband's birthday. He should have been 35. He's not...

He turned 30 and then stopped. Just 3 months before his 31st birthday, he passed away. Actually he celebrated his 30th birthday in the ICU. I remember waking to 15+ ICU nurses and techs singing to him. I laid on my cot, facing the window and cried.

Garrett's last birthday celebration was in the hospital. 30 is supposed to be a mile stone, a moment in one's life he will always remember. I guess in someways it is...just for me, not him.

Each year, the girls and I get a Boston Cream Pie (his favorite dessert) and have a piece in his honor. The first year without him, many friends and family member joined us for a big celebration...we called it his "Forever 30" party. The second year, it was just me & the girls celebrating. Now the past two year, we have cake with our family and though it's weird for Ryan and the kids, the kids secretly look forward to having Boston Cream Pie.

This year, I couldn't eat one bite. We had the cake twice and I served everyone else. I couldn't even get it to my plate. I laid in bed and cried. I cried, "He should be 35 but he's not." I was supposed to grow old with him. I was supposed to have a lifetime with him. I laid there and just cried...because he should be 35!

Over the past several years, I have grieved so many losses. I lost my husband...and his family. Then I started loosing our friends one by one. Most of his friends have moved on. I woke up one morning and realized I have very few people around me that remember him, not the sick him...HIM. My girls don't seem to really remember him anymore. They parrot back the same stories I have told over and over. There are so many stories... So many stories that are just lost. We have a couple dozen pictures of him (that aren't our wedding pictures). We have a really short video he made in the hospital. Most of my last pictures of him got stolen on a disc. He's fading and I can't seem to hold on to him for them.

Celebrating his 27th birthday with friends at Gunther Toodies in  Denver

He should have been 35. We should have had Boston Cream Pie together. We should have been talking about our future. We should have been celebrating the girls milestone. He should be 35.

This is our last picture together before he got sick...and it's not even focused!

Celebration of a 2 year old!

I feel so blessed to have my nephew Aiden. He's a beautiful two year old boy. I was blessed to be in the room when his rock star mama gave birth to him naturally. It is truly hard to believe two years have gone by since that early morning call to welcome him into the world.

Yesterday we celebrated his 2nd birthday. It was full of family, friends and some two year old boys. Watching Aiden interact with other two year old made me wonder a few things.

Was there a time when life was so hard to be told not to run off the cliff in the back yard?

Was there a time when a ball on string being thrown ensued high fives?

Was there a time when it was just the best to know you and your friends all have the same cartoon car on your shoes and there was a choo-choo on a shirt?

Could it have ever been that beating an over sized Sponge Bob to get candy was a highlight of the day and then not really know what to do when candy spilled out of him?

Was there a time when a sucker filled an entire mouth?

How difficult must it have been to have to open yet another present from another loved one?

What a wonderful life to have family and friend surround you to celebrate your life.

Life is good when you're two! I can't wait to see what will be wonderful about being three!

Happy birthday buddy. I look forward to celebrating many more birthdays with you!