Weddingbee boards

Recently the FH and I have been hit pretty hard. This is the first week in a month where we will not have gone to a wake or funeral. Week one, my cousins' grandfather (on the other side of their family) had passed away and our great-aunt went into the ICU. She had been battling ovarian cancer and had gotten pneumonia. The only chemo they could have given her to help she was allergic too (it almost killed her the first time she had it). Needless to say she passed away early the next week.

I was super close to her. From the time I was born until I was about 10, I was watched almost everyday by my grandmother, great-aunt and great-grandmother (the two greats lived together and only one street up from my grandmother). I don't know how I would have made it through my teenage years without her as she was the one I called when I had no idea what to do. We found out about the cancer last summer and when I got back from an out-of-state internship to go dress shopping I asked her and my grandmother to come with me and my great-aunt bought my veil for me.  I'm glad I'll have that veil and that she got to see my in my wedding dress but it will still be really hard not having her there.

The day of her funeral FH and I had to leave after the luncheon for a wedding in a different state. I held it together pretty well even during the petition "for those who have had or are battling cancer". The next day, which began the next week being it was Sunday, while on our way to brunch with some friends FH got a phone call saying his uncle had passed away.  We couldn't believe it. It just didn't seem possible that all this was happening. With FH's uncle it was sudden and unexpected. The next few days were a blur of unpacking, laundry and repacking.

While we were repacking we realized we had two completely different events to pack for- the funeral and...our couples shower that was planned for that upcoming weekend. We had told FH's mom and sister we would be ok with rescheduling it as we could see how it may be really hard for people to be there. They said no, that people would probably want something happy to look forward to. The shower actually turned out better than we thought, a lot more of FH's family were able to attend since they were in the area because of the funeral. We were just torn because we were happy they were there but sad about what happened that brought them into the area. 

My great-aunt was pretty sick the last few weeks and it really made me realize how little time there is to spend time with those we care about and even make amends with those we have had falling outs with. I knew for awhile that something was missing from my wedding for quite awhile and I finally realized it was an old best friend. We became friends in fourth grade but grew apart in college (we went to the same one) and I couldn't remember why (turns out she can't either) and I decided I wasn't going to completely let go of a once really strong friendship without a fight. As luck would have it she was missing our friendship too and she is now one of my bridesmaids! This turned out to be a good thing for FH too because another bridesmaid meant he could ask another friend he had been wanting to ask for awhile to be a groomsman and who was actually one of the friends we were going to brunch with when FH found out about his uncle.

I know without the sad things some of the good things may not have happened (or happened when they did) but the sad things still really stink. I'm not sure everything has really hit us yet  as it's kind of been an emotion overload. One of the great things that came out of all of this is that I think it made FH and I appreciate each other a little more and be thankful for the fact that we had each other to lean on through this whole ordeal.

Sorry this was kind of long, just needed to vent a little about the sad but wanted to share the good too.