Chris~

The fames I got for the boys- with different pictures for them to have/ change out.

I don't even know how to title this post but it's been such a huge part of our lives I feel like I'd like to write about it, so here I go... We're all in a pretty big fog over here. It doesn't feel like Chris is gone~ That could be because we weren't used to seeing her every day or it could be because we have so many things to "do" right now that it felt like there hasn't been a whole lot of time to grieve. 

Flowers from friends

The funeral was nice (as funerals go). Abby has the most AMAZING voice and sang a few songs- Jeff and Joe did a song (Mary was going to but was sick so didn't sing). I think for me hearing all of them is what brought me to tears. We also felt such support- The Drapals (old and young) came and Jodi & Randy, Jojo & Dave and Jodie and Kyle all came too! Mind you it was in Saginaw so they had quite the drive and Jodie and Kyle came just to say hello because they had soccer later- so they literally drove a few hours, hugged us, and went back. We are so lucky to have such great friends! We also got so many other messages of support too!

A LONG drive!

The day after the funeral is when the hard work began (like I said- not a lot of time to grieve really). Jeff and I headed to Chicago to take care of Christie's estate. She made him the executor and while I knew what an executor was (my parents- dad especially had to deal with that a lot I feel), I had no idea how much work it really was.

So hard being away!

First we needed to clean out her condo and that was no small feat. She had been sick in the hospital for weeks before she came home (briefly) and then came home to Saginaw so it was in really rough shape. There were fruit flies everywhere too so there was a lot of cleaning, and purging and organizing. I feel like when the Roginskis, or Jonasens passed away we had weeks to kind of go through and take care of things- we were't so lucky this time. And on top of everything, we felt like detectives trying to find memberships and accounts (etc) to close them (Do you know how hard it is to close an account even when you have a death certificate and proper paperwork?- Let's just say, "they" don't make it easy.)

We had a LONG list of things we needed to take care of and we just checked them off one by one. Jeff got bagels day one so we had breakfast for each day we were there but other than that we ate once a day and slept on our air mattress (we shut down the TV and stuff- though I think that was all gone anyway now that I think of it because the boys came and got it). As it was, I needed to take an extra day from work. If this taught us anything it is to have everything in order- all the accounts, passwords, pins, our favorite actors, and best friend's sister's uncle's dogs name... I'm not kidding- it was ridiculous! We missed our babies but were glad we could "see" them each night we were gone and hear about their days. Technology really is a cool thing. Gosh we're lucky to have the best kids!

In the end we hired a company to come and finish cleaning and to take all the items out and sell what they could (after the boys took what they wanted and we took the personal items we thought Grandma would want). Even after all that (my cleaning AND the company's cleaning) we still didn't get the $7000 deposit back! Grrrrr... 

It just seems that each time we get one thing done, another problem or issue pops up. I'm in present tense now (writing in January because I'm behind and yes- things are STILL coming up).

The thing is Jeff genuinely thanked me and that was nice.

This has been one of the hardest things he's ever done. 

After all we've been through we kind of knew we made a good team. 

This proved, we still do.