The 9th Month Mark

Hello Friends and Family & Happy November!

Notice it is also Friday the 13th when this blog goes live...EEK!! But at this point, I am kind of like what is a Friday the 13th going to through at us that 2020 hasn't already?! It takes a little more to scare me these days :-)

It is raining tonight as I am writing this blog, the weather here in GA has actually been pretty warm. All the leaves on the trees are changing and beginning to fall. Driving around my neighborhood, I love seeing all the leaves on the ground, I know next season they will be gone and the trees will be bare so I try to really pay attention and soak it in now. So a little bit about what the Portmann Girls have been up to since my last post.

We got through some pretty big hurdles which I am really proud of us for. The start of October I attended my first UGA game without Ronnie. It was different anyway with all the covid stuff, but it had been over a decade since I had been to a game without him next to me cheering on the Dawgs. Very mixed feelings but I went and actually had a great time! One of my best friends Janet was there with us the entire time. She was on one side of me and Dad was on the other, so I was in pretty good company. We ended up dancing, cheering loud and being so excited to come out with a win over Auburn...that will help anything!!

       Our next milestone or hurdle or thing to get through (depending on my mood there is no telling what I will call it!!) was Ronnie's birthday. I obviously knew it was coming so it gave me some time to think about how I wanted to do it. Ronnie would have been 38 on October 22, so the girls and I took off school and work and spent the day celebrating him, doing things he loved. We first went to the creek where he would often take the girls to play (and give me some alone time!). We read some sweet cards Omma wrote and other messages so many of YOU all sent us that day, encouraging us. We released some birthday balloons into heaven for him. After that we headed to lunch at one of his favorite spots and I enjoyed an adult beverage...much needed right?! We did a couple of other small things and a beautiful arrangement of yellow flowers arrived. Yellow is my favorite :-) At the end of the day I felt really good about how it went. We chose to celebrate all the great things about Daddy, and there is so much we love about him it came very easy XOXO

After that came Halloween, my family came up to celebrate with us and it was my Mom's birthday so that made it extra special! Taylor dressed up as a black cat, Coco was Belle and I was a Maiden, going with what 2020 gave me it was either that or a black widow :-) Now if I looked like Scarlett Johansson that would have been an awesome costume!

And then the Sunday after Halloween hit and ya'll it was like I hit some kind of wall of disappointment, grief and a broken heart all in one! As the months have gone on I notice my patience with life seems to start fading some by Sunday night after the work week. Maybe it is just being worn out or feeling like I just need a little break but the complexity of this entire thing is that in the same sentence I write I just need a break, I also can feel totally opposite and be like no way, keeping busy is the best thing for me right now! Its been a huge part of my healing.

 It is the same thing about single parenting. If you watched my Instastories this week I talked about my "parenting on an empty gas tank" feeling. Kids are incredible, but lets be honest, they need a lot too. And sometimes I think having that adult partner helps keep your own gas tank up to be able to give and keep giving. Then in the exact same thought, I am often grateful for the peace I have now in my home. Please don't read me wrong, Ronnie was an incredible father and missed more then you can imagine, but there is a very hard side to mental illness too. Seeing ambulances and police officers is hard stuff for adults and kids. Being a single parent I have control over that now. I have the ability not to ever let that in my home again. I can keep it out and will fight hard to always do that.

It was like all these mixed emotions, I have started calling them suicide side effects. And there is one big one that I often wrestle with. And I know the enemy knows where to hit me, like a weak spot.

The complexity comes for me when I get stuck in this. I know and have seen how deep mental illness, depression, anxiety and addiction can be. We are talking about a powerful chemical imbalance, I believe. I know and understand it is not logical. But there is also another side, and if I am being real, having someone you love leave you in any way can take a hit at your self confidence.

I never want to be a wet blanket, I only want to share my experiences hoping it may let someone else know they are not alone in some of the harder feelings that can come up. I have often wondered if I will find someone one day who won't leave. 

 I can think "my own husband didn't want to stay, why would anyone else?"

 And then I am shown I already have that, its God. 

Talking to my Mom the other day on the phone I said without a doubt I can truly say this, everyday since 2/13 God has shown Himself to me. He does it in little God Hugs, here is what I mean.

 Last week I got a letter from the funeral home that cremated Ronnie, they are so sweet and made a Christmas ornament for us. Well, there I am standing on my street reading this sweet letter feeling the gulp in my throat come up and a neighbor who I have never talked to before walked by, introduced herself to me and said she has been praying for us. She had heard what happened. She said you and your home are beautiful. That little sentence was bigger to me then she will ever know. She told me of her granddaughter going through a divorce right now and how alone she felt. I told her, widowhood and divorce have a lot in common, if she ever needed someone to talk to, I would love to be there and gave her my number.

 Or my friend JRae calling me, not knowing that I was upset at that very moment, but just saying all the right things I needed to hear. It's not coincidence, I know that.

In this journey of grief and healing my heart I have experienced a season of feeling that there is no real danger. It is not to say I don't worry, cause I sure do! Going from 2 incomes to 1 can make any parent worry, lets be honest. Wondering how this experience will shape my girls thoughts of themselves, there worth and men can take me to a dark space. But the feeling of never knowing when something bad is about to happen has faded away. And I know He is good and will never leave us empty handed. I think we should all expect great things.

So I guess my point in all that was, even in the darkness, whatever you are feeling, keep looking for the light. Its right there, maybe not in the form you think it should be, but you will find it and it can bless you in another form. Greif is truly an up an down road so many of us know too well. Keep getting up XOXO

So if that wasn't totally depressing and I didn't put out the fire of your feel good mood, I wanted to share some memories of the girls last time out with Ronnie, all the pictures came from him XOXO

Every February since 2013 Ronnie first took Taylor and than added Nicole to Chick Fil A's Daddy Daughter Date Night. I remember their first one, when Baby Taylor was 5 months old and he put her in the CFA Cow's lap for a picture with her crown on, and she barfed up vanilla ice cream all over the cow...MOO!!!!

Here are my loves at dinner! I had strict instructions that night to do whatever I wanted, and Ron had strict instructions that night to take as many pictures as he could!

Ronnie said CFA would put questionnaires on the table to fill out while dinner was being served, questions like what was your favorite something they could ask each other. Get to know each other more.

After dinner the girls got some make up glitter put on by Sweet and Sassy! And their annual picture with the cow!

Since it was only an hour, Ronnie would take the girls somewhere special before or after the dinner. One year they went to Dave and Busters, another year they went to Target for a special toy. This year Ronnie did his best and biggest surprise yet for them, a trip to The American Girl Store!! Meet the 2 Chloe Portmann's :-)

Surfing at the American Girls store!!

Hopefully this will give you a chuckle cause it did me!! See that foot/ankle boot Ronnie is sporting?! Let me tell you how that happened, or better yet let me show you who did it...

Meet Buddy the Chihuahua!!

Now if you have known me for a while you may remember I had a chihuahua named Gizmo Garrett Kee (full name for full effect, he just went by The Giz!), it is safe to say he and Ronnie did not get along. Ron was not fan of small dogs! One time Ropo put his taco on the table and Gizmo snatched it, just like the Taco Bell dog!! I laughed, Ron got so mad he had to take a walk outside. He recovered fine :-)

So it cracked me up when I found out that while Ron was walking up the stairs at Dale's house, I think they were changing a light or something over the stairs, instead of stepping on Buddy, Ron ended up tripping over the dog and busted his foot up!!!! He also got a big cut in his forehead if you can see from the pictures, Buddy really got him!

Stories like Buddy vs Ronnie always make me laugh, and Ron would start laughing when I would, we shared so many of those laughs, I sure do miss that. He would say little stuff or make a face that he knew would crack me up, he was a really funny guy.

This picture will always be one of our most precious ones, it was taken a few days before Ronnie passed. As he always did, I got the girls dressed up so pretty and he knocked on the front door with flowers and balloons. He had the car waiting out front and opened the door for each of them.

I mentioned earlier I can worry about how the loss of their Dad will effect the girls and that is something time will tell. My hope is they will read these blog entry's one day and know without a doubt how very much he loved and adored them.

They were his princesses and that will never change.

A piece of him is in them forever and his big kind heart shines in them.

I heard this song the other morning while getting ready, it is called You Already Know by JJ Heller, I really loved her lyrics so I would like to close out with them here:

I can't seem to find the easy answers

Someday, I hope the suffering makes sense

I just need to know that you are with me

Even if you keep me in suspense

We talk so much these days

Because I have so much to say

You stay and listen to me closely even though

You already know

You already know

Everything I'm scared of

Everything I hope

You hold my tomorrow

And all tomorrow holds

You already know

Love,

Lindsey