A new start

Dear friends.  It's been a long time and I'm so happy to return to my little blog.  My last post was on March 11, nearly three months ago.  Two days later, on March 13, my husband Paul was painting when the scaffolding that his ladder was on collapsed.  He was alone, but based on the area he was painting, he is thought to have been between 25-28 feet high when he fell.  His accident was life threatening.  A blood clot in his brain nearly took his life.  But, today, he is alive, he is well, and he will heal.

There is so much I want to write about our experience.  During it all, I found myself retreating to the smallest circle of family and friends and focusing on taking each moment at a time.  And it seems I've remained within the confines of this little refuge for quite some time.  For better or worse, this tragedy changed the course of our life.  It redefined us as a family and as individuals. Over the past months, I've thought a lot about my little blog.  I've considered posting several times, but always found myself unable.  It was as if I didn't recognize myself anymore.  The person I was, was no more.  Everything seems different now and I've had a hard time seeing anything other than what our life used to be like; what our family looked like or how we interacted before Paul's accident.  It's strange, but our life after the accident has seemed almost foreign, like I'm peering in from some place else.

But then today, I got an email with these...

And I realized: We made it.  We are a family and we made it.

And, the part of me that was still standing in that trauma room, feeling small and helpless, considering the fragility of my sweet husband's mortality, pondering what life would look like from that point forward: just let go.

We have been given a new start.  And we are so grateful.

xo,

steph

p.s. These photos were taken Mother's Day weekend by the amazing and adorable Wendy of Blue Lily Photography.  Wendy is one half this talented photography couple, her husband Tyler completes the team.  We love the photos and loved our photo shoot with Blue Lily!