Lori's Rambling

In my job as a case manager for children and adolescents with mental health issues, there are times when I need to go to Crisis Intervention with the kids and their families.  In our county Crisis Intervention is located inside the emergency room of the Good Samaritan Hospital.  This also happens to be the hospital  emergency room  that Scott was taken to when he had his fatal heart attack and where I first saw him after his death.  No matter how many times I go there with the families that I work with and walk past the trauma room where he died, it instantly has the power to take me back in time to the early morning he died and walking into that room and the shell-shocked feeling that overwhelmed me.  Today was one of those days.   As I reflected on this in a conversation with my mom this afternoon, we talked about a little boy in our church with some serious medical disabilities who requires a suction machine to assist him in keeping his airways...

As I sit and think back over this past weekend, one word comes to mind - bittersweet.   I think I feel that way every time we make the 4 1/2 - 5 hour trip to get together with the extended Bradley/Nottingham family.  I started joining Scott way on this trips way back in 1997 when we first started dating.  Those trips together continued, often multiple times a year, for the next fifteen years, until Scott’s death.  Due to the busyness of life, we did miss a year here and there, but tried to get there at least once a year.   Then Jaelyn and I continued making those trips in the four years since Scott’s death.  Each time is bittersweet.  I love seeing Scott’s family, who became my family when we married, but have been so special to us and loved on us so much in the years since Scott’s death.   I see glimpses of Scott and his personality in his cousins and other family.  This is bitter, in that it highlights that he is no longer here...