Mike Wieringo- 2nd year anniversary

I know you've seen this picture a million times. But it's such a good one I had to use it again. It's been two years today since Mike Wieringo, my brother in law, died suddenly.

I miss seeing the two Wieringo boys together laughing. I miss walking into Heroes Con and looking around to find Mike's table. I miss Mike walking into our house at Thanksgiving- I always waiting until eveyrone else had a chance to say "Hello" and then I got a big hug in the kitchen. I miss the Momma Shirley having to make two or three batches of her no-bake oatmeal chocolate peanut butter cookies so the boys would have enough. I think they probably ate 50 cookies or more each over the weekend.

I'm thankful to have great memories. I'm thankful that we have sweet Charlie Stephen Barlow (Wieringo). I'm so grateful that Mike had Charlie to keep him company. I'm thankful for that one time I found Mike on iChat and we all had a video chat which was so funny- I was on my lap top so I took it over so he could see Toonces. He ran over to get Charlie and brought him back and of course made Charlie do some funny dance which Charlie took with a look of loving "I can't believe you're doing this to me daddy- but whatever" on his face. Here's Charlie today in our dining room window. He's adapted so well- what a little trooper.

I am grateful that I have gotten to meet a lot of Mike's friends that I did not know and have gotten to know them better. Thank you all for making us feel like you've known us forever too.
I'm thankful that we got the Mike Wieringo Scholarship Fund set up at SCAD that will be given yearly forever.

Miss you Mike. We will never forget you. You will always be missed.

Let your crack hang out!!

I love this picture. It's of my niece at about two years old on the beach. I bought her that bathing suit. It's just so representative of her- she's determined to collect shells and just doesn't care one bit about her crack hanging out. My sister gets the best pictures!

I love a good winter snow, but I love a cute picture from the beach too.

First Funeral

Went to my Great Aunt Joan's funeral yesterday. Matt was so brave and was nice enough to go with me. It was in Raleigh too- three exits before the exit in Durham to Mike's house. First time we've been to the area since we packed up the house for good. We made it through.

I felt so bad for the family. She had lung cancer and her Dr.'s gave her 6 months to live- she made it 5 1/2. She got to see her youngest son get married and looked beautiful at the wedding.

I thanked my Mom for taking me to visit Aunt Joan when I was growing up. We didn't live near them so we had to stop on the way back from the beach to visit. So I got to see her once a year at most unless there was a family reunion. Aunt Joan was a hoot and was great fun.

So moral of the story is to call your relatives or visit when you can. Once a year makes a difference.

Matt's 40th Birthday

Matt is 40 finally. I say finally because I'm ahead of him by almost two years and he's not let me forget it. I'm so lucky to be married to this man. He proclaimed this birthday to have outdone the 40th birthday that he gave me- which was complete with surprise party AND surprise trip to NYC. So the key to a great birthday for Matt is...........electronics. I gave him a TV for his office- a nice flat screen HDTV and he loves it. I also managed to get my hands on the last page of artwork that his brother Mike ever worked on. The one he turned in the day he died. Thanks to the Heroes Initiative for helping me get it so I could give it to Matt. Several folks asked me if I was going to have it framed but I did not as I thought that Matt would want to actually hold it in his hands. It was a good call because my multi-talented husband decided to teach himself recently how to custom cut mats for frames and has been doing all his own matting. So he wanted to do that himself- so another good call on my part. His parents were up for his birthday and seeing the artwork made his Mom cry. She's so brave and she tried so hard not to. It's been so hard for Matt and for me I can't imagine how hard it is for a parent, especially a Mom, to bury a child.

I did give Matt some fun- non-tearjerker- gifts too. I gave him a coffee mug that says "I love coffee more than Zombies love brains". Matt loves coffee AND zombies. Check out etsy.com for that mug and lots more hand made gifts. My friend has a store on there and sells retro aprons, etc. called Modern June.

I also gave Matt a Chairman Meow t-shirt. Ha! It was a bigger hit than I imagined. He LOVED it and wore it to work.

We end the week with a birthday dinner for him at Bertucci's. 16 people! Should be lots of fun.


Happy Birthday Smoochie Face! Can't wait for 40 more years with you. I bet you'll still be hot at 80 years old too.

OLYMPICS 08

I'm a big fan of the Olympics. I look forward to them every 2 years- don't care if it's the summer or winter. Matter of fact, attending an Olympic Games is on my bucket list. So I'm gearing up for either the Vancouver Winter Games in 2010 or the London Summer Games in 2012. Weird planning your life so far ahead of time but that's what I've got to do to get there! Most folks I've talked to say go to Vancouver. We'll see!

I've enjoyed the summer games in Beijing. While I'm not a fan of their politics at all, the country is fascinating. The games seem to really embody the VISA campaign of "GO WORLD". I can't say that I'm a big swimming fan but I sat on the edge of my seat during the Tour de Force of Phelps. AMAZING- I think he has a negative body fat count BTW too. Sat in agony when BOTH the USA relay teams dropped the baton. I ran track for 4 year in HS including the 4 x 200 relay and the 2x 400 relay and I'd say we dropped the baton twice in all four years. We had plenty of crappy passes but RARELY a drop.

Seems like NBC got knocked during the Sydney games for telling too many stories and not enough of the events. Gotta say I love the athletes back stories and even I thought there was too much emphasis on that. However, I think they went back too far the other way this year. Seemed like there were hardly any back stories told of the athletes that weren't swimmers or gymnists or volleyball players from the US. I'll never forget in the Sydney games when the swimmer from an African country who was let in on a waiver (the Olympics will let in some athletes who don't meet the requirements to encourage sports in that country) who had been 'training' in a motel pool for a month. He came in dead last in his heat but NBC showed his whole swim including the crowd cheering him on and going wild when he finished. Plus the back story. It was what the Olympics are about in my opinion. GO WORLD!!

As a side note: GO OBAMA/BIDEN 2008! We need new leadership. Go vote in November.

What gets easier?

I've been putting off this post because I just don't know what to say. So I'll just ramble here and you'll hopefully cut me some slack if it doesn't make sense.

It's been a year since Mike died. All the stages of grief have come and gone and come and gone and continue to come around again. I heard "it gets easier" from folks that have been through this themselves. Never will I ever say that to someone else though. Anyway, I think that the only thing that gets easier is that the shock isn't as intense. The shock at losing Mike has lessened. I think everything else gets worse to be honest. The agony of watching Matt and his parents miss Mike is heart wrenching. The agony of wondering if I was nice enough to Mike or treated him well is a daily fight with guilt that grinds my life to a halt if I let it. The only two things I hold onto to get me through that is a picture of us at the Heroes Con with a Spiderman birthday cake I made him as a surprise- which Matt said he really liked and that I always invited him to go on vacation with us to the beach in NC. He never took me up on it and I'm so sad he didn't. But I did invite him every year in the hopes that he would take us up on it one time. He never did. Man the fun that he and Matt would've had!! My Mom and Dad would've loved him too just like they love Matt. (MY PARENTS LOVE MATT)
I'm sad that I didn't know when Mike was alive how many people loved him and loved his work. We had no idea what a rock star he was in the comic world. He always played that down so we knew he was popular but didn't know how much.
Is it ridiculous that I swear I see Mike looking at me through Charlie's eyes sometimes?? I swear when I talk to Charlie he'll give me a look with his head turned sideways and I swear it's Mike in there wondering how to talk to me through Charlie. I still ask Charlie from time to time if he had fun playing with his Daddy while we were at work- ridiculous too but that fantasy world helps me get through the day. Wouldn't it be great if he really was visiting Charlie each day and playing with him for a few hours each day?
Other sad things is realizing that even though we were family, I didn't know him as well as a lot of people did. Why didn't I take the time to talk to him and get to know him better? Why didn't we go visit him more? Could go crazy with asking why.......just have to realize that there's nothing I can do about that now. I don't ask his friends what Mike thought of me because I'm afraid of the answer - I'd really rather not know the truth because I'm sure it's not that good.
I'll always remember the time that I caught Mike on IM and we hooked up via camera IM and had an absolute blast with- you guessed it- our cats. Toonces was on the steps behind me and was perfectly framed in the camera so it looked like he was perched on my shoulder. Of course, Mike had to go get Charlie and made him do some funny dance while Charlie looked on like "You're kidding right? You realize that you are shaking a cat at a computer screen....you DO realize how ridiculous you look- right?" We laughed hysterically. I thought that Matt was taking a nap so we got a good 10 minutes of talk time before I went to wake Matt up because Mike NEVER was on IM much less on the camera IM. Matt was sleeping with his butt up in the air - he had heard me talking and had done it on purpose but I thought he was still asleep. Mike and I had a big laugh and then Matt of course reveals that he was putting us on. We all had a big laugh and then Mike had to go unfortunately. I can still see that scene in my head- him running to get Charlie and us laughing at Matt. I asked him later why he wasn't online more and he said it was because it got in the way of work. So many people IM'ed him that he didn't get any work done. He had so many friends.

I miss him so much. And I miss him for his Mom and Dad and especially for Matt. Mike was so much a part of Matt's life that it's hard to to be reminded daily of the hole that it's left in Matt's heart. Matt and his family are so brave. It's just amazing how they have continued to live on and conduct themselves with so much grace and courage. I'm so lucky to be a part of this family.

I keep reminding myself of that ......because it doesn't get any easier. I'll always have that Spiderman cake, the IM, Heroes Cons and Thanksgiving to remind me of Mike. And no one can take that away.

And I have Charlie.........;-) I think he's due a funny dance in front of a computer screen for old times sake.