Easier Every Day

It seems a little easier this time around. Before Christmas, being alone was new and it was a shock. It felt like a cloud was constantly over my head, as I stressed about Asa and got letters from him detailing his homesickness. But things are different since Christmas. With the end in sight, I feel excited and energetic about the future. Asa's letters are much happier and the days are going by more quickly for him. They were going by more quickly for me also when the weather was nice, but now we are back to being indoors. But my attitude is still bright. I no longer feel like there is a cloud over me. Of course I think about Asa and miss him. But I guess you just get to a point where you get past the sadness and you just adjust to the way it is. So, for us, this is the way it is. And we have to enjoy our days because that's what we have.

Marley has been doing great. Even with her ear infections and pretty much being sick since Asa left, she has kept me laughing. Oh, how she misses her Daddy though. Asa is constantly in our conversations and there are pictures everywhere to remind her. We have the Daddy Doll that comes with us in the car and sits next to her in the bed. And she is obsessed with watching videos of him. She will literally find my phone every morning and wake me up by shoving it in my face saying "Dada," asking me to play the videos of him. She asks for him when she sees the computer also. She will sit still for 30 minutes just watching video after video of him. I put pictures in my wallet so she can look through that when she's bored somewhere. And then I also put more pictures of him on my phone for her to look at. We even had to resort to getting on Facebook to look at pictures of him because she couldn't get enough! She has a little box that she carries around that has a picture of Asa in it and the bear he brought from St. Louis for her. She pulls it all out and says "Dada." She points to his clothes, his shoes, and his toothbrush, saying "Dada" every time. On one hand that breaks my heart to know that she misses him so much. But on the other hand it makes me smile that she knows him and thinks about him so much.

So, this is nowhere near easy. But it's easier than it was at first. I remember Abigail told me that the first few weeks were the hardest, and I remember thinking "What if it takes months?" But she was right, it does get easier and you do just make the best of it. Asa mentioned recently that he is starting to be proud of himself. At first he was thinking that he wasn't that important, that this was just a job. But over the Christmas break when he saw how many strangers were proud of him and the respect people showed him, he began to be proud of himself. And now he feels important and responsible. And that makes this all so much easier.