Five years have come and gone since that last phone call. The last time I heard his voice. Since I watched the emergency room staff unsuccessfully perform CPR until way past when it was time to “call it.”

In reflecting on this time, I’ve just thought of how much has changed.

Obviously, our family changed. Six became five.

The kids have grown up so much. From 9, 12, 14 and 16, they are now 14, 17, 19, and 21. They have celebrated graduations, started college, started and ended romantic relationships, learned to drive, and so much more. They’ve battled illnesses and injuries and done the teenager things. Real jobs, lost friends, starting varsity, competing at state wrestling, being elected to the Homecoming court, church camps, and fighting with their mom.

Our house has changed. New floors, a new couch, a dog, painted cabinets, new beds, better flowers in the front. And this year, more cars in the now too small driveway.

My job/the kids’ school changed. No more homeschooling for us. I’m still teaching middle school at the local public school and all of the kids attended public school since 2020. My sweet girl chose a college several hours from here, but she’s home for the summer, and we’re all together under one roof again for a while. That makes my heart happy.

Other things have changed, too. Things I didn’t expect. My friendships, for one. While I certainly do still have close relationships with a couple of friends from “before,” my closest people now are mostly friends who didn’t really know us “before.” Many of them didn’t really know Vance. Most of them had met him at church or a ballgame or somewhere, but they didn’t know him. Not really. For whatever reasons, connected to his death or just because that’s how life goes, a lot of those “before” relationships have lessened over the past five years. That’s not good or bad, it’s just…different.

Different or not, today I got several “We love you and are missing Vance with you today” texts from people who did remember, both “before” and “after” friends. Each one a balm for my heart. My Book Club girls brought flowers and ice cream and Nothing Bundt Cakes for the family. Abby’s boyfriend brought us both flowers. We are well loved.

I don’t know that I have a lot to say beyond that. I’d love to say it gets easier, but that would be a lie. It changes, just like everything else. I don’t think about Vance first thing every single day and I don’t cry over the loss nearly as often as I did in the beginning. Now I’m more likely to take a blanket to the cemetery and just lay next his grave and talk. Theologically, I know there’s nothing there but bones and stone, but it helps anyway. Sometimes, on the particularly hard days, I go out and yell at him. I tell him how unfair it is that I’m here alone, dealing with four kids, a house, a job, a dog, and well…life, while he’s in Heaven just chillin’ with Jesus. Seems a little imbalanced, if you ask me.

But no one ever asked me if I wanted to be a widow. It wasn’t a choice any of us got to make. It just…happened.

Here we are, five years out from that final goodbye and so much has changed.

But you know what hasn’t changed?

Love.

God.

Goodness.

In all the change we are still loved.

God is still in control. He is not surprised.

We can still find goodness in the world.

And that, dear friend, is enough to keep going.