Five years ago, I was celebrating my 35th birthday with my best friend. We had just had a wonderful lunch and were in the middle of our pedicures, when I got a phone call from my sister. When I answered the phone, it wasn't my sister, but her boss. I immediately knew something was terribly wrong. I had talked to my sister earlier in the day, she had wished me happy birthday and she told me how excited she was to go on their first family vacation the next week.
Kim tries to tell me there has been an accident, my sister and niece are okay, but Dan wasn't. I don't remember a whole lot about that conversation, because I think I had started to go into shock. Kim tells me to get to my sister as quickly as possible. I remember talking with each of my parents and throwing whatever I could in a suitcase. Before we even left Kansas City, I received word, that my brother-in-law was dead.
My brother-in-law, Dan, was at training for his SRT team with his police department and was accidentally shot with a live round by another police officer. He was gone within moments. The ride to get to my sister was excoriating. The entire drive, I was screaming and crying, on the phone with other family members, trying to process what had happened. I just wanted to get to my sister, I needed to hold her, I needed to touch her face, and hear her voice. The events of that day, still haunt my thoughts and dreams.
My birthday, has been very difficult for me to celebrate these past five years. No matter what my friends and family would do to celebrate me, I struggled with being happy, with being joyful. At some point in the day, I would just break down. I would want to be left alone to cry, to mourn, and to relive September 15, 2010.
Since then, each September, I post a blessing each day. A friend suggested this as a way to help me think about what wonderful and beautiful things I DO have in my life. I've been doing this for five years and I am blown away each year what God is doing in my life. Some days, some years, it's been a challenge. There have definitely been days I don't want to be grateful for anything.
Time does help heal wounds, but scars can still remain.
This year, I wanted to celebrate BIG!! I wanted to celebrate this milestone of 40 years and I wanted to celebrate those in my life who love me and have been with me through life's struggles. I wanted it to be a fun event, but I decided I wanted to do a party with a purpose. One of the items on my list for 2015, was to do something for charity.
At the suggestion of another friend, I started looking for a ministry that had something that my friends could physically participate in making at my party. I found this amazing little ministry called Sole Hope. I stumbled upon it one day while searching the internet. I loved the simplicity of the ministry and I also loved that it had the word HOPE in the name. Hope has a been a big part of my story these last five years - hope that there was some purpose in this tragedy, hope that there was a little girl out there for our family, and hope that I would be a vessel to be used by God no matter what!!
I asked a few of girlfriends to help me plan and prep, and they showed up in an AMAZING way!!
Jenelle and I collaborated on decor. It was a lot of fun to share ideas via Pinterest and then see what we had on hand to make it happen. We have very similar tastes and like to do things as cheap as possible. We pretty much had most of what she wanted to end up using on hand. Lots of polka dots, craft paper, and black and white.
Katie took care of the drinks for me. I gave her a few ideas for some mocktails, but gave her free reign to do whatever she wanted to do!!
She ended up bringing some Sprite and lemonade and have few add ins like rock candy in pink, white, and black, and GINORMOUS blackberries. We served them in fun mason jars and frap bottles with cute straws.
Alex and Tree took over the Sole Hope table for. They manned the table, told guests about the ministry, and collected money to pay for each pair of shoes we cut out. We ended up with 40 pairs of shoes, which was my goal!!
My mother-in-law made some amazing cupcakes!! We also had a popcorn bar, chocolate covered pretzels, and Katie made her famous Oreo truffles!!
My mom and my friend, Karen were the paparazzi for the night - they took photos for me with each of my guests and just captured moments I wouldn't have been able to.
I really was a lovely evening. It was great to catch up with everyone and to just CELEBRATE!! I went to bed with a BIG ole' smile on my face and a cupcake underneath my pillow!!
