Retrospective

Well it's a new year, and yes I'm glad. 2009 was not my favorite year. I remember ending the year of 2008 at a fireworks show. After our family struggled to deal with emotional trauma from our journey, I thought it had been a rough year. During the fireworks I was thinking of how glad I was that the year was over and we could have a fresh start. I was excited for a "better" year. I still struggled with emotion but chose to be more open about it in an effort to rid myself of these haunting feelings. It helped, that was a good thing. Despite the fact that I had to have surgery, the beginning of the year wasn't so bad. I found a new way to cope with life, the girls were all doing great and Jeff and I celebrated 9 years of marriage. Our family hosted a survivor reunion for the Cheney fam and I went to my 10 year class reunion. Memorable moments that deserve mention. Soon the year started pushing buttons. An injury crushed all hopes for a very personal goal and the blackened economy was dwindling away the very little security and stability we had. September proved to be a dark month when Jeff lost his job. A stressful situation that was magnified by Emma's constant medical care. Not only by the amount of money needed to care for her each month but also by our inability to save anything for a situation like this. To make things worse, so many people we cared about lost their jobs at the same time. I think it's been harder to watch them. Somehow things do work out and slowly we are moving forward, it's going to take a long time though. We are lucky enough to have so much support from people who care about our little family. Life is a refiner's fire, it hurts and it's hard. For all that I'm learning and the way it binds our family-it's worth it.