I survived!

Although there were a few bumps emotionally, I managed to get through my first Christmas ever without my dad. Today was much better than yesterday. We ate Christmas dinner at my brother's home with our same friends from  last night plus 3 extras.....an airman, his wife and little girl who are stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base with no family around. His wife just lost her mother in November, so it was a nice diversion for them as well. He is from Indiana and she is from Maine, so we were happy to have them. She is a few days from delivery of a boy, so we were glad today wasn't the day!!!

Failed milestone!

I wasn't able to hold it together yesterday. When I went to Mom's to take her to the candlelight service, she sat down and wrote my brother and me each a substantial check. They had already done this in August right after Dad was diagnosed with his brain tumor, so we were not expecting it again. She said Dad's favorite part of Christmas was being able to give us that much money and she wanted to do it just like he would have. Then last night at our friends' house, she gave it to us and told us it was from Dad. Then our friends gave us a picture frame with a picture of Dad in it from a previous Christmas. Well, actually we only got the frames, but they showed us on the computer the picture they had ordered to go in the frame. Instead of printing it themselves or having Wal Mart print it, they were having it printed somewhere else and it wasn't back yet. Hopefully, today won't be as hard.