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June, 2009:

Our digital lives

It was shortly before all this happened that I either read or heard on tv a story about ‘what happens to your digital life after you pass?’.  I know for me that I have in excess of 30 different user names and passwords at various sites throughout the internet.  I can’t even remember all of them myself, so for someone else to figure them out it seems virtually impossible.

Never did I think that I would be right here in the middle of all this. 

I know enough about her to get me past basic security, but what about those custom security questions … what is your favorite author, where did you meet your hubby?  I mean, thankfully I know the general answers but not necessarily the exact answer she would have typed in.  Besides the fact that one of the above mentioned questions brought tears to my eyes, my answer was not quite the same as hers; I would have said the town and she said the specific venue.  Thankfully through enough guesses I finally figured out her user name and password and was able to get into the account, but what if I couldn’t figure it out.  Then it would have been one more call to a company to explain the painful situation again.  And that’s only one site, what about all the rest?  What about the ones that I don’t even know about?

We create trusts and wills to assign assets, but what do we do about our digital lives?

I’m extremely paranoid about providing my credentials to some 3rd party.  The stuff I’d be handing out provides access to all my financials so should it land in the wrong hand I would end up in a credit nightmare…a nightmare nearly as bad as the one I’m already experiencing.

So other than writing down all this stuff, storing it in a safe location, and letting someone know where that information is located…and then keeping it up to date, what are our options?  I don’t know right now.  I’m probably not the only one that would be concerned.

Getting through the difficult times

A family member who experienced his own challenges in life offered some very helpful advice soon after the accident and I continue to refer back to it on a daily basis.

Whenever times get tough and seem impossible, I try to think of something funny, something happy, something about our life that will help me get through whatever I’m dealing with at a particular moment in time.

I turned around during the services at Queen of Martyrs and just about the entire church was filled.  I thought to myself for a brief moment, somewhat jokingly, that a few of these people might be here because they know how much grief Cari would have given them if they didn’t show up.  Now I know that’s not the case but she always let people know when they left early or didn’t show up, that she wasn’t particularly happy with them.  Looking back, she just loved having people around her and never wanted the day or whatever it was to end.

There are so many hundreds of little things that I continue to remember.  Each day seems to be just has difficult as the one before but I really hope and know that she’ll always be in my thoughts.

A day on the lake

She would have LOVED it.  She talked about it all the times weeks before everything changed.  She was so excited about the prospect of going out on Lake Michigan throughout the entire summer. 

P6200935A week or so ago we took the kiddies with us on the boat for a couple hours.   Ellie was so excited about being out there although when titi jumped in she got pretty sad and wanted her back in the boat.  We bought life jackets for both the kiddies too.  Carson looks like a little turtle in his, but he’s still super cute.

This past weekend Mike took us out for the day.  We had a number of friends with us too and everyone had a fantastic time.  Too bad we don’t have a boat 10x the size so we can bring everyone out at the same time.  We took a ride down the calumet river to the riverdale marina.  And what a beautiful day.  I constantly thought about her.  How she would and should have been there right with me, right next to me, right with us hanging out, enjoying the day, laughing, tanning, joking … about MJ, Hauntie getting a little crazy, Erik passing out sitting up at the front of the boat, everyone jumping in the water near the marina, getting the boat stuck in the muck for a few seconds, spinning around in the locks because of the current, or the questionable service at the marina.

She really would have just absolutely loved being out there.  We will love it for her.

Keeping it a suprise

There are not very many times in life when you can truly be surprised.  We decided for both our children that we wouldn’t find out if it was a boy or a girl.  When we found out we were expecting our first, it we me who wanted to know if we were going to have a boy or a girl but Cari was adamant about not finding out.  It’s wasn’t easy at all for Cari to keep any type of secret so this was certainly difficult for her.  About half way through each of us switched our opinion; now she wanted to know.

Do you really need to find out?  Sure, it might be nice to get the room painted a particular color and to buy the right color clothes and items for the bedroom, but does it really matter?  You don’t need all that stuff right away anyways.  Odds are the baby will sleep in your room for at least a couple months.  And the family and friends will shower you with clothes.  It’s hard to keep that secret.  It really is.  It’s so easy just to ask the doctor to tell you.  But I really think it says something about those who keep the secret…it takes a lot of strength to keep a secret like this for 9 months.

We did the same for our 2nd and it was equally as difficult but completely worth the wait.  It took a lot of will power but as we sat there in the delivery room filled with emotions, we found ourselves extremely anxious for the answer.  Of all the experiences we had together, I will remember these forever.

She loved him so much

During lunch today at the Corner Bakery, I sat and stared at Carson while he slept in his infant carrier.  It’s so extremely sad to see him, so young, so innocent, to have no understanding of what is going on right now, and to realize that he may never really understand how much, how absolutely much, his mommy adored and loved him.  I’m of course going to tell him all the time about her, about her love, about the time she did have with him…