What Now

Then there were Two

I met my husband Mike when I was a senior in high school. We joke that his sister brought me home. I went from being part of a small family of three, to being welcomed into a second large, busy, loud family of 10. Mike's dad became a father to me. Setting aside dinner for me when I worked or had a late college class.

We moved out to our first apartment together a couple years into dating. We bought our first home together at the four year mark and a year later we were expecting Billy. Nope, he wasn't planned, but we were committed and had been talking marriage ever since we bought the house together. We got hitched in a blizzard after quickly planning a New Year's Wedding in two weeks. Our officiant had to hitchhike to our ceremony and my family had to hum me down the aisle. 

Life was pretty amazing. Every so often I felt like I was waiting for a shoe to drop because of my childhood.

Billy was named after both of our fathers, William Hansen Warner. I remember Hans, Mike's dad, giving me the biggest hug when we told him we were expecting. When Billy was born, my sister in law said that was one of only three times she had seen her dad cry: when his mother passed, when my niece Allison was diagnosed with leukemia, and the birth of my son.

Hans was the most doting grandfather I know. He would make each of his grandkids (and some of his kids) their favorite food when he thought they might visit. Life centered around that long cluttered kitchen table. Telling the same stories over and over. I'd get so mad at my husband when he would walk away in the middle of a story, then a few years into our relationship I'd find myself laughing because I understood they left because they had heard them all before. Hans suddenly passed when Billy was just two, I was lucky to have him as my second dad for eight years. When I think about it I got to know him better than my own father because I was an adult for the whole time I knew him.

The passing of Hans was hard on my husband, thankfully I could understand some of what he was going through. This hardship was exasperated by the fact that his best friend and closest sibling was serving overseas at the time. Thankfully his other brother rented a room from us, so Mike had him there to grieve with. Nine months later Shea was born.