Dear Family & Friends…

This will be my last blog of 2018…I believe ending the year on a high note allows for an amazing start to 2019….besides there’s nothing anything greater going to happen to me than what happened last night at our annual Christmas Tree decorating party.  This blog is from my heart that is still in overdrive from last night…it’s an insight to how much friends and family mean to me and also the history behind our annual holiday party.  Here is our journey to this point…

2007 was the year our world would be flipped upside, my husband Mike was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, he was 37 years young.  The outcome would not be favorable. We had a blended family of 7 kids ranging from 8 years old to 22 years old and the two youngest were 8 & 9 years old.  We did as much as we could as family as my husband was an amazing family man, always putting his family before anything or anyone.  A year after Mike’s diagnosis Mike insisted we get married because he wanted to die a married man to the love of his life. We had been together for 8 years at the time and August 31, 2008 we said our vows to each other in a very small and private ceremony at Digby Pines.  We hadn’t gotten married earlier on in our relationship because we had financial goals we were working towards and we felt a lavish wedding wasn’t something we needed to do, besides we were committed to our lives with each other and we planned to get married in the future when the timing was right financially.  As you can see the timing of marriage changed with our news of his illness.  

During the next 2 years of his illness we squeezed in a lifetime of great memories.  It was December 2008 when I came up with the idea to decorate our Christmas tree with family photos as ornaments, after all…family was the very thing our lives circled around. This was going to be a surprise for Mike because at this time he was not doing so well and I thought this was the perfect timing to start a tradition we would carry on as a family going forward in life and in death. My friend Temple arrived at my house and we went through hundreds of photos, cutting them out, laminating them, punching holes in them and putting ribbon through the holes to hang them on our tree.  I think we were at this for 8 hours straight, if it wasn’t that long it sure felt like it but we had a blast doing it and the wine kept us going.  The next day the kids all helped to decorate the tree to surprise their dad with our new family tradition.  When we were done we brought Mike up to the tree to take a look, this moment will forever be embedded in my heart as the smile on his face and the whisper in my ear “I am so proud to call you my wife” was enough for me to know he loved it.  As he looked at each and every picture he would recap the time the picture was taken.  That night we shared so many stories of our lives together and you could  hear the kids saying “dad remember when…” as they looked at the pictures with him.

Unfortunately that would be the first and only Christmas we would share this tradition with Mike.  June 14, 2009 Mike lost his battle with cancer.

The days to follow my husbands death our blended family fell apart, Mike’s youngest son returned to live with his mother after his dad’s passing.  I had 3 kids (1 biological and 2 step kids) and the other 4 kids (2 biological and 2 step kids) were with Mike’s ex.  Sadly we couldn’t fix the falling out that had happened after Mike’s passing so the contact went from minor to non existent and life continued to roll forward.  Every year me and my 3 kids continued to place our ornaments on the tree, laughing and telling stories about the pictures.

A few years later and the tradition had a new tradition born out of love for our family and friends.  I decided to extend the tree decorating to our family and friends that were there for us during Mike’s illness.  I got wooden name ornaments made for a handful of people and invited them over for our Annual Christmas Tree Decorating Party…we would not only be celebrating our family but also our extended family and friends and those who had passed on. The evolution of the tradition continued as the years rolled forward. We also started collecting items for Shelter Nova Scotia and donating them, giving back is part of the tradition every year. One year I had found a decorative crow in a store one year around Halloween time and as I looked at it I immediately knew I wanted it for our Christmas Tree Topper.  Our family name was Crowe and as I seen it, this would be a great way to celebrate our family name…so the newest version of our tradition involved a crow as our tree topper.  Fast forward again and the tradition had one last evolution…as people entered my life and left their footprint in my heart, they too would be invited to celebrate our occasion with their very own name ornament to hang on our tree.  Not everyone always makes it and some people even live far away but we still hang their ornaments for them every year. 

So here we are 11 years after a tradition was started and this year was one of the most meaningful nights of our lives…well of mine I should say, but I know anyone that was there on Saturday felt the love and joy in this house as we started our tradition.  You see this year Mike’s son and stepson were part of this tradition for the first time since we started this…actually no, his son was living with us the first year we started this tradition but that was the only year he was with us for it….he was 8 years old then…he is 19 now, it is hard to think about how much time had passed.  Nevertheless, they were here and that is what brought so much joy this year.  The first ornament that is hung on our tree is Mike’s.  This year my ornament maker made me us a special ornament of an angel with Mike’s name in the middle of it so we hung that first.  The second ornament was Mike’s original ornament and that was hung by his son, for the first time he had placed his dad’s ornament on the tree…it made me smile with pride and joy.  We followed by placing ornaments in honor of others who had passed on…then my ornament then all of the guests hung their ornaments…the kids always hang all of the pictures afterwards and it was nice to see them laughing and sharing stories about the past….the adults jump in and they too hang pictures until our all of our ornaments are on the tree….and then we eat, drink and be merry. 

But wait, this year we had one more thing to celebrate, Mike’s son would be turning 20 on December 20.  I had thought about this day every single December since Mike passed….I thought about when it would be the right time to pass down something from father to son.  The time had come.  I waited until pretty much all of our guests had left to go home outside of family and a few friends and brought out a birthday cupcake.  We sang Happy Birthday to him and when we were done I gave him his gift explaining to him that I was holding on to this gift until he was old enough to understand and appreciate what he was going to receive.  You see he was so young when he left my care and then the years of not seeing each other to now…sitting in front of me was a young man, a mirror image of his father, someone who I could tell would appreciate and understand the meaning of what he was about to receive.  I wrapped the gift in a napkin and placed it into a styrofoam bowl and then placed another styrofoam bowl over the top of the first one.  You’re probably wondering what this signified, it signified that I had not picked up a gift box and didn’t have any tissue paper so I improvised…stop laughing you didn’t think I’d end this blog without one funny line did you?  Me not swearing in this blog is a darn huge accomplishment in itself don’t you think?

His son unwrapped the napkin and inside was the watch his dad wore.  Engraved on the back: Mike Crowe August 6, 1970 to June 14, 2009 ….something I know he will be proud to wear for the rest of his life.

And this is why 2018 is ending on the best note it could’ve ever ended on…our family reunited, amazing friends, a family tradition, laughter, memories and most of all….a heart full of LOVE…Thank you to everyone who has ever touched my heart I truly hope this real life story touches yours ~Holla