I posted before about my Dad “Moving Forward” after my Mom’s death in September 2004. Well yesterday I got a call from him and he and Fran are engaged and getting married on March 30th in Florida.

I am not surprised by this but I guess the whole enormity of it is starting to sink in. I am very happy for him and anxious to meet Fran. However, there are a lot of painful feelings going through me as well. I know that Fran will never replace my Mom and I’m sure she isn’t wanting to do that anyway. But the fact that my Dad is moving on makes me miss my Mom even more.

They are still planning on living in Ohio in the summer and in Florida in the winter. He said they would stay in his Ohio home which will be nice. When he started to talk about moving into her house in Florida and eventually selling his Florida home it made me sad. There are so many memories there for me. We have probably been down there 10 out of the last 12 years. Todd, Evan and I would go down in the winter for a week and have the best time. Mom would always have things planned out for us to do and even schedule a dinner and a play for Todd and I to go see while they watched Evan. We took him since he was a baby and I’m sure he has memories there as well. We have only been down there once since Mom passed away. It was very hard being there without her. I had to take Mom’s place in the kitchen and we were on our own to make plans. I’m sure it was hard for Dad as well.

I know this is just another step in dealing with Mom being gone. I think there will always be steps. Hopefully they will be less steep as time goes on.