Bobby died on May 17th, 2015 after a 7 month battle with stomach cancer. We had been together for 15 years, married for nearly 11. We had been raising 4 beautiful and still very young children together.  Previous to his passing I had experienced losing loved ones too many times. I have learned too much at 40, lost too many people that I love. But, these lessons just keep making me stronger. I don’t know why. I can only say God gave me a foundation in the way I was raised with amazing parents to believe the good in the world and to be the good in the world.  He also gave me a heart to never lose hope. It is my hope that I am passing that on to my own children.

Life is an ocean. We are the captain of our own ships, but we cannot control the weather. The storms will come and at times will be fierce, but they will also subside. We need to refuse to sink. We cannot drown in these waves. We need to ride them with everything we’ve got. We need to come out on top. One thing we can be guaranteed is that the storms will also go away. We will be left in calm waters, sun shining, floating peacefully along. We need to remember that our boat can drop anchor, as can our lives.  An anchor is a symbol of staying grounded, of not being pulled out to sea in these storms. We are our own anchor and hope is always an anchor for our soul!

My blog is titled, “Refuse to Sink” because I am an anchor for my family, keeping us grounded, but I also refuse to let our boat sink in the storms. I have been told to write a blog for a while now and I think it is finally time.  My experiences make me who I am, but we all have experiences, good and bad. I am not unique in that I have had to battle some pretty shitty stuff. We all do! No one person’s problem is better or worse than anothers. They are just different and not to be judged. It is what it is, but how will we sail our ship? How do we view the world? How do we get through these storms?  If the way I live my life and my attitude and my smile after my own storms help even one person to have hope for their own future, then this blog will have served its purpose. I hope I will inspire my readers and also make them laugh. Most of all, I hope that even if one of my blog entries makes you cry, it will also end leaving you with a smile on your face.