{"id":7409,"date":"2011-03-21T07:00:53","date_gmt":"2011-03-21T13:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/?p=7409"},"modified":"2011-03-21T09:56:45","modified_gmt":"2011-03-21T15:56:45","slug":"mixed-emotions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/mixed-emotions\/","title":{"rendered":"A day of mixed emotions"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_5188\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5188\" style=\"width: 250px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-content\/uploads\/amy.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Amy Blundell\" width=\"250\" height=\"333\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5188\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-5188\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amy E. Blundell (Dec. 2004)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Some days you wake up not knowing how you should feel.<\/p>\n<p>Today is one of those days.<\/p>\n<p>Six years ago today, around 1 or 2 in the afternoon, I received a phone call that changed my life forever.<\/p>\n<p>My sister Amy had passed away.<\/p>\n<p>As C.S. Lewis said about the death of a close loved one &#8211; it&#8217;s like an amputation. You never get over it. You don&#8217;t out grow it. You don&#8217;t get used to it. You just learn to live without it.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nOn the flip side of my emotions is the celebration that my boys turn five months old today.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7410\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7410\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-content\/uploads\/DSC_0865.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-content\/uploads\/DSC_0865-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"Photo of Hayden and Ian\" title=\"Hayden and Ian at 5 months\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7410\" srcset=\"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-content\/uploads\/DSC_0865-300x199.jpg 300w, http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-content\/uploads\/DSC_0865-500x332.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7410\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hayden and Ian, five months old | Photo by Laurie Blundell<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It was just five months ago, at 2:36 in the afternoon that both boys entered the world and changed my life forever.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s been five months of far less sleep than needed, lots of dirty diapers, lots of frustration at times and far more fun than any dad should be allowed to have.<\/p>\n<p>And so while I celebrate their life and all the joy it brings, I continue to grieve my loss.<\/p>\n<p>I know my sister would have loved my boys to pieces. She would have been an amazing aunt &#8212; just like my sister Kara is.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond just the anniversary of my sister&#8217;s death, days like these always bring back mixed emotions. My wedding day, the birth of my boys, my sister&#8217;s wedding day, the day we bought our first house, the day we bought our second house&#8230; all of these make the loss of a close loved one hard to bear. You just wish they could be there.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;but the past is the past. Today is the present. And the future is all we can really change.<\/p>\n<p>So as I remember the past and grieve the loss of my sister, my grandparents and others who missed the blessing of knowing my boys &#8212; I will take time to be present with my boys and always remind them to follow the example of their rich family legacy and to truly <a href=\"http:\/\/www.casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/a-life-worth-living\/\">live a life worth living<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some days you wake up not knowing how you should feel. Today is one of those days. Six years ago today, around 1 or 2 in the afternoon, I received a phone call that changed my life forever. My sister Amy had passed away. As C.S. Lewis said about the death of a close loved &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/mixed-emotions\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">A day of mixed emotions<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":7410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[4098,885,3941,781,1721,973,4100,633,4099],"class_list":["post-7409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mi-familia","tag-amputation","tag-amy-blundell","tag-amy-elizabeth-blundell","tag-birth","tag-celebration","tag-death","tag-emotions","tag-loss","tag-mixed-emotions"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-content\/uploads\/DSC_0865.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pEnSo-1Vv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14014,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7409\/revisions\/14014"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}