Building a new relationship after my wife's death.

It has been sometime since my last update. Not too much new to report. We are still on the marriage track. I haven’t told my kids yet. I had planned to tell them the day of Joyce’s big Christmas party but Joyce asked me to wait in case Deanna was upset after hearing it. I think it will fine but I agreed to wait. Since I want to do it in face to face the first chance will be in San Diego this weekend, so I plan to tell them then.

Deanna has gone above and beyond to accept Joyce. Bringing desert to here party and being very supportive so I am confident that she will accept the marriage plan but it will no doubt be “weird” for her. I am not too concerned about Jake but he will be concerned about the time and logistics.

Joyce and I have continued to talk about the wedding and marriage; so far the plans shape up like this:

-We will see Bill about the ring in January and figure out what we want but I am pretty sure we will have him design a ring. On the weekend we tried on some engagement rings to see what looked good to her.

-Our plan is to formally announce our plans on Joyce’s birthday, March 31.


-The wedding will be in the first part of September, either at one of our houses or a nearby park. The guest list is the issue it may be too many for a house. The wedding will be casual, outdoors. A Lutheran Pastor will marry us.

-She has called a lawyer she knows and we will meet him in January to help us figure out the best way to protect our estates and one another. This should not be too complicated but it needs to be understood and thought through.

Joyce has told many of her friends as well as her boys that we are getting married. We are both concerned that it is so soon (less than four months) but by the time we are married it will have been nearly a year so to me it seems very right. We both feel confident that we have made a good decision but if you consider that we have until September to grow together it seems very right, to me.

I am not sure that I will keep this blog going much longer. The last act to deal with the grief was visiting my Pastor last week to tell him that I was moving on to a different church because the memories were too difficult to shake at our old church My life is moving into a new phase and the grieving is faded now to the point that I am comfortable with it and my priority now is to move into my new life with a new wife so I will not dwell in the past. I will certainly never loose the memory of Jo Lynn but my life now centers around Joyce first and the kids second and I will move on from here. .