“Take Care of The Momma”

If you met my father-in-law even once, he left an impression. The first thing you’d take in was his staggering height. There was something about him that made 6’4” seem more like 7 feet. The next thing you’d notice was the way he smiled with his eyes; there was a glimmer in there that burst out of the corners, whether laughing at his own dirty pun or beaming while watching his family.  And the thing that will echo in all of our hearts forever is his full bellied, booming laugh. He laughed often, and he did not hold back.

I know it would make Blaine so proud to see what an imprint he has left on his community. Over the past few days we have received countless messages of sympathy, but also stories and memories of the various ways he has touched the lives of his friends, neighbors, peers, and children’s friends. He held many titles throughout his life- realtor, coach, Dad to his 4 kids, and Poppa to his 7 grandkids. And as much as he adored his grandkids, the title that defined him until the very end was husband to Lisa.

Blaine and Lisa met when they were a couple of teenagers living in California. He sassed her, she snapped back, the aforementioned belly-laugh followed, and they spent the next 46 years building a beautiful life together. In those 46 years, they spent barely a week apart from each other. Total.

I can not imagine the transition from 16,700 days of doing life with my husband, to day one without him. 

Blaine was a successful realtor for much of his life, while Lisa’s passion was working with students who had vision impairments as their one-on-one support at school. Unfortunately, Blaine’s various health complications over the past several years meant that they both had to give up their passions in order to focus on getting him healthy again. Lisa left her job to take on the role of his official caregiver, while he wanted nothing more than to get well and get back to work so he could “take care of The Momma,” as he called her. Sadly, he never got the chance.

I know that when tragedy strikes, I feel compelled to take action, but don’t know how or what I can do. Nothing will bring back our patriarch, but his biggest concern was always that The Momma be taken care of, that we make sure that she’s okay. And while us kids will do everything we can to make sure she doesn’t have to worry about anything besides processing her loss, she currently does not have a car that runs, or any kind of steady income to cushion the burden of her new normal.

On behalf of Blaine, who had an enormous heart to match his larger-than-life presence, I ask that you help us take care of the one who that big heart loved more than anything on this Earth. Help us help The Momma.