It’s been a busy season… so busy in fact, that I haven’t written in a few months. The last time I took such a hiatus was in 2020, when I didn’t want to share my battle with infertility. Nothing so personally tragic has occurred this time, but I did have a baby (post forth-coming), mark seven years of marriage (post also forth-coming), celebrate my girls’ third birthday (yes, forth-coming), and throw a combination “three-rex” dinosaur party and baptism reception. To top it off, Six Months Pregnant Belle had the brilliant idea to sign Eight Weeks Post-Partum Belle up for her first farmers market. Yes. That’s right. I spent a week straight wrangling four under three (one of whom still eats every three to four hours) while I crafted handmade earrings, buttons, stickers, and mugs, tightly wrapped in my post C-section binder.

As with many of my life ventures, I have jumped into these farmers market shenanigans with little know-how or experience. While I won’t say it’s been a total disaster, that first Friday was particularly disheartening, as I watched the lady across from me sell loaf after loaf of sourdough, while I held a naked two-month-old whose daddy dressed him in sleeper jams in 90° plus weather, and sold a whopping $13 worth of merchandise.

I learned from this experience, though, and added baked goods to the next week’s haul, none of which moved until Jake suggested I give out samples. Ill-prepared, I cut up a couple of brownies with a plastic takeout knife from the car and lay them out on a paper sack. I still can’t believe anyone tried them, with Jake waving another sack to keep the flies away. Nearly everyone who did bought one for $3 or two for $5, though. This time, I went home with $53 in my pocket, a substantial improvement. In the days since, I’ve been to Hobby Lobby and purchased a cheap cake carrier for next week’s samples. I plan to add banana bread and chocolate chip cookies to my wares for even greater success, both of which I ruined last week by undercooking and overcooking, respectively.

Truly, it has been an exhausting time of life, but blessedly so. I’ve been so fortunate to safely have these babies after infertility, care for them in a comfortable home on one income, and kiss my healthy husband each evening when he walks through the door… or pick an only half insane, exhausted, and overwhelmed, post-partum fight. As tough as these last few… well, years, have been, I am reminded to be grateful for this chaos, because my sweetest of cousins buried her own 36-year old husband this past week, after a brief, but vicious battle with cancer.

I won’t pretend to have been close to Patrick, but Kayla and I were good friends as kids. Two years younger, she was the cousin with whom I had sleepovers after every family gathering. I was the bossy older cousin always trying to convince her to do things that were forbidden. Kayla was the sweet, innocent younger cousin I envied for her popularity with grown-ups and other kids alike. As adults, we weren’t especially close until we seemed to mirror each other’s milestones. While Kayla skipped the Lifetime Original Movie marriage, she did spend several years with a man her family didn’t like for a multitude of reasons, before finally getting shot of him. A couple of years later, just as I met Jake on Plenty of Fish, Kayla met Patrick on Tinder. Together, we defended online dating to our Boomer aunts and uncles, explaining that it wasn’t You’ve Got Mail, anymore. Even in 2015, it was ubiquitous. People just weren’t talking about it. Eventually, Jake and I married in 2017 and Kayla and Patrick about a year later. In 2020, I began IVF and Kayla announced that they were facing their own fertility problems.

Both having married men from wealthy families, Kayla and I fielded comments together, about how we could “just” pursue treatment. This advice was well-intended, but lacked the understanding that “comes from money” and “has money” are not equivalent. Regardless, just as Jake and I announced our miracle conception with Thomas, Kayla announced that she and Patrick were pregnant with Cillian. It was a joyous few months, in which Kayla and I bonded via text… until Patrick’s diagnosis with stage four colon cancer.

I only met Patrick two or three times, but I was shocked at how similar he was to Jake. Also a Texan, he enjoyed hunting and fishing. He was the life of every party, loud and funny. While Kayla and I were close as kids, I can’t say we’ve ever been especially similar. Kayla is… sweet. She’s the kind of person who doesn’t have to try to think kind thoughts, avoid gossip, word things carefully, and/or bite her tongue. She’s just naturally loving and gentle. I am nothing if not self-aware and would never say these things about myself. I try to be a good person, a loving wife, mother, granddaughter, friend… but I do have to try. More than once this week, I’ve told Jake that, as infuriating as he is in his nearly robotic stoicism, I could not have married a sensitive man. I’m too opinionated, honest, and assertive. It surprises me that Kayla and I would choose men so alike… and it breaks my heart to know that, at 34 years old, with a son two months younger than Thomas, she’s lost hers.

Last week, Jake and I did everything we could to secure childcare for the funeral. However, on very short notice, we were only able to attend the viewing. A more social, less somber, affair, it was still awful to see this vibrant, young father and husband in an open casket. It’s my understanding that, once the inoperable tumors developed, chemo ceased. This meant that Patrick looked exactly like the man Jake and I joked and laughed with at Christmas just before Covid-19 put a stop to all family gatherings. With the cancer diagnosis, I’d never met Cillian, who looks exactly like the father he won’t remember, just as my Thomas is the mirror image of Jake.

I’ve said before that Jake is my best friend and the only man I’ve ever loved. I mean it, every single day. However, the last few months, with four under four, one of them brand new, have not been entirely harmonious. No one has done or said anything too egregious, but life has been somewhat rocky, with so many stressors and transitions. The fourth trimester has bested me after every single pregnancy and this time has been no different… except now I’ve also had three under three to contend with, in addition to a newborn. There has been more than one crying jag in the shower, as well as more than one comment that a stoic and an asshole are not one in the same. I’m sensitive. Jake’s stressed. We’re both exhausted. It has, admittedly, resulted in something of a rough patch.

As we weather this season with all its complicated feelings, I’ve felt a kind of survivor’s guilt. Kayla would do anything to argue with Patrick under her breath at a farmers market… or even to yell at him for refusing to fix the bumper he cracked two years ago. As is often the case in life, it’s not fair. It’s not fair that the kindest cousin of my generation has been hit so hard, with infertility and now widowhood just days before her anniversary. It’s not fair that her little boy will grow up only knowing his father from photos, videos, and stories. It’s not fair that such a young, lively, funny, loyal, good man spent his last months knowing he wouldn’t be there for his wife or son. I had to consider that possibility myself, once, after I nearly died during childbirth with the girls. For months, I would burst into tears at random, knowing firsthand the pain of going through life without a mother. I can only imagine the devastation of it being a sure thing. None of it’s fair, so I’ll just count my blessings that my biggest stressors in life are farmers markets and a funeral. As tense as things are at the moment, Jake and I have our children, our home, our health… and no matter what life brings, each other.