Chicago 2025

When Jim died we made the decision to honor his life and not his death. It seems a moot point since he died 3 days before his birthday but that is not my point. The only death we want to commemorate in an ongoing way is that of Jesus. We decided 5 years ago, however,  that there was something significant about making it 10 years without Jim so we planned a trip as a family to Chicago. Then Covid hit and we couldn’t go. Since then we added Amanda to our family and 5 more years have passed by. So we decided to take a family vacation to Scotland. This is way to much info and it is really nobody’s business but due to jobs or the lack of them we had to adapt our plans and lower our expectations. By happy coincidence Amanda’s family lives in Chicago now so we revived the previously planned trip to  Illinois.  It was amazing and wonderful and we hope to travel together again in the future.

We visited friends and places we knew when we lived there 2o years ago. We showed the kids’ spouses some of the history, the museums and the restaurants we once loved. We visited new places and tried new things. We went to Wisconsin and Wheaton and Waukegan. We missed Jim. We laughed and played. We cried and were somber. We cheered the Cubs to victory and we cherished the time together. We made memories and celebrated our family. Chi-town is still our favorite city. Thankful for the privilege of being there together.