Thursday while I was talking with Grace I felt like there were decisions I needed to make. Was I going to keep keeping my dad's death a secret, did I want to wait a while before posting it so I would just be old news and no one would care, or did I want to just get it over with? Would I regret it if I did? Would I regret it if I didn't? What is the worst thing that could happen if I did post that he was abusive?
I've held off strictly because I was worried about offending my family. The worst case scenario for posting being my whole family gets mad at me and never talks to me again. I wrote the post Thursday. I asked Brad and my best friend, Robin, what they thought of it. Brad liked it. I wanted to wait until I heard back from Robin, but I also wanted to give it a full 24 hours before I read it again and really decided. Then I didn't want to post it on Saturday and have the backlash from the family to deal with on the same day as my daughter's baptism.
Today as I sat in the chapel waiting for people to arrive for the baptism I realized not a single member of my family was there. No one. Not 1 person. It hit me, so what if they all hate me. They aren't there for me now.
Between Brad and I we have 9 siblings. The closest being 2 hours away and the furthest being 6 1/2 hours away. Brad's parents and 2 siblings came. One of his brothers being the second from furthest away at 4 hours! And his sister that is 3 1/2 hours. Yet, there I sat with no one. 3 of my 4 siblings are 2 to 2 1/2 hours away! Yep, I won't be missing out if they all end up hating me for speaking the truth.
I was so thankful to Brad's family for coming! A few months ago Robin's son was baptized and she warned me that the closer it got everything would start going wrong! Aside from my dad dying, we were doing good! Brad took yesterday off of work to make sure we had things ready. Today we ended up working on Christmas decorations. By the time the baptism was 2 hours out, so 1 1/2 until we needed to leave, nothing was ready. Brad had the meat in the smoker, but that was it. I needed to set up 3 table, one of which needed to be moved from upstairs to downstairs and it is our big kitchen table. Brad hadn't packed his bag. No one was dressed. The second I was starting to get things going Brad's phone rang with a work emergency! Like HUGE emergency. He told his coworker he could go in and help, I looked at him like, "I will kill you if you go!". I was left scrabbling to get things done alone as Brad was on the phone. His family showed up and I was panicking. Finally my mother-in-law told me to go get dressed and they would take the table down. I went to my closest and started bawling. Just then Brad came in and I pulled myself back together. We got dressed, went out to the living room the my brother-in-law and nephew had taken the table down for me. My sister-in-law also picked up the dessert I ordered that was 45 minutes away! My mother-in-law can seriously just sense when I need them! Back when I worked full-time there were days that I was a mess. I was stressed, struggling with depression, over worked. On some of my worst days my in-laws would just show up at my work and tell me they felt like coming down to visit us!
