The most common question I hear these days - at church, from family and friends, from the distant acquaintances or professional people I sometimes come in contact with is, "How is Justin doing?"
And it's almost always followed up by, "And how are
you doing".
The answers are usually the same, Good. He's good, we hear from him almost every day. He get's to call, or FaceTime or text. We email and send pictures and video's. The weather at his home base is a lot like Utah, although he has definitely felt the heat a few other places so far.
And, for the most part, we're good. I have a lot of family that help out with the kids. Friends that have offered and sometimes even insisted to help out and even bring us a few meals or treats to let us know they're thinking of us. It's all very nice, and genuine, and sincere, and I appreciate it more than I can express. I certainly have bad days, but I had bad days even when Justin was here, it's all apart of life and especially with life of 3 little kids.
This week has been less than good. Tuesday I got a text and a call from my father-in-law, Scott. He and Justin and his uncle, Jeff, run the auto shops we own. It's not unusual to get phone calls from Scott. There's plenty of reasons; bills, invoices, supplies for the shop, paperwork, etc. This one was different.
Justin and I went over plenty of worse case scenario's before he left. Where paperwork was, who to call if something happened, bills, and passwords, all of that fun stuff. But, I think I slacked off on worrying about a lot of it because we found out that we could talk so often, I figured it something happened I could just call him.
It took a few hours for Justin to call us back so I could tell him his uncle, Jeff, passed away. I didn't have all of the details at the time, but we have found out that he died of a heart attack in his sleep sometime early Tuesday morning. He had blocked arteries and possible a blood clot that caused it. He left behind a wife, six children, his youngest 6 months older than Hyrum, and a large void with his family and friends.
We closed the shop on Tuesday. I called Justin's mom to let her know and let her know I didn't know what to do initially with the business and insurance stuff. This was all Justin's area of expertise. I've felt like a fish out of water the whole time with these businesses and this didn't help. Lucky for all of us, he's been able to handle a lot of stuff from Afghanistan, and his mom has helped out too.
Because of the insurance and bank issues I initiated a case with the American Red Cross for him to possibly come home for a few days. More to do with the business partnership and less to do with the death of an uncle. I've learned that if you need to get a message to a service member or get them home in a hurry, the Red Cross is VERY thorough. I called around 2 pm and I've had no less than 7 phone calls and messages from there to verify information and ask clarifying questions. We're not sure it will be necessary (I should be able to take care a lot of it with power of attorney, but haven't received confirmation from the insurance or bank), but it's definitely in motion now.
Lot's of emotions this week, sometimes I'm not even sure what is exactly causing them, but they're there all the same. My husband being in Afghanistan, losing Jeff so suddenly, business decisions that need to be made, even the possibility of Justin coming home for a few days. I guess there's no shortage of things to think about right now.
