With it brings Christmas cards and sometimes a letter updating family and friends of the events that took place throughout the year.
If I had your address, you would have received this letter from me:
But what if I wrote a letter with all those details? What would it look like? How would I ever be able to make things be positive as most letters are?
Below, is what that letter would look like. I am writing it as I type.... winging it the best way I know how.
Dear family and friends,
Another year has come and gone by so fast and yet so very very slow. It brought with it ups and downs that our family could never fully wrap our minds around. Just in case you are not following our stories on social media, we wanted to give you as brief of a synopsis as we can to tag along with our family pictures.
Christian has grown about four feet in 2017. He is now towering over Ted and Mary can rest her head in his arm pit. The early winter months has kept him busy with robotics. The teams second year and they made it to the state competition again. Christian has learned so much through the program and seems to really be enjoying his time on the team. This summer brought him back to Camp Gerber as a paid Super Den Chief for cub scouts for the third year. Although he doesn't tell us many stories of what goes on there, I know he is building memories and friendships to last a lifetime. In the fall he officially became an upperclassmen as Junior and he was able to pass his driving test on the second try to get his driver's license. Band filled up most of his time in the fall and Boy Scout camps and meetings. He is working hard (when nudged) to get his Eagle Scout project moving. This past year, Christian has further grown into a smart, caring, and responsible young man. I know that God has big plans for his future, be it in the Army or a career in machining, he will go far in life.
Alyssa is growing into a beautiful young woman. Sadly, we lost our horse, Jersey, in February due to colic, but were able to find her a new one who needed a girl to love on that she named Hutch so that Starski now has his Hutch. Alyssa had a very active spring, summer and fall with the Wayland Equestrian team and her 4H group, Ridin Wild. Her confidence on and off a horse has soared this past year and it will be fun to see where this passion takes her. Alyssa has also introduced us to a new family member, Ziggy Dude, a Flemish Giant rabbit. This guy is HUGE and puts just as big of a smile on her face. The year is ending with Alyssa finishing up phase one of driver's training. How did we go from no drivers to two drivers?
The early part of the year brought with it running injuries for Mary. All but the one race that was already paid for needed to be cancelled as she was simply not able to walk without pain let alone run. Mary did complete the North Country Trail half marathon in August with Ted waiting for her at the finish line. It was such a beautiful course and a great reminder of life's ups and downs. The passing of Jersey really shook her up and she still isn't quite sure how to move on to focus on Starski who will hopefully be going in for training in a couple of months. Mary still works at General RV in Wayland. They have been a fantastic supporter of her being gone a lot with appointments and hospital stays.
In January, Ted went outside of his comfort zone and applied for a position as a shop supervisor for a small company called Huizingas. He got the job and was soon blessed with a great boss and coworkers. Mary and the kids knew that Dad had found his dream job by the way he came home every day with a smile and fun stories about what was happening at work. He wasn't as angry as he used to be and with the shorter drive and hours working, he was able to be home more to help out with the house work and jobs around the hobby farm. In March/ April, Ted started to notice he was experiencing a lot of rib pain. Xrays showed broken ribs, but not much else and no real reason as to why they were breaking. June brought those answers along with the words no family ever wants to hear.... tumor and cancer. Ted was officially diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a treatable but not curable cancer of the plasma cells that affects his bones. Being the hard worker that Ted is, he continued to work through radiation and chemo treatments until he was hospitalized with a pulmonary embolism in July. That is when we learned that his spine was so deteriorated with compression fractures and that there was no way for it to get fixed. That is also when Ted officially stopped working. Now his days are filled with sleeping and TV watching but most importantly, healing. In October he had a major surgery to remove his C6 vertebrae that was/ still is cover in tumor and had C3 to T1 vertebrae fusion in the hopes that he won't cut his spinal cord from the way the tumor has pushed his neck. Ted is healing very nicely from that and was able to begin chemo again.
In all that has happened in our life this past year, there is one certainty that all four of us know without a doubt: that God is in control and will take care of us in ways we can never fathom. (Okay, that was two.) There is truly no way that we have not missed a single bill payment as the numbers have never added up, but we have not. We made a very tough decision to move to a smaller home to rent for a year or two max and prayerfully sell our home early next year. It is our goal to become debt free from the sell of the house so that we can 100% focus on Ted and his health as a family as we navigate many new to us trials.
We do not know what tomorrow will bring, we never have known, but we do know that God will never leave nor forsake us. That His light shines the brightest in the darkest of moments. And we know that we are surrounded by God's Angels every single day.
2018 will bring with it many unknowns for us all. It is our prayer that you are able to see the good in everything, especially in those areas that make no sense at all.
With Love and Warm Wishes,
The Mattinglys
Ted, Mary, Christian and Alyssa.
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