Bravo Zulu, Sir

On Thursday I had a voicemail from John's dad saying to tell John to bring a suit to the Carson Christmas party, things weren't looking good with Grandpa. Okay, I thought 'Well, anything's possible'. I got this call around 11am. Later that afternoon I get a call from my sister-in-law letting me know that Grandpa Carson has passed away. My brain immediately went into overdrive, as it tends to do when I'm freaking out. When John finally got off of work around 3:30 he had already been called by one of his brothers and his sister telling him the news. By the time I got to talk to him we were just trying to figure out our plan of attack. We decided that it would be best for John to come to KC that night, then we would both head to Omaha for the weekend. Thankfully, he made it here safely and he got to see Levi.

Friday morning John and I headed to Omaha. We left Levi in KC at the hospital. I was a hot mess! As odd as this sounds, we had a wonderful weekend. It was a good service and Grandpa would have been happy that we were all there. We had our family Christmas party, as planned, Saturday night. We had such a good time. As we were standing around our aunt's house laughing and telling jokes and having a good time I realized how lucky we were to have each other. There's a lot of love, laughter, tears, anger and hope. There's a family, a place where we all fit. There's 88 of us when we're all there and we owe it all to Grandpa Carson. He started this family and for that, I will be eternally grateful.

Saturday we mourned Grandpa Carson, today we buried Commander Carson. It was a beautiful military burial, simple and sweet. He gave his life to this country and his family. He was a good man. Bravo Zulu, Commander, may we honor your legacy and live up to the Carson name.