52 | IELEV8

Dear Mark,

Today we celebrated you with a trip to Atwater beach, a favorite place of yours, near the home that you and I shared together when we first started our family. As we remembered and celebrated you, we released the words that weigh heavily on our hearts as floating messages on balloons, a tradition that we carry on each year. It’s hard to imagine you’d be 52 today, since you will forever be 40 years old in my mind and in my heart.

It seems that as each year passes without you here on earth with us, the ache of missing you grows stronger. While our memories of you become more distant and our most important milestones are always filled with reminders of the enormous space you’ve left behind, I take comfort in knowing that you are still here somehow, in ways that we may never fully understand. And I am grateful for the reminders from God and the hugs from heaven that affirm for me that love is eternal.

Over the years, I’ve learned to carry my grief with grace and patience, but I will always wish for one more day, one more conversation, or one more chance to be wrapped up inside your arms. That longing will never go away. Losing you has taught me that grief is just love with nowhere to go. So, I’ve found that I can soothe my aching heart when I miss you most by pouring that love into my favorite people and cherishing each day and each moment that I have here on earth with them.

In just a few days, Cooper will move into his dorm at Marquette University for his next chapter, following in your footsteps while also paving his own way. It occurred to me this summer while attending his orientation, that he will be living just steps away from where you and I had our first lunch date, and just a one minute walk from Gesu Church, where you took me to light a candle on our walk back to your office that day. Years later, your funeral was held at Gesu and hundreds visited to say their final goodbyes, and months after that our children were baptized there too. Two months ago, just after Cooper graduated from high school, I sat in the audience of a Marquette auditorium filled with anxious parents of incoming freshmen as a cinematic video highlighting the basketball program played on the enormous screen above us. Goosebumps covered my body as I imagined how immensely proud and excited you would be that Cooper will begin his journey this fall as a student manager of the Marquette Men’s Basketball Team and a student in the College of Business Administration. In that moment, my heart was filled with excitement, peace, and a simple knowing, not only that this was the perfect place for Cooper, but also that you were right there with us too. At the close of the presentation, our guide shared that we would be visiting our children’s dorm rooms. As I typed the name of Cooper’s assigned dorm into the maps app on my phone, the address populated, and I noticed the zipcode for Marquette University: 53233. 💙💛 Without a doubt, this is exactly where Cooper is meant to be. Happy Birthday in heaven, Mark.