Andrea Hylen

Hurley Cox. 4 years ago today. Died peacefully in Baltimore in Hospice. For hours, people came to express their love and share their stories. The garden was alive with hummingbirds that day. All singing the joy of Hurley’s arrival back home. Live a Life Worth Celebrating. My husband certainly did! (Bottom left hand corner of picture)
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This is what I wrote on my Facebook status today and on the Jonas Watch Facebook status. I can’t really write about anything else today. It is here. The remembrance of the day, the man, the years I was married to him, the year he was sick with cancer, the day he died, the four years since his death.

During our 15 year marriage, we packed more life and death into 15 years, than many people experience in a lifetime. Here is a list of a few of our experiences together

1. We had a son who lived with a congenital heart defect through two open heart surgeries and died of cancer at the age of 19 months.

2. We gave life to a beautiful daughter, Hannah who, at the age of 5, nicknamed herself, “running princess who finds diamonds.”

3. We had joint custody of my amazing daughters, Mary and Liz and raised them to adulthood.

4. We moved into a house with three falling down ceilings and 27 boarded up windows and did most of the renovating ourselves.

5. We home schooled our daughters.

6. We installed an in ground pool together (amazing we stayed married during that adventure!)

7. We celebrated life with go karts in the front yard and kite flying on the beach.

8. We had a house full of animals with 2 golden retrievers and three cats and canaries hanging from the ceiling, and aquariums of exotic and every day fish and 2 leopard geckos.

9. We planted a huge garden with a 4-H club, provided space and guidance to many children through Destination Imagination and Girl Scouts and home schooling classes.

10. I recovered from a life threatening, autoimmune condition and Hurley did not recover from multiple myeloma cancer.

Today I AM:

Sad: I miss our pillow talk, late at night, early in the morning. Our best time of the day.

Happy: Thinking about his booming laughter. You could hear him wherever he was with his out-loud, booming, body shaking, head thrown back laughter.

Grateful: For all I learned about myself because we were in a relationship together.

Determined: To live a life worth celebrating with joy during ALL of the ups and downs

Awake: To everything I can see, hear, feel, taste and touch and to live in the now of life.

I AM Living a Life Worth Celebrating.