T-30 weeks: "You live so far away!"

Dear Papa, and dear Reader,

Happy birthday to me! This was my first birthday without you...

It was harder than I thought to not get a birthday message or a call from you this year. I went back through our text string to read your birthday message from last year. It said: "Someone has a very special birthday today, congratulations, we will make sure to celebrate it properly. Wishing you a wonderful day!" It's so darn hard to go through our text string, and I have to cry every time I do it. Why did I not send you more messages? My favorite one is from March 2023. I said: "Hey Papa, just wanted to write to you that I love you so much. Hope you are well!" And you answered immediately: "Thank you so much! I love you too. We say it far too rarely, but it's all the more valuable when we do. You live so far away!!" The last sentence breaks my heart... When I read through these messages, it again seems like you were just here! They simply just stop on January 7, when you sent me your last text with "best wishes from the island." You left that island that very same day - in a helicopter, deep in a coma that you would never wake up from. It still seems absolutely impossible that you are gone...

To celebrate my birthday on Thursday, Jim and I checked the box on a birthday tradition and did 41 miles (66km) for 41 years! It was a beautiful fall day, the sun was shining, and the leaves were raining down on us. It was a perfect day out, and I enjoyed it to the fullest. I'm sure there will be a few more days like this, but they will get rare now, and winter is knocking on the door. It won't be long, and all the workouts will be on the indoor trainer again.

That ride was actually the only ride I did all week! I also only went to the pool once to do 1,750 yds / 1.600m in 30 mins. I'm glad I at least made it there once. I need to not let that slip too badly, otherwise I lose all the feel for the water that I have worked so hard to get over this year.

It was a pretty big running week though! I did 5 runs totaling 27 miles / 43km in 4:30h, which includes a long run of 10 miles / 16km. I want to try and do one long run every week so that I don't lose too much endurance over these slower weeks! But this was a heavy weeks for the legs, and I can still feel it today. Tomorrow morning, Rachael and I are going to do hills. That will kick my butt into shape. Here in this picture, you can see us at the end of our morning run in front of the lights that they have started to put up for Christmas season at the temple on the hill that we end our runs on. It was a gorgeous morning, and the sun rising with those lights was magical!

I'm still waiting for Ironman to give me green light to produce the jersey that I sent you two weeks ago! Unfortunately, the company I ordered it from won't produce it unless they have written consent from Ironman that I may use their logo. If you can, Papa, could you give them a little visit and make sure that gets done? You can be incredibly persuasive, in fact, the whole family always hid behind you when anything extraordinary needed to get done. So, if you could pull a few strings here? That would be awesome!

My favorite early memory and picture this week is this one: My second birthday, 39 years ago! You're not in the picture, unfortunately, because you're taking it! But I love how you and Mama always made birthdays so special for us kids. For this birthday, Steffen was already born, but still so little. I still had most of the attention. That should all change soon, with all the other babies coming our way!

I love and miss you, Papa! But I'm glad I got through my first birthday without you. Soon, there'll be our first Christmas! That will be incredibly hard as well, and I'm glad I will get so spend some time in Germany for the season so we can all hug each other while we think of you. No one will be able to decorate the tree like you did. But we will give our best!

Have a blast, whatever you get to do up there! I hope you're experiencing all the joy and love that the eternities have to offer!

Talk to you again next week,

Kathrin

P.S. Dear Reader, if you have comments, questions, memories, or thoughts to share, please leave a comment (and leave your name in the comment so I know who it's from). I would love to hear from you!

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