It's Been A Year

Jacob Stevenson at Iowa Speedway, 2017

Whew...... Here we are a year removed from that terrible day in 2025. Most of you know what I am talking about, but if you are new here, you can read about what happened HERE. 

I wrote that post the day after he died. I guess I was on autopilot. I have to say the shock of losing my son unexpectedly probably hadn't sunk in quite yet there. I re-read that post and it seems so detached from reality now. 

But it was all I could say at the time. Since then, the reality has hit me several times like a big truck. Other times it is sneaky and persistent. Haunting, tortuous feelings and memories of the day one year ago are hard to escape. 

But I will not hide the fact that my faith in God has been the thing which has carried me along until this day. It is that faith which will carry me further on up the road until it is my time to leave this Earth. Without that, and God's grace, I wouldn't be here to write to you today, and I know this to be true. 

The view  from my chair on the porch now. 

Afternoons on weekdays were times I looked forward to seeing Jacob come home from work during most of 2024 and 2025. He started out driving in 2023, maybe late 2022, I don't remember now. I found a picture showing when he crashed out a lady's white fence back in February of '23, so he had been driving for a bit by then. Anyway....

I got to be kind of a 'mother hen', waiting out on the porch for him to drive up. He got off work at the Criterion machine shop at 2:30pm. He usually would drive up in front of the house by 2:45, maybe ten till three. 

I'd sit and talk with him a bit, if he was in the mood for it, then I'd leave for work at about 3:30pm to work my 4:00 - 8:00pm shift at the Collective. If I had a day off I would go inside with him and he'd usually get on the internet and play his online games. This was in nice weather, of course, not in Winter. I remember the Summertime of 2025 especially, since he had the 4Runner and seeing him pull up in that was always a relief for me. 

He was home again. 

He'd get out, look up at me over the roof of the 4Runner since he was so tall, and say "Hey Dad.", then he'd grab the messenger bag with his stuff, and come up to the porch. Sometimes he'd stop and talk, other times he'd walk right in. 

Of course, the one day he stopped and shared that meal with me a week or so before he died is really a special time for me. He had gone to Taco Johns and typically he didn't share that with me, but he did that one time before he died.....

And now it has been a year. I look out from the porch now from my chair. Something is missing. He isn't going to pull up anymore. He won't be grabbing that messenger bag out of the back seat, the bag I used to commute to work with. He won't be sharing Taco John's with me, or even just walking past me to get to his video game as quick as he could. 

Why? 

Because he went Home. That's why......

 So, I wanted to mark this day here on the blog. I appreciate all your thoughts and prayers. They mean a lot to me, as does your reading this blog. 

See ya here again tomorrow....