Three Year Heart Surgery Anniversary

Can I be honest with you why this post is a little late? It’s because the third anniversary of Otto’s open heart surgery slipped our minds until the day before. We realized it the night of the 3rd that the coming day would make three years since Otto had his open heart surgery. The fact that we were so busy living our lives to not even realize it was a blessing in itself.

We’ve spent countless days and months before this agonizing over when the next one would be and finally just grasped the fact that we don’t know. We don’t know what the future holds or when the “next one” is coming. While the doctors say it is and it’s inevitable I still have faith that God is bigger and if we do come to the next one.. He will guide us through it. It’s just incredible where we are now compared to where we started.

It never fails to amaze me that it’s Otto’s heart that is indeed an anatomical mess when to me, it’s what he is most known for.

He loves beyond my comprehension, more than most adults I know. He loves blindly and empathetically and I’m proud he’s my son. His heart might physically be broken and patched but his soulful heart is unmatched.

He has a deep love for his animals. Knowing them all by name all 20+ of them including our neighbors dogs and pony. When we take our evening walks he makes sure to say hello and good night to all of them. He loves looking at pictures of his puppies and kitties when he can’t be outside with them and just really wants our chickens Judy and Goldie to want to be held. He adores doing chores and it will be 45F pouring rain and you have to coax him inside.

Rivaling his love for his animals is his love for his family. In the morning he likes to lay in bed with a finger and a toe on each of Joe and I to make sure that we are still laying there with him. He calls us his best friends and just is content when were standing in the same room as him.

Any day that he gets to leave school early and go play at grandma’s or honey’s house is a “holiday” to him and he likes to make sure that Joe and I go to work after dropping him off to solidify adequate play time. He loves it when his grandpa comes home while he’s at grandma’s house and thinks it’s hilarious to get to go to Papa Craig’s office.

He adores his older cousins and talks about them all the time. He loves his cousins his age and treats them like siblings. (As long as they don’t take the paw patrol toys). Right now he is knee deep in Halloween but cannot wait for Christmas time and is busy “getting brave” for Santa.

He is such an old soul sometimes just wanting to be still and sit on the porch with his cats.

I know that life will not always be this still. We have  our own hurdles to overcome in the future and probably another surgery but like I’ve been saying for the past few years.. That day is no today. And today we are going to soak it up being all together, being as weird and normal as possible.

And it feels so good.

Read more about our two year anniversary 
Read more about our one year anniversary