A First

Since all of my other sons met their wives after they served their missions I realized that this will be the first time I have missed my daughter-in-law more than my son!  I haven't seen Hunter for 2 years and now he is back at school already so I am very used to not being around him so I don't miss him too much.  Plus, he's not a big talker so it's easy to just chat with him a little here and there.  His fiancé, however, has become like a daughter to me and I will miss her very much when she leaves in 2 1/2 weeks.  For the last 2 years she has spent a lot of time at our house and has kept me up late many a night just talking about anything and everything.  When my own daughter had to get to bed because of early morning seminary and school the next day, Aleigh and I would stay up very late just talking.  I'm really going to miss that.  This girl is so easy to love.  As evidenced by the many strangers who follow her blog and who now love her without having ever met her, she is very easy to get to know and love.  She is kind and thoughtful to everyone.  She is fun.  She likes to include everyone and is always thinking about others.  Even though she is barely older than my daughter she has become my friend, like my other daughters-in-law but since I got to spend a lot of time with her without my son around it is more like a mother/daughter relationship.  I never got to do that with my other DIL'S. They have always been connected to my sons and I haven't spent much time with just them.  Very different with Aleigh.  In just a few days she will be connected to my son and I will lose a little bit of that special relationship we have because she will never be "unconnected" to him again.  That may or may not be the cause of some of my relapse into symptoms I thought were done:( I couldn't be happier for this wonderful couple but I still have to go through a little mini-mourning period for something wonderful that is changing into something more wonderful. I'm kind of glad that this "first" will also be a "last":)