February.  Terrible month.

I started out February with a gameplan.  I had planned to start writing some really high-content blog posts, and wanted to get my podcast started up.

But the first thing I had planned for February was to release the 5-part blogging series videos that Marie and I recorded in our new office in January.

We released Part One early in the month:

And part two on February 6th.

Marie hates the still image of me kissing her.  Weird girl, eh?

Then the month changed.

February 8th, my Mom came over, like she always does, and played with Jack.  For some reason, I decided to record the interaction on my iphone.  It was the last video I would take of her.

As you can see, she was very engaged and filled with joy and life.

On February 10th in the evening, she went into the hospital and, of course, Marie and I dropped everything to be with her in the hospital.

On February 13th, she died.

I’m not going to get into all the details.  But the rest of the month was a vacuum in terms of business.  I didn’t send any email broadcasts.  I didn’t use my onesheet.  I cancelled webinars I was supposed to be on.  I didn’t promote anything.  I disappeared from Facebook.

It just wasn’t that time for any of that.

(Actually our right-hand man, Joe closed several deals for us.)

It’s been a month of reflection.  Of tears.  Of emptiness.  And an extraordinary amount of snow (more than 5 feet in the month of February alone!)  I’m still working through this. But if I suddenly dropped off in February.  Now you know why.

See also  2014 Retrospective

I do plan to re-release the entire blog series – it has all been recorded and mostly edited.  But I will do it all again as it was supposed to be consumed in a certain flow.

And I have a couple of cookies in the oven set to be released in March, which despite everything that has happened I am excited about and gives us hope.

One good thing about my business is that it was able to support me and we could spend the time and focus on the things that mattered.  I didn’t have to call a boss to see if I could get time off.

As an intensely private person, I still struggle with what to say about my Mom publicly.  I talk about her all the time privately. It’s hard to believe she’s gone.  She will be missed.