If I were a Roller Coaster designer, I think I’d take the highs and lows I feel in April and plot them on a graph.  The ride would start really low, skyrocket really high then flatten out only to rise again.  I’m not sure, however, how the riders would get off, but I’ll leave that for another time.

April is a tough time.  8 years ago tomorrow I lost a good friend.  I’ve gone back and read my posts from this time every year since I’ve kept the blog and one thing has changed this year.  It’s funny, for the longest time I’ve had this insane fear that I might forget Tim.  That, in the fast pace of life I might just let go of his memory.  It wasn’t until this year that I realized that just isn’t possible.  No, I’m not sure I think about him every day like I used to.  Perhaps, not every week.  There isn’t a month that goes by though when I’m not reminded of him.  Sometimes those memories just hit me as a quick funny thought of us wrestling in his basement or the time we snuck beer into a certain theme park parking lot only to realize we forgot the opener!  Most often, I’m reminded in the crazy antics of my two boys.  I see, brewing in the Ryan-Cooper chemistry, true brotherly love and it reminds me of the love I have for Tim (and Matt Clement.)  In my own boys I truly see the bond I have with Tim and Matt.

All of that leads me to my roller coaster.  There’s the low of Tim’s death and the high of Spring Break and the low of taxes and Passover.  There’s the high of Easter but the low of the end of Spring Break.  The greatest high of them all though, and I think proof that God is genuinely concerned about your mental well being, is Cooper’s Birthday.  With the birth of Doopster, it would be impossible for me to say April is a bad month.