Introducing.....!

I actually waited for this new day to arrive so that I could pay tribute to my husband and introduce the girl of our dreams.

One year ago today, Tom was called home.  His work on this earth was apparently completed, though to my grieving heart, it had only just begun.  Tom and I set forth on our dream of living aboard a beautiful Kadey Krogen yacht on July 1, 2013 when we closed on Serenity and signed the purchase agreement for KKY 55-005.  In order to achieve this dream, we sold our home of 28 years, sold our beloved Serenity and took the first steps toward ownership of this magnificent boat KKY calls the 55 Expedition.

This morning as I was looking through the early emails exchanged between Tom B. and my Tom, I came across one that actually caused me physical pain.  On September 17, 2013 at 7:24 am, there was an email from Tom B. to my Tom and I asking if we would be somewhere that day to have a conference call.  My Tom never got to take that call.  The time of death on his death certificate is 10:45 am.

As I sit here a few minutes past midnight, steeling myself to face this first anniversary of my husband in heaven, I can't help but wrestle with a myriad of emotions that defy description.  The most telling tribute to our love that survived 45 years of togetherness is that I somehow found the strength to overcome some pretty imposing obstacles to get to where I am at this very moment.  Thanks to the help of my family and many friends (remember my allusion to the "village" it took to get me here in a previous post?), I am following the progress of the freighter carrying my dream across the Pacific Ocean and will soon take delivery of this boat.  Even as I write these words, it seems surreal.

Thank you Tom for allowing me to grow up and for giving me the strength and resilience I've needed to get through this difficult first year without your loving guidance.  The times that you urged me to do the things I'd rather not do, the times you made me read a map and take the car to unfamiliar places in an unfamiliar city, the time you sent me to negotiate the purchase of my own car, I could go on for days about all the learning you guided me through.  I left Brooklyn a spoiled brat, subject to ferocious temper tantrums and returned to the Northeast with both a baccalaureate and masters degree and a wonderful sense of self-confidence that today has proven to be an invaluable gift from you to me.

I absolutely know you are beaming right now, telling anyone who will listen, "that's my girl".  So in keeping with our discussions about the perfect name for our dream boat, I am going ahead with your first choice.  Do you remember how we started our name discussion?  We first said we wanted a pretty name, a feminine name, the name of a Greek goddess that had to end in a vowel, like our beloved daughter Christina's name does.  Then we began to research the meanings of the names we liked; we kept coming back to the same name.  We loved the name because its meaning was so close to what we would feel for this boat.  She truly would be "the home of the gods" to us.

With that said dear readers, I introduce OLYMPIA, the home of the gods.

What makes her name even more meaningful, is the following description of this name that we came across so many months ago:
"Those with this name tend to initiate events, to be leaders rather than followers, with powerful personalities.  They tend to be focused on specific goals, experience a wealth of creative new ideas, and have the ability to implement these ideas with efficiency and determination. They tend to be courageous and sometimes aggressive.  As unique, creative individuals, they tend to resent authority and are sometimes stubborn, proud and impatient."

I'd say that pretty much sums up Olympia's new owner and the Expedition model itself.