Before Lucy was born, Shaun was a full-time, professional musician.  He played lead guitar for a band called Sidewalk Prophets.  The band toured a ton, so this meant a whole lot of time away from home.  The few times that Oliver and I were able to go out on the bus for the weekend were great, but few and far between.

 

(Photos of Shaun playing guitar by Matt Hadley of Wander Creative)

I was a full-time shoe buyer for Journeys.  I worked Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm. I loved my job, and had the opportunity to experience a lot of growth while working with great people.  My job was fun and also challenging; a good mix.

Shaun typically left sometime on Wednesday night each week and he would get home sometime on Monday.  The timing all depended on show scheduling and traveling distance.  There were some weeks he didn’t come home at all, and other weeks that he was home for an extra day or more.

Being the family of a touring musician takes a lot of resilience and a lot of sacrifice.  It means showing up for church and family dinners each week sans husband.  It is managing the emotions of a toddler who misses his dad.  It’s sleeping alone most nights.  But you know what, for the time that we did it, it was worth it.  We felt like this is where God had us for the time.

A “normal” week for us was getting to have a couple of nights to eat dinner together as a family.  On average, we had about nine waking hours together as a family each week.  It felt like minutes that Shaun and I had to spend as just the two of us.  By the time Oliver fell asleep, we were beat.

I am not going to lie, this schedule was tough on us.  With that said, we both really liked our jobs and worked really hard at them.  We love each other a whole lot and we supported one another.

Our life was like this for four and a half years; the first two years without any kids and the second two and a half years with Oliver.  Although being apart was always hard, it was a new level of hard to try to juggle our opposite schedules with a child.  It wasn’t just about us anymore and what we wanted.  Thinking about what is best for Oliver naturally became so important to us.

Despite feeling stretched thin, we wanted to expand our family.  We were ready for another baby, and we wanted Oliver to have a sibling.  We knew that I was at or beyond my max at this point and something would have to give to make space for having a second child.

We worked through every possible scenario and in the end decided that it was time for Shaun to come off the road and get a job at home in Nashville.  This wasn’t an easy choice, or a fast choice.  There was a lot of prayer, lots of discussions between us, and taking a lot of time to think it through.

The guys in Sidewalk Prophets and their families are like family to us and the ministry of the band is important to us.  Shaun was a part of them and leaving that was tough, but at the end of the day it was what was best for our family at this point in our lives.

We didn’t want to feel like we were just surviving, but rather thriving and living each day fully.  For us that meant more time growing together as a family, striving to keep our foundation strong. 

Shaun played his last show with Sidewalk Prophets on New Years Eve this past December, in Nashville.  He was home all of January before Lucy was born on the 28th.  Obviously, losing her was a marked turning point for us.  Life will never be the same.  We will never be the same.  Life after losing Lucy has became a whole new territory to navigate through.