Changes keep life interesting.

Life is never set in stone. If it were you would never experience new things, meet the love of your life or experience loss. After being married to the love of my life for 12 years, and living through 2 and 4 months without her as she visited her parents in Russia, I had this "concrete" plan in my head about growing old with this woman and living our lives in Colorado Springs or somewhere in Europe, ending our days together. Never in my wildest dreams did I suspect the changes that were coming.

In October of 2019, my wife Liliya had planned another trip to Russia to take care of her parents and to get some work done on her teeth. While she was over there she slipped on some ice damaging her back. She had two teeth pulled and one root cannel that got infected, and covid hit. We had everything worked out for 4 month with her coming back in late February. Well, who knew that flight restrictions and cancelations would plague every airline company out there and that Lufthansa airlines was hit hard causing her February flight to be moved 3 times all the way to June. We were stunned.

Finally, after having the flight moved again to the end of June and then August, we became concerned that she might never be able to come back to her life in Colorado. After a lot of praying, She got a call from Lufthansa asking if she was an American citizen. When she said yes, they told her about a special flight they were creating to get Americans home. She arrived in Denver on my birthday, July 9th and we began putting her life back together after adjusting to Mountain time again.

Through it all we connected every morning and night, and text all morning until noon when she went to bed affirming out love for each other. Sharing photos of my work or shoveling snow. She would send photos of her parents or some place she visited. Nothing was going to keep us apart and destroy what we had. With prayer, and faith, Liliya came home.

Unfortunately, the story didn't end there. In October of 2021 she got a call from Russia that her father had covid. Through some amazing blessings from God, we had the money to send her back to Russia with every confidence that he would pull through but the medical system there is nothing like it is in the US so after fighting this virus, trying different treatments, his stomach was damaged beyond repair. Without food to help him get stronger, he slowly starved to death. He passed in December leaving Liliya sleep deprived, under nourished, deeply depressed after begging her dad to hold on, and with covid herself.

By the grace of God she survived and got down to the task of dealing with her grief and he moms, and taking care of her 80 year old mother. Between January and June we made plans for me to move to Russia to be with her. She is the love of my life and nothing was going to stop me from getting there. 95% of our things were sold, given away, or taking up space in a landfill. The rest is in a storage unit but I am here. Now after 10 miles of red tape we are closer to me staying here for 3 years without having to learn Russian. The rest of the story has yet to be written so I will follow up later with some updates.

The moral of the story is to be ready for change. It will sneak up on you and give you the ride of your life. All you can do is hold on so you don't get tossed off and keep an open mind to where you end up. Love with all your heart. Laugh and live life with those you love. Tomorrow isn't promised. Ken