Jim Natzke

Paige was born 5 years before Paul. She was not only the lone child for those 5 years, but the only grandchild for Ken and Sue. They had plenty of time and disposable income to spoil their “one and only…

Paul had a bunch of scars. His back from his closure. Big like a horizontal zipper. His head and chest and stomach from shunt revisions. The front of his neck from his tracheotomy, a little hole by his voice box.…

Paul’s last night, for some reason I got up twice, just to check on him. It’s not like I never did that, but it was rare. Never twice in one night. I left for work in the morning after saying…

Paul strengthened our marriage.  Our experience is that there are only two types of marriages when you have a handicapped kiddo – strong as iron, or divorced.  We know plenty of both.  Either you figure out how to make decisions…

Paul was not always super ambitious. There were a lot of times he just wanted to sit on the couch watching TeenNick, Hannah Montana, or iCarly. He would sit on the couch with some electronic device and the TV on…

Thank you to everyone who helped and attended Paul’s celebration yesterday. Kathie and I were very grateful that people “got it” and talked about the remarkable things Paul did during his life, and that the pity party was nowhere to…

Kathie and I are talking a lot to figure out what happened. I have had some difficult days this week, now that time has slowed a little, thinking about all the things we will not be doing with Paul. Talking…

Writing helps me sort out the grief from the loss of Paul. I am not the first person to suffer a tough personal loss, but I am learning a lot about pain and I want to filter through it in…