Celebrating Our 5-Year Famliversary: A Look Back at Love, Life, and Lockdown

Five years ago, in the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, my husband and I sat at our kitchen table with two incredible kids, a cell phone on speaker between us, and the Honorable Senior Judge Don R. Ash on the line from the Chancery Court of Rutherford County, Tennessee. The world had just shut down.

Our adoption hearing—originally scheduled for March 19, 2020—had been postponed as the country reeled from the onset of the pandemic. My dad had flown down from New York to be with us for the original court date, but on his first night in Nashville, a tornado tore through East Nashville, destroying the Airbnb where he was staying. By some miracle, he walked away unharmed. In classic dad fashion, he waited until 6 a.m. to call me—he didn’t want to wake us.

That surreal week marked the beginning of our life together as a family. In quarantine.

We walked the dogs. Then walked them again. And again. When school was canceled that spring, we created a faux class schedule. First period: Dog Walking.

We learned how to be a family under less-than-ideal circumstances. I attempted haircuts. April volunteered to be my brave first client. I told her the most important rule: don’t cut too much at once. I made the first cut and immediately said, “Uh oh.”

There were joyful moments and hard ones. April saw me lose a job after we sold our home and moved across states. The first words out of her mouth were, “Jill, it’s going to be okay.” And she was right.

She’s been by my side ever since, helping me build a new chapter. She even recorded the outro for The Death Readiness Podcast—her voice is the last thing you hear on every episode. April is everything a human being should be: kind, intuitive, and so very funny. I want to be more like her.

Now we live in Michigan, and life looks different. But some things stay the same—we still walk the dogs. Only now, April has her own. His name is Collin. He’s a menace. And he adores April. Just like the rest of us.

This past weekend, my dad and brother came to visit. Thankfully, their Airbnb remained intact. We bowled. We walked around Belle Isle. April watched movies after dinner with my brother.

Five years ago, everything was uncertain. And yet through tornadoes, pandemics, moves, and big life shifts, the most important things have stayed constant: family, love, and showing up for each other—especially when it’s hard.

Hard things happen—sometimes one after another. Life doesn’t always go the way we planned or hoped. Keep showing up. Keep walking the dogs. You might end up somewhere unexpected. And sometimes, that unexpected place is exactly where you were meant to be all along.