Hi Everyone

We're sorry that there has been such a big gap between our last post and this one. We'll try to catch up to today.

June 8th, Detroit

I didn't think leaving would be so difficult. I've spent a lot of my life with the Whalen Family. And while it was not as difficult for me as it was for Monique, I still felt as if I had opened my hand and let go of something valuable, or that I had been plunged under water and for a moment couldn't breath. I miss you all terribly.

After we loaded our 200lbs of luggage in the car I embraced my sister and we wept. Next I hugged my brother-in-law,Claudius Maximus Jones, whom I think is an angel here on Earth. I had a lump in my throat. And the emotion that I felt when I embraced my eldest daughter whom I've always thought was the perfect female version of myself was/is beyond words. The oldest living part of me, my Mom, had stayed in the apartment, having wished me and Monique farewell there.