Just in case you haven’t turned on your television this week due to work or filling out your basketball bracket I want to forewarn you…Tuesday was the season finale of This Is Us.  It’s not even April yet, people.  That means that for basically 6 months we will have no Randal, Kate and Kevin. No words of wisdom from Jack or loving hugs from Rebecca.

I feel like we spent most of the season holding our collective breath as we waited to find out how Jack died.  They showed us the house had been burned early in the season giving us a giant clue how it happened, but we still had so many questions. Each week we were so relieved when he survived and yet it left us all worried he was going to go on a drinking binge and catch the house on fire.  Nobody wanted Jack to die, but we all needed him to be who we thought he was.  We needed Jack to live up to his reputation. We needed him to be our hero.

As the season continued with Jack still alive and well, I began hoping it was all a bad dream and Rebecca was just imagining what her life would have been like without him.  Then it happened.  The darn crockpot! When Jack walked out the front door during the fire I actually thought my hopes had become reality.  I mean, he even rescued the dog!  Once again, they hit us when we let our guard down.  I mean Rebeca was eating a candy bar!  We weren’t ready for it!

That’s the thing about the show and about real life.  Things happen.  Sometimes they happen when we least expect it; when we are making plans for our future or eating a candy bar. We all have a tendency to focus on the negative things that come out of nowhere because they tend to be life altering, but there are also amazing, beautiful things that happen.  That is why we love this show.  We watch them week after week carrying around their baggage of life and we get it. We understand their pain and we rejoice in their happiness. We get to witness heartache, sacrifice, anger, addiction and betrayal, but also beauty, love, humor, tradition and joy. We watch as they endure the good with the bad and they remind us that life can be beautiful.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I just want to go back to September and begin again.  I want to soak up my favorite family a little more before we have to take summer break. I want Jack to hold my face, tell me to breathe and that it’s all going to be okay.

Thankfully, there is Hulu if we need a quick fix over these next few months and let us not forget Dr. K’s wise words, “There’s no lemon so sour that you can’t make something resembling lemonade.”

See you in September Pearson Family.

Sunshine & Sarcasm,

Lowi & G