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Changes come round real soon...

Can you think of nothing?  Just sit and shut the mind off.  I can't do it.  I'm incapable of not thinking.  Oh how I wish I could.  Tonight we went to my uncle's house for a Thanksgiving dinner.  We haven't had Thanksgiving with my mother's side of the family for at least a decade.  I took apple salad without the pecans that my grandma put in when she made it.  She would sit and chop them by hand with a knife.  So many memories.

The hands of time...the entire family dynamic has changed.  It looks nothing like it did when I was growing up.  It's OK, there is just a slightly different group of people who don't know a lot about each other who gather to and love each other and eat until they are half sick.  We ARE an American family  even if we are far off from where we once were.  Every Sunday of my childhood my entire family would gather at my grandma's for lunch.  Now grandma is gone, mom is gone, both aunts are gone, and I have two uncles I know nothing about.  This year it was my uncle who was married to my aunt for over twenty years before she died, his new wife, her daughter, his three kids and their families from his previous marriage before my aunt, one of my cousins from my aunt and her kids, my other cousin's daughter who flew in from Florida, and us.

On Thanksgiving we had lunch with my husband's family, then went to see my dad's side of the family. I suppose you could say that we have made the rounds to see the family this year.

We are moving.  And by moving I don't mean to just another house in the same general vicinity as where we live now.  No, we are moving four states away.  While I am excited about our new adventure, I am also completely overwhelmed by logistics and to do lists.  I haven't moved in 15 years.  I know exactly 7 people in this new state.  I know this is going to sound crazy but I'm afraid I will go take a walk once we move and get lost and not know how to get back to the house.  Then what?  What if I don't remember the address?  I can't remember the make of the car I drive half the time and I've had that car for well over a year.  This is a move we have dreamed about for ten or so years and didn't know when or how it would ever happen and I'm worried I will get lost if I take a walk.  It's ridiculous.  I get that.

There is also the part where I am going to miss my job.  I love my job so much.  It's the best gig if you can get it.  Third graders are hilarious.  Plus, the people I work with, for the most part, well...they get me. They accept my silliness.

Then there is the friends thing.  I mean as I said I know seven people in this new state.  I have several friends here.  I'm kind of an acquired taste.  I mean do they speak sarcasm there?  Will they get my movie quotes?  Will they accept my singing in church, not in the front but at my seat, even though I am really bad at it?  Family is required to love you but strangers not so much.

What of the children?  My son is going to go to another school.  He is very likable.  If he takes up a new sport like lacrosse are there people who will explain to me how that game works?  If he makes so many friends he is rarely home, will he remember how to get back to the house?  Will my girls ever leave the house?

An example of how I can't just think about nothing:

I am moving, my grandma on my dad's side is in the hospital she is not doing well, I have blood work Monday I have to remember to go take care of, I have a procedure on the eleventh, I need more boxes, I have more Christmas shopping to do but I don't know when to do it, how do you move medical records to a new doctor if you don't have a new doctor yet?, will another school hire me, how can I make this move easiest on my family?, How can we get there in the car without my oldest getting car sick?, How is my aunt doing taking care of everything for my grandma?, Why is she left to take care of everything all the time?  It's ridiculous that her siblings don't do more to help her out, they are all retired, she works full time.  I wonder if the schools down there hire you full time or part time?  I wish mom were here. Speaking of mom, some kids at school call me mama, or ma, or mamacita, how will they do when I leave?  Who will love them and take care of them?  Will they remember me once I leave?  Who will hug the nurse on Thursdays when she comes to school?  Who will close the milk cooler at lunch?  Who will randomly give the secretary cheesy smiles?  Speaking of cheese where to do you go to buy groceries?  If I wrote another book, what would I call it?

That was just a small sampling of the things that run through my mind at any given moment.

I don't know how all this works out.  All I know is that I'm full of questions but confident there are answers and God holds them all.  So if you wouldn't mind so much, I would appreciate your prayers for all of the changes for our family, but mostly for my grandma and my aunt who does the brunt of the work to make sure she is taken care of.
Posted by Heather at 12:02 AM No comments: Links to this post 

Don't Die Wonderin', Man 

It Was Yesterday 

Love. Is. A. Verb.

Posted by Heather at 10:20 PM No comments: Links to this post 
Sunday, May 10, 2015

A Mother's' Day Letter to My Mom


In the Bible it says that to God a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day.  It seems hard to fathom that except on days like today.  Today, Mother's Day, I think I can almost catch a glimpse of what that must be like.  Can it really be my tenth Mother's Day without you?  How is it possible that the earth still rotates around the sun?  The passage of time seems to have come and gone in an instant.  I can still see you in my mind as clearly today as I could then.  If I close my eyes I can see your smile, I can feel your embrace, I can see you sitting at the table with your coffee in front of you chewing on your pinky finger, I can see you driving me in your car and hear you asking me, "What do you want to do now Kong?"  It was only a moment ago and yet...

I realize this morning how close we are to July.  How in two short months my birthday will be here and my heart will sink.  All I will be able to think of is how helpless I felt not being able to help you.  How in that instance and so many others, I was reminded that I have no control.  I have to relinquish all of it to God and allow him to not only help you but to help me too.  How can it be that it will be eleven years since you went home to be with our Lord?  Ten years of Mother's Day's come and gone.  Eleven years of raising kids come and gone.

So yes, it feels today as though all those years were just a day ago.  A moment has passed and you aren't here and my kids are almost grown and you weren't here to witness it.  I haven't been able to call you while making dinner.  I haven't been able to see you laugh at my struggle with teenage girls. I haven't been able to watch your relationship with them grow as they have grown. All of these things make me sad for what could have been had Cancer not entered our lives.

I feel sad for what might have been, what maybe should have been but then I realize that a moment ago is almost eleven years ago and while you were with God, God was also with me.  I may not have my mother here but I am a mother.  I'm not alone anymore now than I was when you left.  How could I be?  This morning my children brought me breakfast in bed, they gave me a card and sang me a song.  My husband gave me a short back rub and told me he loved me before going to work.  When I go downstairs there will be the "Hallway of Mother's Day" that the children create every year with signs of love and pictures they drew even after all of these years.

It is funny the passage of time.  The tears may come later but the healing that God provides is fresh every morning.  The writing helps.  The thought that even though you aren't here with me that maybe you get the messages I send out into the great unknown void.  No you aren't here in flesh but I see you when I look at my middle child.  Sometimes I look at her and I see you as you were in pictures as a younger girl.  I hear you in the things that my oldest says.  I think of you when I see my son and think of how great of a young man he turned out to be and how terrified we both were that I was having a boy.  There was nothing to be scared of, of course, he is so much like his dad and you thought he was the best guy ever.  I used to joke that you would have traded me for him any day of the week.  You would have thought the same of our son.

Your memory surrounds me and they are the good memories.  The memories of good times had.  The memory of a mother who was always there no matter how tired she was.  The memory of a mother who worked hard and instilled a good work ethic that I hope I have passed on to my own children.  These are the thoughts of a healing heart.  The heart protected by a loving God who knows my hurt.  For that I am thankful.  I love you mom.  I miss you every day.  Enjoy your Mother's Day in Heaven.  I may not be able to shower you with gifts but I have a feeling that spending your day in paradise with the King of all creation is better than what I could provide.  Plus I prayed that He would give you a hug from me.  My bases are covered.

Thank you for being my mom, for loving me and my family.


Posted by Heather at 10:05 AM No comments: Links to this post 
Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Life is a Roller Coaster/ Twenty years later

It was a beautiful day this day twenty years ago.  I had spent the night at my grandparents' house.  I had so much to do to get ready and I was full of anticipation.  I had to get my hair and my make up done.  I had to get dressed and I had to be at the church before anyone else for pictures.

My dress was the dress of fairy tales.  Cinderella herself would have been envious of this dress.  Off the shoulders with long sleeves, cinched in waist and a full skirt, this dress was exquisite.  It was the first one I tried on.  I tried on others of course, but I had to have this one.  It was perfection in satin and lace.

At the church I was closed up in a room for so long I thought I might wet myself.  I had to go and I couldn't leave the room.  Potty chairs are useful and when your mother in law is the one to help make that happen, you know you've picked the right family.  My shoes were pinching my toes, I was getting overheated, and hungry and all I wanted to do was to see him, to find the one whose eyes could calm me.

I ended up wearing Keds down the aisle that day.  The heels only made it for the pictures.  When I saw him at the end of the aisle, I knew that nothing else mattered.  As long as I didn't pass out from the heat in the most beautiful dress ever made, the adventure, the hills, the valleys, the mountains, and the pits, all of it would be OK.  He was there.  He wasn't late, He didn't call and cancel.  he was like no other man in existence, in my world anyway.  He was a shower upper...he still is.  He shows up.  He shows up for me, he shows up for our kids, he just shows up.  I didn't grow up like that.  I grew up with cancellations and excuses.

It's not always been perfect, because nothing ever is, but it has always been worth it.  In good times and bad, sickness and health, losses too many to count, many bouts of depression, included the one no one thought I'd come back from.  There is no one else I would want by my side.  Twenty years of doing life with me cannot be easy.  All I can say is that it sure hasn't been boring.

I love this man more than the sum of all the stars in the sky. He gave me a family when I wasn't even sure I wanted one.  He showed me that sometimes people show up...sometimes whether you like it or not, whether you are worthy or not, whether you believe it or not, people will show up and love you.

Life is a roller coaster and I picked the best partner for the ride. I can't wait to see what the next twenty looks like.