I’m one of those people who loves great quotes. I will pick up quote books and be inspired by them.

This is one of my favorites:

You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching,
Love like you’ll never be hurt,
Sing like there’s nobody listening,
And live like it’s heaven on earth.”
William W. Purkey

This amazing quote reminds me of my mom. She may not have been able to write this, but she sure did live it.

“You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching.” She would do this little jig thing and you just knew she was happy. The first time I remember seeing it, I thought it was silly. She had just bowled a strike, she turned around and did a little hip action, arms up in the air, jig. I was embarrassed. She was not.

She would just randomly stop and dance a little in parking lots. If music was playing, she would take her little stubby finger that got cut off in a printing press and pretend to dance.

The afternoon in the hospital after finding out she had about nine months to live, we were walking through the corridor with “her dance partner” the IV pole. She began to dance with the IV pole. She twirled it, shook her hips, and did a couple of finger waving jigs. “To make people happy.” She told me, “I’ve never set goals in my life, but now I’m going to set one. Every day for the rest of my life, I’m going to make people smile.” She didn’t have to try too hard, because she lived the quote.

Two days before she died I was helping her get out of her bed and into the wheel chair. She took my hand and did a little swaying dance with me. Oh how I miss her!

I often see her in my mind dancing in heaven with all of the little children who are waiting for their parents.

“Love like you’ll never be hurt.”

Mom had a lot of hurt in her life, especially at the hand of people who “loved” her. But that never stopped her from always pouring love onto people. She would take people into her home and feed and clothe them. She didn’t have much, and would often give the last of what she had because someone else had even less than she did. When I would think of the love of Jesus, my mom would appear in my mind. She just had such a special gift of giving love to everyone – no judgement, just love.

“Sing, like there’s no one listening”

My mom told me a story of being in the children’s choir at her church. She loved to belt out the music! One day the choir director told her that she couldn’t sing but if she wanted to be in the choir she could just stand their and mouth the words, but she wasn’t to let any of the words come out. This story crushed me! But it didn’t crush Mom. She was going to sing!

We had this old piano on our front porch. My dad “restored” it by painting it green. He took it all apart, and the put it back together, except for those four long screws. He never did know where those went. (sorry I digressed) The piano was in the house for awhile and then ended up on the front porch. My sister and I took piano lessons. The piano was horribly out of tune. I don’t think they ever had someone come tune it. Mom loved to go out and make music on that thing. She had found some old opera song book and would play and sing. She couldn’t read music so she just kind of made it up as she went along. I can still hear her singing, “Beat me, Beat me, All the day long!” I don’t have a clue why that was the song she chose to sing, but whenever she had an especially trying day, I would find her out on the piano banging out the beat me song. She definitely sang as if no one had ears!

“And live like it’s heaven on earth.” To me that means you find joy in everything. Mom collected stuff. She found joy in just ordinary things, like rocks. Just any old rock would do. She would pick up a regular rock and tell my kids all about that rock. She found a story in everything. She always wanted to travel so she became a truck driver. She bought a big video camera, you know the old VHS ones that you would lug around on your shoulder. She would narrate stories to the kids as she would go down the road. Sometimes she would be reminded of a song, and start singing it. Sometimes the camera would start to dance because she would crack herself up and start laughing uncontrollably. JOY. Yep. That was Mom. She lived with joy. She died with Joy.

In her last weeks these were her celebrations. She stepped on the scale at the doctor’s office and was thrilled to have lost another 5 pounds. She pretended like she was putting a space helmet on when getting her radiation. And she made is PAST the 9 months. She felt like a conquerer. And to us – she was!

The night before she died, she hadn’t really been very lucid. I would stand by her bed. Sometimes I would play soothing music for her. But that night, we knew she was getting so very close. I looked at her and said, “I sure do love you!” She looked at me with every ounce of her being. I saw her eyes dance. I swore I could hear her singing. Her final word to me was simply a giant smile and a light squeeze of my hand.

65 years old is too young to die. But she sure did live!

Woo hoo! I’ve lost another couple of pounds (that makes almost ten in the three weeks). I also did measurements tonight and I’ve lost another 3 1/2 inches. This time in different places. I’m most definitely feeling so much better too.

Yesterday when I got dressed, I looked in the mirror and for the first time in a very long time, I said to myself, “Wow! You’re looking pretty good!” I’m still so far from my goal, but to see the scale tipping downward, and the clothes fitting better, and just the all over great feelings I’m having, I see this as not just being a fad diet or a lose some water weight today, only to put it back on next week kind of thing. This is most definitely a lifestyle change for me. I can’t even imagine getting up and not having my green smoothie. Oh my…I’m hooked!

Today I shared my smoothie with Erica. Then Tina came down and was so disappointed that there wasn’t any left for her. So I taught her how to make them. I should be getting my larger container and will be able to make a bunch for us at one time. 

I went shopping at Central Market on Monday and bought some more produce and another young coconut. I haven’t cracked it open yet. I’ve been saving it for a special drink. Tomorrow I’m thinking of making something like an almond joy. I dreamed about making it last night. 

Tamara was with me shopping. She’s my best friend, married to my other best friend, and also the mom of my daughter’s husband. Kind of cool how that all happened. She’s also such a great spiritual friend. One of those kind that everything we talk about centers on God. I just love that! So, we’re talking about this green drink she saw at Sprouts when suddenly she sees it. We’re looking at the bottle, reading the label, when we’re struck by the statement, “do not shake.” Why can’t we shake it we wonder. There’s sediment on the bottom, surely you need to shake it to distribute it throughout. I had never heard of the stuff before. It’s called Kombucha. I sure wished I knew someone who knew something about it.

Just then this guy walks over to us and says, “Do you want to know anything about Kombucha?” 

“YES!” “Like, why can’t we shake it?”

He proceeds to tell us all about it. Have I ever mentioned before that God really wants to be involved in every area of your life? He wants to help us answer our questions, even the simple ones like, “why can’t we shake it?”

To find out more about Kombucha, this is a great article http://www.seedsofhealth.co.uk/fermenting/kombucha.shtml 

After Chad stops talking to us, Tamara and I both decide that it was a “God-thing” that we ran into him, or rather that he approached us. Then later in the car he came over and gave us his business card. Funny thing is that he is a personal trainer and has a training school, which is something one of my kids really wants to get into. So, may be a great connection for her too! Awesome! If you’re in the DFW area and are looking to learn more about health, creating meal plans, personal training, and other health information Chad is an amazingly nice guy. I can’t wait to be able to get to use his services soon. His website is http://becomecustombuilt.com  I love that! The other thing I love is that he is a Christian. Tamara asked him. gotta love boldness.

I’m hungry! I’m tired!

I was tempted to stop there but feel I need to explain. I stayed up real late last night working on the garage sale, then had to get up pretty early this morning, so I only have about 5 1/2 hours of sleep. I didn’t have time to prepare a green smoothie so made the choc/van almond shake with protein. 

Around 1:00 I was finally able to make a “green” smoothie although it was brown leaning toward purple. I used an organic spring mix, a mango, and some strawberries. This was my least favorite. I really miss not having a banana in them. I bought a bunch of bananas today. We’ll see if they get past all the kids and into my smoothie tomorrow.

After all the work on the garage sale, it began to rain about an hour and a half into it, so we had to quickly haul everything back into the garage. Ack! We closed the garage and decided to open again tomorrow morning.

I had a bunch of errands to run and felt great all day. I got hungry about 3:00 but fortunately I had some almonds in my car so I had a handful of them. Not quite the satisfaction I was hoping for, but it was fine. 

Since Bryan had a football game and they were serving Chic Fil A, I opted for a banana. It was all I had with me. So, a banana and water for dinner. It was hard to smell all the chic fil a sandwiches that surrounded me, but I didn’t give in to my temptation. The worst part was after the game when I stopped to get Bryan a pizza. Gosh I love the smell of pizza! I tried not to inhale. 

I got home around 9:30 but was too tired to make another smooothie and didn’t feel like a salad so I just made another almond milk smoothie. It was the kick I needed to do another errand. I was gone from the house way more than I was here today. 

I know there is detoxing being done because my tongue feels weird and it’s kind of whitish. It’s kind of annoying actually. All a good sign that the toxins are coming out of my body and helping me to have an overall body healing and cleansing. I’m thinking a hot bath is calling me tonight. I have to be up early again tomorrow for day two of the garage sale. 

One great thing about today, even though it was maybe the most difficult, I still made wise choices when it would have been so easy to just give in and eat a chic fil a, or grab “just one piece” of pizza. When I’m weak – He is strong. 

Even though I’m doing this 30 day experiment to clean out my body, I’m finding something deeply spiritual about the experience. I’m in constant prayer for a dear friend and am hoping this fast of sorts, will also cause something powerful to happen and for the healing that Jesus provided on the cross will be made manifest in my friend’s body. Amen!

My Green Smoothie Experiment has been going quite well. No headache today!

I was so thrilled when I stepped on the scale and had lost FOUR pounds in two days. Amazing! I was so excited about my progress, I wanted to see the numbers again. Stepped on the scale again and had gained two of those pounds back. I guess it was from my swollen head thinking I had lost four pounds. 

Today’s smoothie was a little yuck though. I didn’t have any bananas. I think I really like a banana in my smoothie.

I made it with a cup of water, a group of Romain, a cucumber, an apple, and a mango. Not great, but it was fine. It was a pretty neon green color. 

In the afternoon I had my typical chocolate almond/vanilla almond mix blend with a scoop of protein powder from Life Extension Foundation. 

I had a snack of about 8 cashews and a bottle of lightly sweetened Peach Tea. Sweetened with cane sugar, but not a lot.

For dinner I ordered a garden medley salad from BJ’s Brewhouse. I just sprinkled a little bit of the viniagrette dressing on it. 

It really was quite delicious. There was some feta cheese on it, but that’s the only dairy I had all day. It had artichoke hearts, tomatoes, greens, and the feta. 

I’m taking some supplements along with this food. B-12, Fish Oil, Probiotics and a bunch of other things, but I think those are the ones that should be noted. 

I’m not in the least bit tired. In fact, I feel really quite great!

Tina and I should have gone to the gym last night, but we are having a garage sale on Friday and Saturday (to make enough money to buy a Vitamix or Blendtec). I didn’t have time and needed to be up super early. I did some stretching and of course lifted boxes, did many deep knee bends for that, so went a little over on my normal day to day exercising, but nothing at the gym.

I Am Child – Hear Me Roar

At the age of four, Bryan loved to play animal and dinosaur.  He would often come find me wherever I was. Even if I would be taking a nap, he will come over to me and “ROAR” as loud as he could.  Sometimes I wondered if he was trying to show me his strength.  Other times I think he prefered to be around me and wanted to find me wherever I may roam.  Perhaps there is also the possibility that he thought I might one day forget him in the crowd so he needs to make his presence known to me in such a dramatic way.

Often when I was working, Bryan will venture into my office and begin talking.  If I was in the middle of something, I might continue typing with my hands, while listening to him with my ears.  It was at those moments that Bryan will climb up into my lap.  He wanted me to be sure to focus on him.

If I was in the middle of typing a thought or an e-mail though, I would sometimes give him a quick squeeze, then continue typing.  This would often suffice for him.  But more often than not, it was not the response that he wanted.

That was when he would look at me with those big green eyes and “ROAR” in his loudest voice.  Of course this gets my attention.  I would look at him and say, “What do you want dear Bryan?”

He often responded with, “I want you to play dinosaur with me.”  I must admit there were many times I would rather continue what I was doing than stop to take the time to play dinosaur with him.  Dinosaur was probably my least favorite game.  Bryan always wanted to be the strong “sharp tooth” as he calls it.  I always got to be the “long neck.”  That meant I was the one who was always  killed.

One time I thought I would trick him.  I told him that I was going to be the “sharp tooth” this time.  And he was going to be the “long neck.”  He reluctantly agreed.  Let the games begin!

I began growling and walking the way he had instructed me to do.  Just when I was ready to bite off his head he said to me, “I’ve changed into a fire breathing dragon, and now I’m going to breathe on you!”  He then opened his mouth wide and breathed on me.  “There!  You’re dead!” He reminded me.

I was secretly glad I ended in a quick death.  There were so many things I had to do that day.  I thanked him for killing me and began to walk away.  After following me into the office, he once again climbed up on my lap.

Even though I’m not a genius, I figured out fairly quickly that my little boy simply wanted some “Mommy time.”

I had decided to devote a few more minutes to him when Ashley walked in and began to talk about something related to horses.  I can’t remember the exact conversation, but I’m sure that’s what she was talking about.

I turned to face her and began listening.  Bryan took my face in his little hands and turned me to stare right at him.  I told him I would talk to him in a few minutes, and turned once again to talk with Ashley.  Again he took my face in his hands and turned me to focus on him.

Naturally I had to discipline him for interrupting when I was talking, but I felt a tinge of remorse that he had a need in his life that seemed to be unmet by me.

Often as I study the lives of my children I will notice something that is out of whack with them.  When I delve further into the possible cause, I often am forced to look at myself as the reason they are acting a certain way.

It’s painful to look at a child who has been yelling a lot and see that perhaps the behavior she is seeing modeled by, yours truly, is not one of sweet disposition, but one of a raised voice.

I know I cannot live an exemplary life.  I will fail them and I often do, but what frightens me the most is that one day I will mess up so much, there will be no redemption in their eyes.  I fear that the children will walk away from the faith I so desperately want them to walk in, not away from, because of some mistake I may have made.

Hey Moms! Have you ever felt like with pregnancy you have lost vital brain cells? Oh, I can so relate! That’s why I wrote a book called, Gone With the Mind. It’s a quirky, humorous look at life with a bunch of kids.

Over the course of the next several weeks, I will be posting one chapter each day from the book. You’ll want to subscribe to the RSS feed or the Networked Blogs so that you don’t miss a single chapter. I will also be making a text only .pdf of the book available for purchase for $7.00. See the sidebar for additional details of this.

At the time of the writing of the book, I was married, so there will be references to “my husband.” I’ve decided to leave those references for now. Full disclosure – throughout the pages, you will find links to affiliate products.  And now – for the introduction to

Gone With the Mind

Introduction

Scientifically there is not any concrete evidence to suggest that pregnant women lose brain cells or that their brains actually shrink during pregnancy.  I don’t really care what science says or doesn’t say about this topic.  I know that something peculiar happened to my brain when I first became pregnant.

I was about two months pregnant when I decided I needed a new puppy.  Some of you may already be shaking your head at the thought of being newly pregnant and getting a new puppy.  Of course I didn’t think, because I was already embarking on the journey of the lost mind.

Not only did I mistakenly get a puppy; I got a puppy that was going to one-day turn into a dog, a big dog.  Another thing I failed to take into account when I chose my puppy was that I lived in a one-bedroom apartment, and I worked during the day.  What was I going to do while I was away?  I was going to put the puppy out on the deck of course.

This worked quite well until the downstairs neighbors decided they didn’t like their patio furniture getting “rained” on during the day.  After they complained I locked my new puppy into my bedroom.

Each night I would go through the same ritual.  I would walk around the room finding all the “spots” where the puppy missed the paper, and flush them down the toilet.  One night the toilet clogged.

I quickly yelled out for Steve to come help, but he was out of town for a few months so he didn’t come to my rescue.  “Perhaps rather than fixing the problem, I could use the bathroom in the laundry room down the block,” I pondered in my distress.   This is when the brain cell blockage passed momentarily and I realized that wasn’t an option.

I was quite a sight plunging the toilet, while simultaneously leaning over the bathroom sink.  Remember that I told you I was just a couple of months pregnant. 

Morning Sickness Help

I did get the clog out, but didn’t realize that it was from all the “spots” that I flushed down along with the paper towels I used to pick them up.  I’m not sure if it took more than a week of this to finally figure out that perhaps I should just take a bag out to the dumpster.

In the meantime my lovely puppy managed to dig a hole under the door of my bedroom, eat Steve’s prized squirrel skin, my bed, and the linoleum in the adjoining bathroom.

Each day I would come home to find another part of my apartment or belongings eaten.  One day I found the puppy had taken the toilet paper and strewn it all over the room.

People would often shake their heads at me when I would tell them of the exploits of the puppy.  The secretary where I worked seriously wondered about my mental health when she asked why I named a female puppy Blake.  I told her that I didn’t know the puppy was a girl.  She asked why I didn’t look to see.  I simply blushed at the thought.

I thought the lack of brain function would get better with each succeeding child, but it didn’t.  In fact, I’m afraid it got worse.

A month before Ashley was born; I resigned from the Air Force to become a permanent stay at home mom.  I loved being home with my baby and was pretty sure that one day I would once again have all my faculties in use.

I had heard it could take up to six months after being pregnant for the brain to once again function at full capacity.  I was looking forward to that time.

Five months after Ashley was born, I became pregnant with Christi.  While pregnant with her I wondered if I was going to be allowed to catch up on the brain cells or if I had already caused irreparable damage.

I can’t remember all the times I had forgotten to take a diaper bag.

After Christi came along things got even worse for me.  Now I had another name that I was supposed to remember and recall at any given moment.

I think George Foreman had a good idea when he named all his sons the same thing.  His wife never had to look at someone and not know his name.

I believe I was pregnant with David when I happened upon 2 Timothy 1:7  “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

I took great comfort in this verse for I was certain that moms were not excluded from this blessing.  I was positive that one day the Lord would see fit to take away my fear and replace it with power, and love, and the thing I often needed most, a sound mind.

We’ve all heard the words that it doesn’t take money to have Christmas. And that is completely true. There is only one ingredient required and that is “Love.” However, there is so much stress wrapped up (pun intended) in presents, decorations, gifts for others, etc.

The first year as a single mom was particularly rough for me. The kids seemed to handle it all in stride, but I found myself desperately wanting to give them more than I had. All eight of us lived in a little three bedroom apartment. The living room couch, which had been given to us, doubled as my bed. There wasn’t a lot of room, there wasn’t a lot of money, but there was a whole lot of ingenuity.

More than anything I wanted a tree for the kids. One day while shopping at Wal Mart I found a small lighted tree for only fifteen dollars. Fifteen dollars was actually a lot of money that year, but I “needed” that tree. The excitement of putting up the Christmas tree in our little apartment was amazing. I figured we would just leave it bare – at least it had lights.

Just Add Love

As we danced around the living room to Christmas music on the radio, pretty soon one of the kids had gone into her room and got a small stuffed animal to decorate the tree. I had some red ribbon so we made a loop around the neck of the small animal and looped it around one of the branches. We all marveled at how cute the little animal was hanging on the tree. In a flash all of the tiny stuffed animals that the kids owned were out on the living room floor awaiting their turn with a ribbon around their necks.

One by one we hung the little animals on the tree. I wish I had a picture of that little tree, but I don’t. The only picture I have of it is in my mind. A little polar bear took top position as the “star of the tree.” There was so much joy and love passing around the living room that day. I can almost feel it again as I remember with tears trailing down my cheeks.

Because I wasn’t going to get to be with the kids on Christmas, we pretended on Thanksgiving that it was Christmas. We went all out keeping some of our favorite traditions, like having funnel cakes on Christmas morning. A friend had given me money to buy gifts for the kids. Stockings were always a favorite, so that year, they each had a stocking filled with their favorite treats.

Some of the old traditions had to be removed. We no longer had the creche that we would lovingly put on the table. The decorations and ornaments were no longer in our posession. The beautiful stockings were replaced with stockings from the dollar store. But we began new traditions. In some ways that first holiday as a single mom was the mark of a fresh beginning. Even though things weren’t the same and there was a lot of pain. The joy that arose from that pain gave us all a renewed sense of peace. It’s pretty common to say, “Peace on Earth” during the Christmas season, but that year, Jesus did a very real work in my heart when He revealed to me that the peace I needed came only from Him.

That quiet Christmas morning, I sat staring at the stuffed animal tree pondering the strangeness of life. Tears fell freely, as there were no children around from whom I had to hide the pain.  As God wrapped his arms around me I knew – there was peace in my life that day.

Whenever I feel slightly overwhelmed, I find myself again reflecting on the little stuffed animal tree and how ordinary posessions, became extraordinary decorations.

I know a lot of families struggle with how to get the mountains of laundry done in their house. We’ve done many different things through the years. Some have worked for a season, and some have been utter failures. Below are some of the things we have done.

The Laundry Room: As a Realtor® I get to see a lot of laundry rooms. Unfortunately most of them are afterthoughts added on to the back of the house. I certainly don’t understand this at all considering that the average family (not my family) does at least 4 loads a week. Shouldn’t that give it more credence than being relegated to the walk way between the garage and the house? And why are they often tucked as far away from the bedrooms as possible? I know in the midwest, many laundry facilities ended up in the basement. I remember when I was little my grandma had a wringer machine in the basement. Oh my! We sure have it easy now with our computerized talking machines. (I don’t have one – but I’ve seen them)

I’ve had laundry rooms every where from the basement, garage, garage pass thru, large mud room, to a room off the kitchen. I’ve never had one like I really wanted which would have been upstairs in a room large enough for dressers and hanging bars. If I could design my own house, I would have had two laundry rooms, one for the boys and one for the girls. They would have had all their dressers and hanging places in that room. Basically they would have been all purpose laundry and dressing rooms. Ahhh  one can dream. So, we make do.

You can all hate me now, but my kids do all their own laundry now. That’s what you have to look forward to when you train them how to do it when they are younger. Even toddlers can fold washclothes. Encourage them to help. When my kids were younger they had one laundry basket in their rooms. When the basket got full (or on a certain day if I was in the season of organized) they would take it to the laundry room and sort it into the bins. I had four LARGE rubber maid type bins – with lids removed. They learned to sort as soon as they could walk. Whites, Darks, Mediums, and towels/sheets. One child was the designated laundry person. I had a laminated sheet of how to wash what kind of clothes. This hung on the wall beside the washer. Each bin was coded so the kids could easily see what went into that bin. The designated laundry person would do two loads every single day. If the bin was full, that was two loads. The child would wash, dry and fold the clothes. Each child would then be responsible for putting away their own clothes after each load. This worked very well for years. The kids would rotate and everyone learned how to do laundry. It was never “done” but it was always being done.

Now that all the children can do laundry, they have cloth laundry bags in their rooms.

These stand up but are made of cloth. They have handles and collapse when not needed (like that would ever happen). Each room does their own laundry. For the most part we don’t have fights for the washer. Saturday night is often the busy night for the washer. David likes to put his clothes in at 3:00 in the morning though. Since the washer is directly beneath my room, that’s a bit obnoxious to hear when I’m trying to go to sleep. One child is still assigned to laundry, but they mostly do towels and keep the laundry room clean. It’s a pretty easy job now. It usually follows having been on kitchen duty.

I have a Neptune front loader that I got when Bryan was born. I wouldn’t say I’m 100% satisfied with it, but it works perfectly well. There have been a few times it’s needed repairs, but they weren’t horribly expensive. My dryer is just a high capacity dryer from Sears. They don’t match. And I don’t really care. I’m kind of brand loyal when it comes to laundry. I love Tide and have used it for years. I try other cheaper products, but – well, I just like Tide. I don’t use a fabric softener, but I do use Bounce sheets for some of the clothes.

To make laundry not all-consuming

• Have your kids do most of it
• Do a little every day – marathon laundry days are no fun
• Put it away! – As soon as it’s folded – take the final step and put it away. (I know what to do – I don’t always do what I know what to do) Funny how this step trips up most people. We end up with piles on the couch, on our beds, on the kitchen table, or on the floor. Then we just work around the piles. It really only takes a few minutes more to put it all away. – I say this, and right now (I could show you a picture) I have three laundry baskets with clothes in them in my bedroom. I look at it all the time and think, I should put those away. And they still sit. In my defense – my closet rod broke. (that’s all I’m going to say) I’m pretty sure, I’ll get those clothes put away as soon as I post this. There’s nothing like guilting yourself into action by typing up a post on how to get something done.

I would love to hear what you do for laundry and what kind of a laundry room you have.

Update: I found this great post on building your own laundry storage solution. Definitely check it out! http://ana-white.com/2010/11/laundry-basket-dresser.html

When I think of myself one word usually comes to mind. Strong. Yep, I can handle anything – well, God can handle anything, and He likes to share His strength with me. I’m actually horribly weak, but I “think” I’m strong. Okay, now that I’ve completely confused you – you’re exactly where I am. Confused.

For the eleven months that I experienced knowing my mom was going to die, I envisioned what it would be like for me to go on without my mom. I envisioned a woman who cried at the appointed times, Laughed when a memory would pop into my head, and would grieve for a few days curled up in my bed, not wanting anyone near as she held me close (without being there).

But that’s not the way it is. As much as I want this grief to fit into my plan and work the way I expected. It’s not. I practiced my response to the question, “How are you doing?” – “Better than I expected.” I would say – with complete belief in those words. I didn’t go to bed for days. I enjoyed her memorial service. I even wanted to speak and share about her life. Not very many tears that day – better than I expected. The first couple of weeks back home seemed “normal.” Better than I expected.

Then one day, I was just walking through the kitchen and the pain of loss nearly floored me. Where did that come from? I wanted to go to bed and let her hold me. But she was dead. And there would be no more holding. I try to “conjure” her up and talk with her. But she’s gone. I hear her voice soothing me, telling me everything with be all right. But it’s not all right anymore. Sobs come too easily. I remind myself, “I’m better than expected.” Then I scream inside, “You are not!” If I had any excess money I would run away for a weekend.

I pour myself into project after project. Life – take my full attention! I don’t like grieving. I hate going to bed at night and suddenly feel the need to purge all the sadness from my body. My pillow gets wet each night from the tears I can’t fight. Many nights I fall asleep holding on to myself tightly. I wake up sore – and puffy eyed.

I scold myself. It’s not like I lost a spouse or a child! It was my mom. My body heaves with pain. I never understood how people used the death of a loved one as a life marker. But now I do. I find myself wanting to say to people, it’s been x amount of time since my mom died. They don’t care. I didn’t really care that much when people would say that to me. I didn’t understand.

I’m trying to “get it.” What happens when someone we love dies? What happens to us? I’m beginning to think they take a part of us with them. I feel this amazing pain – like something is “missing.” Like, a part of me has gone. It’s too bad it’s not the icky parts of me. But I’m afraid it’s the best part of me that has gone.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t walk around sobbing and crying all the time. But…there is this heaviness on me. I feel weak because I don’t feel like I can hold up under the pressure of the heaviness. I sigh. I don’t ask God why. I get it. And I know all the right answers. I envision her playing in heaven. I see the incredible lightness of her being now. But knowing the answers isn’t enough. I didn’t expect that. I thought I could just see her in all the glory of Heaven – and be all good with it. But I’m not all good with it. She was my best friend. She needed me.

It’s been x number of days since Mom died. It’s been 5 weeks. I expected the grief to be nearly gone – but instead it’s hit me hard. Maybe it’s all the stuff I’ve been going through – all coming to one place at one time. Fighting is too hard now. Maybe, this is the place I needed to get to? Maybe I needed to stop being strong. Maybe, just maybe … it’s a time to mourn.