Dancing in the Mine Field

The last 4 months have been filled with so many mixed emotions.  The road that I have been plunked upon is filled with mountains, pebbles, brooks and mine fields.  The last thing I want is my kids to go back to school and tell their friends that they did nothing but sit in front of screens for the summer.  So regardless of what we have been dealt I make every effort for my kids to see it as memories and fun rather than a summer that will always haunt them.

Unfortunately we have the acreage to deal with and so instead of camping at a camp ground we are camping at the acreage.  Two weekends ago Blaine and I were out there alone with the kids.  I started right into the project the minute I got there.  After finally succumbing to Blaine's request of coming to bed at 11:00 pm,  it felt like I was no sooner asleep than the birds were chirping telling me that my day was slipping away.  When I looked at the clock and saw that it was only 6:30 am I contemplated going back to bed but I also realized that right then was the best time to begin another round of cleaning and organizing.  The kids were still asleep, Boo curled up at Blaine's feet and the only sounds to be heard were the chirping of the family birds that were all so familiar.  Even with Mom and Dad gone they still came fluttering by to see what what bits of food they could find.

It wasn't long before I was well into my work when Ginny came in for her morning hug and to say good morning.  Soon Malakai followed with requests of breakfast and then shortly after Blaine came in asking what the plan was for breakfast.  It was all too familiar..  Something that always happened when we spend the weekend at Mom and Dad's.  I could even hear how excited my Mom would be when we pulled up in our trailer.  Blaine made fried potatoes, bacon and eggs ... not even realizing that it was something Mom would have always made.  A country song played in the background while we ate.  It was a song that I was familiar with and I immediately hopped up and asked the boys to dance with me.  Of course at this age it is not cool to dance let alone with your mother. :)  Ginny jumped right up and giggled as I tried to teach her how to two step.

All of a sudden Blaine put his fork and knife down, got up and said ... "here, watch Mom and I"  He folded me in his arms and began to dance with me, right there in the kitchen.  I couldn't hold back the tears.  They flooded my eyes with joy.  A moment that I will treasure for the rest of my life.  A moment that shows so much to our children.  A moment to add to so many memories of moments spent with family in that kitchen.

The song ended, breakfast was cleared and  the sound of the sander curiously brought me to the big living room window.  There, out side our trailer, Blaine had taken a break to make the kids each a set of stilts.  I was instantly jolted to another child hood memory where my best friend Jill and I used to play on her farm on home made stilts.

What a blessing to see these things enfold before my eyes.  What a fun treat for the kids.  What a blessing to be able to keep them forever in the banks of my memories.

So for now, we will go dancing through the mine fields and take life one step at a time!

She's growing up!

There is something about that soccer uniform.  This is the first year that we have put all three kids into soccer and we are dying!!  Blaine just texted me ..."we will not be doing this again! "No wonder we never did this before."  The boys have thrown in the towel games ago and as much as we want to call it quits, us being sticklers about giving up, are fighting to make them stick it out to the end.  Ginny however LOVES soccer.  She is so eager on that field and never once has she told us she didn't want to go.

Every time she puts on that uniform I see my little girl grown up before my eyes.  I hear her laugh changing, her comments are more mature and even the way she walks has changed.  Her braces have been removed and her teeth are falling out like crazy. :)  Of course it didn't happen right before soccer though.  In fact, it has been happening all along.  Unfortunately it took a tragedy for us to see her so differently.  The first time I noticed it was when I seen a picture that I took of her the day before my mom's funeral.  We had both gone to the hair salon to get our hair trimmed and I had taken her picture with her hair all curled ... She is beautiful.  She misses her Nana so much, just as we all do.  She is so positive though.  Making cute remarks about Nana being in heaven and God giving her hugs for us.  

I see how I was at Ginny's age and we have our similarities but I like how she is different than I was.  I think about how Blaine and I were in LOVE when I was 16 and I think "oh my goodness, that is only 4 short years away."  I hear her dreams and her hopes and would grant her every one if I could.  I would hold her heart in my hands so that no friend and no boy would ever harm it, if I could.  

I have so many hopes and dreams for her, and I am sure that we share the same ... But I can be even more sure that most of them will remain only mine.  

I thank God for my baby girl and even though I see her growing up before my eyes I cherish these moments because to me she will always be my baby girl but life is all to familiar and soon she will be a grown woman and someone else will be cherishing her just the same.

Memories are floating through the air

At first I was concerned.  Why are the kids not upset?  Why are they not talking about Nana? As weeks have now passed, occasionally the little tears are found pooling in the corners of their eyes and the soft whisper of her name often leave their lips.  It is the process of grieving.  Some have a harder time than others do.  So cry, some get angry.  We have had it all in this house.  The greatest part is the stories.  Take our conversation that we had this morning ...

Ginny - I remember when Nana helped out at Bible Camp.  I stayed at her house for the week and every morning we would wake up and she would take me in the Smart Car to VBS. I remember how every morning Ginny and Nana would arrive at VBS and Mom had Ginny's hair curled or braided or clipped up.  

Malakai - Nana loved Rhubarb. Oh how she did.  She loved to make Strawberry, Rhubarb Jam.    

Ginny - Oh thats right.  She would always give me a small knife and tell me to go out and cut as much rhubarb as I could than her and I would sit on the deck and cut the Rhubarb up into small pieces.  After that she would give each kid a bowl of sugar and a stick of Rhubarb to eat.   

As I am blogging Malakai comes up into my room.  He is washing his hands with my coconut hand soap.  He must know what I am doing because he quickly leans over onto the bed and says ... Now I remember another remembering ... Me Keegan, and Ginny were all over at Opa's and he had a coconut and he opened it up and poured it into a glass.  First it was me that tried it, and I didn't like it.  Next Ginny tried it and she didn't like it.  Both Keegan and Nana tried it and they didn't like it either.  Finally Opa tried it, and he liked it!  

So much to tell you, all the time in the world.

Mom,                                                                                                                             April 10, 2013

This has been a hard week.  Sunday Mona, Jay, Bernie and I went out to the acreage to go through and clean the kitchen.  It looks so "empty."  There were some disagreements but I stuck to myself, cleaning the kitchen.  I find it harder to be in the apartment at Discovery than I do at the acreage.  Probably because we were just starting to visit you more at Discovery.  I am still struggling with guilt when I think about those last few months.  I have so many regrets that they haunt me daily.  Lee had said not to accept them because they are from the enemy.  Sometimes they are just so hard to ignore though.

Monday morning was a time of celebration and the first thing I wanted to do was call you.  Ginny got her braces off.  I just can't believe how beautiful and grown up she is getting.  I am sure I will shed many tears of missing you as she reaches her milestones in the months and years to come.  Peter and I would like to take Dad to Germany in the fall but we are both unsure if we can afford it.  It may be one of those things that you just have to make work.  I can only imagine how overjoyed Dad would be to take us to Germany and show us around.  I wish that we were planning on you coming.  You always wanted to go there with him.

So many people are asking me how I am doing and I have gotten really good at convincing everyone that "I am good."  Truth is ... not many understand and not many want to hear me talk about you endlessly.  Truth is ... sometimes reality hits all to well and I feel like I am suffocating.  Sometimes the pain is so overwhelming that I just want to scream.  Even just sitting here in bed with Blaine sleeping by my side I feel overwhelmed with sorrow.  People say that "it will get easier."  I can't see that far ahead.  Right now it seems so far away that it's as if they are just saying it to make themselves feel better.  there are a few that have been great help, Terry being one of them.  He and Larissa gave me a card and it expressed how I need to take time to grieve and the grieving process could take up to 2 years.  God has his work cut out for him if this is going to take 2 years.  All I keep going back to is the scripture that you loved enough to give it to Blaine on his baptism ... "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight."  Trying hard to trust.

The last few days have been filled with great memories of you from the kids.  Keegan thinks that we shouldn't talk about you because it makes us sad and Opa sad.  I corrected him and told him it was healthy to talk about you.  Ginny remembers you giving her, her "Nana Bear."  I laughed because I remember you and me going through the stores in Jasper when she was only a year old when we found that bear.  Can you imagine that you paid $80.00 for that thing.  :)  Well mom, rest assured, it was the most cherished $80.00 ever.   There were other things that the kids remembered to but I am drawing a blank right now.  I wanted to write them down sooner but just never got around to it.

Amongst your kitchen, we found 2 very special books that the kids and I have decided to read.  They are special books and Ginny and Malakai are really enjoying the fact that they have come from your house.  In one of them it talked of Jesus Resurrection and Easter Sunday.  I found it interesting how you went to heaven so close to Easter.  Was their a celebration in heaven on Easter Sunday?  I imagine you, Grandma Ginny, Grandma Meatha and Oma all linked arms, walking through the gardens of heaven.  The birds fluttering everywhere with you talking about each one of them.

Tonight I was reading your bible and I can't remember what I was reading but I was thinking about how I asked you if you still loved Jesus.  I hope I didn't offend you, but even reading your bible I saw how on fire you were for God in the things you wrote, the verses you underlined.  In the last few month you didn't really have that fire anymore.  Yet it dawned on me that we all have seasons of dryness.  Perhaps it wasn't that you weren't excited about Jesus but just going through a dry patch.  Even now as I think this over again I picture you in our 7th row seat, sitting beside Dad on Christmas Eve.  You were so sick.  As I stood in front of the congregation reciting my monologue I glanced over at you and there you were with your eyes closed, praying to God.  What was going through your head?  Did you know that your days were numbered?  Had God been preparing your heart?  Maybe your last few months were spent pondering more than anything.  I am reminded right now of how when you fell and cracked your ribs you were so tired of being sick, so tired of Dad being grumpy with you, so tired of feeling weak that you laid in your bed on your side and told me you didn't want to live any more.  Reassuring to know that God was listening to you and answered your prayers only a couple of weeks later, Sad that you had to leave.  You left me so quickly that I wish I had stayed that night.  I wish I had known.  I wish I had curled up in bed beside you and just spent that last night with you.  Instead ... I didn't even kiss you or hug you goodnight.  I told you I loved you and that I would see you in the morning.  I wish that I could say I love you now and see you in the morning.

I LOVE YOU MOM!  I hope with all my heart that you hear Malakai's prayers every night as he asks God to tell you that we love you sooooo much!

Always and Forever
Tammy    

Good Moments and Bad Moments

Hi my Mommy;

Today Lee invited me to the market with Kaela and her.  I was looking forward to it but then last night I woke up with some sort of stomach bug.  You know me and how I get when I feel like I am going to puke.  Needless to say, I survived the night but was still feeling off today.  I knew how much it meant to Lee though so I pushed myself, and I am glad that I did.  

We had a really good visit over lunch and of course, it was all about you. :)  Seems like everything these days resolves around my memories of you, something that you would like or something that you would have said.  Anyways I especially wonder now if we will remember those that we have left behind when we go to heaven.  All three of us were buzzing with our own thoughts and feelings but I will let you know what gives me peace and how I think it might be.  

I think that you can look down on us from heaven and I think that you are still a prayer warrior for all of us.  Of course the idea of you seeing us grieve your loss would naturally only cause you heartache but since time is so different on earth than it is in heaven I think that you would be so excited to be only "days" from seeing us. :)  I want to think that you would not necessarily know all the trials that we would have to go through but instead know the end game plan and when we will once again be reunited.  I don't know!  It may sound so bizzare to someone else but it gives me peace.  It helps me to get by knowing that to you it may be a day, or week till we meet again.  At least for one of us it will seem less time.  

So many people ask how I am doing.  How do you answer that?  Do they really want to hear every time they ask that I am lonely, grief stricken, that I wish you were still here with us?  Probably not ... So instead, I say "good."  I hear from people that grief takes time,  some days are good, some days are bad.  How about some MOMENTS are good and some are bad?  Sometimes I wake up and almost feel guilty that I am not sad but then evening comes and I am a weeping mess.  I have no way of controlling when it will hit me, or what triggers it.  For that reason alone, it is nice to stick close to home.  Blaine went to hang pictures at the apartment for dad today and I can't believe how hard it is for me to sit in your chair and visit with him.  It seems so foreign yet at the same time it is good.  

The kids have been acting up, the house is a disaster, yet I can still hear you saying ... "your house is never a disaster."  I tidied a bit but I figured a financially organized home is better than a clean one.  Since I have been struggling to get your finances worked out, I have let ours slip through the cracks.  

Lee had such a wonderful idea of asking the kids to tell me their memories of you and right them down in a book so that they will never forget you.  I asked Malakai tonight what he remembers of you.  Of course I got "I don't know!"  I was quiet for awhile though and soon he said "that Nana taught me how to crochet."  Thank you so much for that.  He loves that new little hobby that you taught him and you would be so proud to finally have someone to sit and crochet with.  Then he said ... "I remember reading with Nana.  I got to read the red parts in that book and Ginny and Nana read the other colors.  I really liked that book."  I remember buying that book for you to read to the kids.  Thank you for making it special for them.  

Well mom, I should get my budgeting on the go here.  It was good chatting to you again.  Wish you would just stop being so quiet and answer me for a change. 

Love you Always!
Tammy