Sometimes we need to fall into a change.
#ffamums #frontporchdecor #fallflowers
You were my first hope for a good life. When I was in first grade and my mom asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I replied a nurse and a mom.
When we lost our first baby at 22 weeks I was devastated. I was questioning God daily. I was struggling with faith and struggling with life. I cleaned and curled into a ball to cry myself to sleep every night. A couple months later we found out you were on the way. After you were born we were told about your condition but I didn’t care. Once the cardiologist confirmed you would live, I was happy.
For 27 years we tried to protect you, teach you and keep you safe on this Earth with us. Your last heart surgery was 10 years ago the week you died. Even though it wasn’t your heart that actually caused you to leave we can’t help but think it had an impact on how you lived your life. You were always very convinced you were on borrowed time. You weren’t but I couldn’t convince you otherwise. You enjoyed every second of your life. You were an energetic boy that never stopped and a boy with a tolerance to pain more than any human can imagine. You were extremely strong in every way.
Now I’m trying to be strong and make you proud of me. I would have done anything to keep you here. My fight as a mother was always the strongest thing I had in me. Daily, I’m working to let go of the would haves or should haves the what ifs that have consumed me since you left. I leave my dreams and my prayers and God to ensure you know just how much I love you and it’s so much more than you could ever have imagined. If I had had the chance to hug you one more time I would never let go. It would hurt because I would squeeze you so hard that you couldn’t breath. And I would get to feel you hugging me, bending over the way you had to to reach me.
6 months is nothing in the span of our lives but it’s been the impactful and painful 6 months of my 50 years of life. 6 months without you is something that even though I have lived it it’s incomprehensible and seems like a long time now. This feels like someone else’s life. Others lose their children so I can keep the feeling less personal; not me.
I love you more than words. More than anyone could even imagine. I will love you until God brings me to you when my time here is done. Until then I am here to give your brothers and sisters my all and love them the same. It will be a little diluted from the piece of my soul that is missing.
Obviously these two changes were planned and expected. The girls moved out about two weeks apart. One returning to school and one for the first time. This meant I got to give their room a deep clean for when they came back. But finding these affirmation messages my younger daughter writes herself is sweet and uplifting.
Maybe I need to sneak in their room more often just to read the messages for myself. Between grief and menopause I’m literally a hot mess and am figuring the new me out. The new me that has only one kid under college age but has his license so he will be more independent The new me that doesn’t have the girls to watch chick flicks with and get fries and milkshakes. The new me that’s going through more hormonal changes and body changes than when I was pregnant. The new me that’s learning to live as a mom of 4 instead of 5 and live without THE ONE who made me a mom.
I’m trying to focus on myself for really the first time but yet be a mom and learn who this person is. The person that was died with her son 6 months ago.
Be strong! I’m trying!
It’s very quiet with just two boys at home again. The girls have their lives and I’m letting them live it!
It’s meant to show through some so that it looks rustic. My house is mostly country rustic with a hint of modern here and there. That’s just what I like.
Worst case this buys me time until we would get it fully replaced down the road. Nothing I dread more than when the house needs painted and the hardwood needs redone.
Anywhere with anything.
When you’re having a day, week, month or even a year (F•R•I•E•N•D•S) sometimes you just need something to move forward. I feel like in the past couple of weeks between menopause hormones and grief I have absolutely moved backwards. Back to daily crying, feeling lost, feeling impossibly incapable of everything except quiet and sadness.
Today, I decided I wanted things to move forward. I got my project figured out at work. I made the calls I’d been putting off on my break. And somehow in all of that I managed to get one thing done from start to finish.
Moen has a lifetime guarantee so now that the ell drop has gone bad I wanted to get it fixed. Even the finish is guaranteed. The finish had come off in spots and was ending up with hard water minerals depositing leaving it looking awful every SINGLE time I showered. The place in town had the parts and just provided them to us.
We had a little trouble (maybe more) getting the old one off. It’s not unusable as it bent with the crescent wrench. However we have the brand new piece in place and it looks great. They even gave us a new escutcheon plate that fits and looks nicer than the old one.
It’s amazing how something so seemingly boring and trivial can take some anxiety from me. I’m an OCD person anyways and when I go through something traumatic that part of me gets worse after I go through the flight or fight part of it. That’s where I’m securely at.
