weekend in review...

All in all it was a fabulous weekend! With the weather, the friends and family, the fun... it was great for the most part.

I saw the movie "A Lot Like Love" on Saturday night. I loved it! There's a line in it where Ashton's character Oliver is sitting on the beach with his brother after having his diaper business close. Oliver's brother is deaf and he signs to Oliver "This is your life, right now. It doesn't wait for you to get back on your feet. Your life, it's already happening..." I loved that line. So often we think when something goes wrong that we'll take some time off from life until we get it all figured out again and set a new course. We forget that life doesn't wait for a new course, it keeps on flying. When we're faced with adversity we want to stop life from happening instead of taking it in, being present in that moment and soaking up everything out of it that we can. We should be like sponges: constantly expanding with the "water" that we absorb, growing with the experiences that come our way and the lessons that we learn if we chose to look at life as a classroom. Great movie!

Yesterday proved particularly difficult for me in that it was Mother's Day and my mom passed away 5 years ago this last March. I was having lunch with my friend Jon on Friday and he asked me how her death changed me. I told him I would have to think about it more in depth but right away I told him that there were things I wish I had done differently while she was still here. Things like spending more time with her, listening to her, laughing with her and less time arguing with her. More time making her smile and less time upsetting her. She never complained even when I knew she was in pain she NEVER complained! She was one of the strongest people I know. I know she suffered quite a bit especially the last couple weeks and I hated to see her go through that: the labored breathing, the anxiety she felt, the pain, the wondering, the fear, the gripping onto life. I think just seeing her hang on to life like that with everything she had changed me in a way I can't explain. It was the first time I had actually witnessed the death of someone very close to me (working in ICU I had seen death but this was different) and it wasn't the quiet, calm passing you hope for. It was a fight, a spiritual, physical fight! Here was a woman who lived and breathed Christianity her whole life and she was fighting to stay on this side. She knew God's promises by heart and clung to them daily and still she literally clung to the world (my dad and I more precisely the night she died). It seemed she was obviously fearful but why would she be? Maybe it was just anxiety, I don't know... What I wouldn't give to sit and talk with her about that experience: what she was feeling, thinking, experiencing. I know she's no longer suffering, I know where she is and I do find peace in the fact that I will see her again one day. I am very blessed to not have to wonder about that ever with either of my parents or my stepmom. I will continue to think about my answer to your question Jon...

With last week's news from my doctor that I may not be able to bear children of my own it made Mother's Day difficult in a new way. The thought that I may not get to experience the joy, the pain, the intense love of bearing children from my womb hung in the air around me yesterday. It was always there, just within my reach but I kept it there at arm's length for fear that if I grabbed onto it and pulled it to me that it would somehow become definite and true. At arm's length at least it felt like it wasn't MY truth, my diagnosis. I could see it there but it wasn't there for me.

While the weekend was difficult for me it wasn't a bad weekend. I chose to be introspective and reflect on things, to be a little sentimental. I wouldn't change a thing about it if I had it to do over!