It's Been A While

Dear Blog,

I have not forgotten you. I think about you every day and have composed rough drafts in my head quite often since we last had contact. Not that you would know this.

It's just... well... March has been a rough month. If I were to sugarcoat it I would say something like, "Oh, ya know, it wasn't the best month." If I wanted to tell the truth I would say something more along the lines of, "March kicked my ass and I'm weary and exhausted and I want April to come roaring in and take over and shower me and everyone I know with kindness and goodness and laugher and love."

It's been hard to find the right words to express the grief that has pounded my friends and family this month. I haven't been sure I could or would write about any of this on something as light and fruity as a blog.

Death. Grief. Death again. More grief. These are not the topics I typically explore with you, my silly blog. But I am affected and I am grieving and I am sad and I am mad and I am desperate for answers on how I can protect my children.

I know they do not belong to me. I know one of the most important jobs I have as a parent is to let them go, to raise them to be self-reliant and independent and able to survive on their own. They are supposed to leave me. I feel both privileged and heart-broken that this is my role. I'll do it, though. I love them fiercely and I will do this.

This grief that has settled into our world has caused me to hug my kids more tightly, to stare into those hazel eyes and marvel at how they even got here in the first place. I've also stopped fighting with my husband over unmade beds or spilt milk. My life is like a sieve, where the smaller, unimportant pieces have fallen away and all we're left with is the big stuff, the stuff that matters like love and hugs and laughter and the now.

Heaven. Eternity. Reincarnation. The Afterlife. These worlds swirl around in my head alongside their less fabulous counterparts like hell, mourning, and organ donation. My mental ping-pong has been exhausting, zipping from one topic to the next with dizzying speed. And then it settles once again where it should settle: on my family. And I feel peace in knowing that we are together for now, for as long as we get.

Kahlil Gibran said it with more poetry than I could ever match.

On Children

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.