May

Well, it's here. That time of year again that I dread with every ounce of my soul.  May is my least favorite month of the year.  This year marks seven years without my mom and seven years without my grandma, who passed just 4 weeks after her.  May brings budding trees, and Mother's Day, and grief.  So. much. grief.  Every year I prepare myself.  I start counting my blessings, I make plans and start projects, I begin to dream about summer and the sweet time off with my babies, but the grief always finds it's way into my heart.  It is so heavy.

I have been BEYOND blessed in the last seven years.  I was given 3 more precious babies.  We were given a chance to move home and to be near my family and my husband's family...My cousins have had many babies, my grandpa has 30+ great grandchildren.  So many blessings, but the grief is so very heavy.  It wears on all of us.  Time has changed my grief, but it has not healed or erased it.  I have learned how to live with the emptiness.  I have learned how to continue to move on those days when moving hurts and being awake brings pain.  I have learned how to look at my babies and my husband in the saddest moments and just be.   The grief hasn't lessened.  But the reality of how to live with my bad days, my saddest moments, has been learned.   I have learned that this hole in my heart will never be filled, but I have learned to be thankful in my deepest grief.  My momma was one of my life's greatest blessings and I will always carry this emptiness...until one day.  One day when I am able to see her again.

I remember so vividly talking with my mom the week before she went to heaven.  She was so excited about my upcoming visit with my husband and our baby Jack from Texas.  She said our visit was her Mother's Day present.  She was excited because the trees were budding and they would probably have leaves when we came to visit.  She was in her garden and exclaimed that she saw a bluebird.  As she described her spring to me, I could only imagine her surrounded by her blooming garden with bluebirds, and I couldn't help but think of Snow White.  Such a funny thing to remember!  But imagining her in her garden now is the way I want to remember her...

My Mom and my Grandma were truly amazing women.  They are both an inspiration to me as a woman, mother, wife, and child of God.   They always put others above themselves.  They were positive, loving, gracious, forgiving, and forgiving...  My life would not be what it is without them.

I am thankful.  I have been so blessed.  But this grief is. so. heavy.

 "Keep me in your prayers always.  Also for grandpa for the strength to bear what will come-  God's will be done.  I believe and am blessed.  Always have been!  Grandma Joyce"