Loss

It is difficult. Time has passed. Not much time, but enough. Enough time that others have moved on. Enough time that "normal" life has begun again for others. Enough that I feel as though I am floating through life in a different dimension than the previously mentioned others. My day looks very "normal" from the onlooking. However, my mental instability and inward emotional explosions have not ceased. I still get scattered brained and easily confused by things that would have previously been routine for me. I continue to have moments where my thought process stops cold and I find myself staring blankly at a wall or a screen or some other random object. I often come across things that trigger a lump in my throat that make me fill ill and unable to move.

On the up side, I am no longer paralyzed by the images that flash through my mind hourly. They still come, but I am no longer stuck replaying horrors again and again until something or someone snaps me out of it. I am coping. I am getting better. I am healing.

It isn't a quick process. As so many have said before me, "It take time."

When months had passed following my mom's diagnosis, I told people that I felt like David when he lost his son. He wept and wailed and grieved until God finally took his son, and then he stopped. He began life again, feeling that he had been given an answer and could no longer beg for anything, because what was done, was done. I was wrong.

Losing someone through cancer doesn't mean that you mourn before and then are recovered afterward. It just means you hurt before and after. It means that while that person is on this earth you pray for God to relieve their suffering. And He does, but once they stop suffering your own pain becomes more apparent. It was always there, but now, with no need to focus on your hurting loved one, you are left with your own pain staring you in the face. The reality begins to set in. The wounds begin to make themselves known, and they are gaping. And the closer you were to your lost loved one, the deeper and more gruesome the wound is, and the longer it will take to heal.

Someday I will be able to join you all in this dimension. I will never have the same "normal", but I will heal. Someday in place of this painful, oozing wound, will be a scar instead. No longer painful to the touch, but simply a reminder of my Mom, whom I love and miss so much. Until then, bare with me and others like me, who have wounds that are painful to the touch.

Christmas Pictures 2009

So it is almost February and although I have already done my taxes, I am only now getting to taking all the pictures off from my camera from the last few months. I hope to post many of them in the next week or two, but here are some from our two Christmases (the first was our little family and the second was with Auntie Nono!).

Gracie "Opening" her Stocking

The girls got some awesome art supplies from Uncle Nick
(Note the glazed over look as this was later in the gift opening
and after much sugar had been had)

Bubble Wrap...the gift that keeps on giving

Posing for a picture in New PJs from Great Grandma Sewell

In take "2" Ellie took "get closer" very literally

Middle Name

Lizzie is running around chasing her imaginary friend (because the friend is 'in trouble') and saying both the friend's first and middle name.

Lizzie: "When somebody's in trouble, you have to say their middle name too..."

Prayer is Powerful and so is a Lack of Prayer

Prayer is an amazing thing. To be able to approach the Father with our praises, confessions, concerns and just thoughts in general (through Christ), is an awesome privilege. Unfortunately, all to often, I forget to make my prayers complete. I pray in thought or through journal, but forget to bring things to my LORD consistently when I haven't been reminded of them by life's prompting.

Prayer is a powerful thing, because He whom we pray to, is a powerful and mighty God. I think that, though not nearly as powerful, our neglect of prayer can also be powerful. If I do not pray for something consistently as I ought to, or I "say" a prayer without considering what I am praying, and Whom I am praying to, then it is almost as if I never asked God. Therefore, I cannot be surprised or angered when something goes "wrong".

Please don't misunderstand. I am not implying that by my NOT praying for something, that I am the cause of a bad out come. I do not presume to hold that kind of power. What I am saying, is that if I want a chance at a good out come, I must be more diligent in truly and humbly bringing things before my Awesome and Praise worthy God. He is mighty and capable of much, but if I never bother to ask it of Him, I cannot be upset when He doesn't assume my request and answer in my perceived favor. He always answers our prayers, though that answer may sometimes be no, but we must first pray to be answered.

I was reminded of this yesterday, when we took Lizzie to her yearly cardiology appointment. I never bothered to pray before going, or even to ask my sisters in my Bible Studies to be praying. I thought to, but immediately thought, "no need, it is just a check-up." But nothing is ever "just a..." anything. And God reminded me of that when the cardiologist informed us that Lizzie now has two things that will need to be monitored. Our check-ups the past couple of years have been to be sure that the fake valve they put in is still functioning enough to leave it. It is slightly weaker, but still not weak enough to be worried now. That one we knew, but now there is a second, new, concern. She has developed a new heart defect, known as Atrial Septal Defect (ASD). This is a tiny hole in her heart between the two TOP chambers (you might remember that Lizzie had a hole repaired when she was just a week old, but that was between the BOTTOM chambers).

So what does that mean. Essentially nothing now. Just that she will need something in her early teens or sooner to repair the defect and/or the weak valve. They will continue to monitor her yearly until there is a significant enough change in numbers (lung function, etc.) that they have to do something.

Please, join me in praying for Lizzie in the coming years. Pray that she would be healed and not need surgery or even a procedure. Pray that if she does need medical intervention, that God would give the doctors, and us discernment as to what steps should be taken. Pray that Lizzie (and her sisters) would know God's love through all this and that she would become a light in a dark world.

Pray. Pray with your hearts cry and not a brief fleeting thought set off into the nothingness of space. Pray as we ought to, not as I so often find myself doing.

It's coming Fast

So the girls got this great counting system for Christmas from Auntie Nono. It is 100 bears in different sizes each with a different number on them. We decided that we would use them for the first time starting 100 days before Allen's graduation. Sort of a "count-up" to the big day. I just did the math and we will begin with number "1" bear on January 29th. That's right, this month! Stay tuned for more excited updates from me about how close graduation is (and perhaps a few anxious/panicked posts from Allen :-)

Oh, and I hope to get some good pictures of the girls soon (once the colds have left the house). Then I will post more.

Counting Down

16 weeks and 5 days until Graduation!

Can you tell I am a little excited :-)

Tomorrow is technically our anniversary, but since it is also the final day of the Fall semester, and the day when the big paper is due, we are postponing a day.

I can't wait to have a break from school for a bit.

3 on the 3rd

My little Ellie is now 3 today! I can't believe the little infant we brought out to New England at 6 months old, is now a 3 year old.
So far she has had an exciting day. We started the day off before 6am, when the power went off throughout campus, and caused everyone to wake up when the heaters were no longer keeping us warm. We cuddled a bit and then began discussing breakfast hunger. Unfortunately we couldn't bake the Trader Joe's chocolate filled pastries that I had lovingly put out last night in anticipation of making a special breakfast for the birthday girl. While the pastries continued to rise past their normal limits, the girls had a blueberry breakfast. Finally we decided to have Daddy (who had come home from work since he couldn't do anything without a computer), go to the grocery store to get the back-up special breakfast, donuts. Just as he was about to head home...you guessed it the power was back. The girls began drinking their "tea" and waiting for the plan A breakfast to be done baking, when Auntie "Koffee" called to wish Ellie a happy birthday. After hanging up with my Aunt Kathy, we began eating our breakfast of champions (since by now Daddy had returned, donuts in hand) and chatting.

I asked Ellie if Auntie Koffee had sang to her, and she said, "Yes, and she had cake too!!!"

I sat trying to figure out what she meant for a few moments, and then replied, "Did she sing Happy birthday to you?"

"Yep, with CAKE!"

"So everyone who sings that song must have cake, huh?"

Ellie (as serious as could be) "Yep!"

So if you want to have a cake magically appear in your home today, according to Ellie, just call and sing to her and there it will be!!!

Have a great December 3rd everyone.

Quotable

For fun, we had some pistachios with our dinner tonight. This was probably only the second time the girls have had them. Lizzie got the hang of opening the nuts rather quickly. Took Ellie a little bit longer. When Ellie finally was able to open one, she got very excited and we all clapped. In that exciting moment, Lizzie yells:

"Ellie cracked!"

Over due Pictures of Gracie

I realized today when I was talking with my Grandma, that I hadn't posted any pictures of the girls (and particularly Gracie) as of late. So the following are some old and new shots of Gracie.

This is Gracie at 4 months wearing a dress made by Great-Grandma Sewell for Auntie Nono when she was a little baby
(the irony is that Gracie looks so much like her Auntie at this age, that it looks like we photo shopped a picture of Auntie Nono into a pink and purple bouncy chair)

This is another outfit that was Auntie Nono's from Great-Grandma

And this is our smiley little Gracie being herself at a little over 5 months

Mallow

Ellie (almost 3): *picks up bag of marshmallows* Dad, can we have some marshmallows that Mommy just got at the store?

Allen: No, honey, it's almost lunch time.

Ellie: Can we have them for dinner?