Stumbling Towards Perfect

 So, I've been doing this 100 Happy Days challenge, which - let's be honest, I've become a pro at searching out the good. I have to. Without it, well, I'd end up in that deep pit of soul-sucking darkness with no hope of ever getting out. Anyway, the challenge is simple. Find something that makes you happy, snap a picture, share it using the tag #100happydays. You can sift through the happy images of others or even create a photo book at the end of the challenge. Go to 100 Happy Days to find out more. I really want to tell you about Day 16: Ruthie's Flowers Blooming Bright ♥ #day16 #100happydays Shortly before Avery passed away, my dear friend Ginger's sweet, sweet mother, Ruthie , passed away. It was awful and hard and heartbreaking. Ginger is quiet. She keeps things inside. She's intensely private both in her incredible strength and in her understandable anguish. Like polar opposites, Ginger grieves alone in the dark of her room; I'm wai...

Jadrian got in a car accident.   She's fine, physically. Well, aside from a fractured skull. Not skull. Forehead? That area above her right eyebrow where she hit the window. (You can't tell without having seen the hospital scans.)   She wasn't driving.   She was sitting. Talking. Looking off to the side. Not even conscious that she was simply trusting that they'd make it through the intersection without an issue.   Except that someone ran a red light and before she knew what was happening she felt the car she was riding in swerve, get hit and spin them around through the intersection.   And she lost it.   She panicked. Screamed. Yelled. Cussed.   And the driver boyfriend tried to tell her he was okay. His leg was stuck, hurt, but he was okay. And he tried to calm her down, but he couldn't.   A witness ran to her door, confused at her deafening screams. Manic. Absolutely manic.   She told me ...

There's a down side to losing your child. Besides the obvious, obviously. But that's losing people you thought would be in your corner, holding you up. Or at least holding up a box of Kleenex while you tear through them. See, we get sucked into this idea that we know who has our back. And this really goes for any tragedy: child dying, spouse dying, debilitating illness diagnosis, divorce, job loss, losing every single piece of who you are and where you came from in a house fire. We think, naively, before the bad things actually happen, that we could write a list of who loves us the most and who would always be there for us through thick and thin and that list would actually be truth. But it isn't. Because sometimes it just isn't. And I've read over and over people filled with anger because they thought their mom or their cousin or their aunt or their brother, their best friend or whoever else was on their list, would've, could've, should've but...

This life seems to revolve around countdowns. A week until my first day of kindergarten. Six weeks until I turn ten. Four months until I turn sixteen. Two days until I am a legal adult. Fifteen days until I leave for boot camp. Two minutes until I find out whether or not I'm pregnant. Six months until my due date. Three months. Two. And then I start counting down with my family. An hour until the guests arrive. Ten minutes until we sing Happy Birthday. Forty five minutes until we open the gifts. A year until we do it all over again. We countdown to events, tasks, goals, dreams, plans. We countdown to milestones like graduations and Sweet Sixteen's, proms and engagements, weddings and pregnancies. We countdown how many years until the mortgage is paid off and how many winters we can eek out the old furnace. We countdown how many days until we leave on vacation, how many years until we retire and how much money we need saved to finally buy that condo three blocks ...

To the Kids Who Stand in the Back: I see you. In fact, I search you out. As the group walks proudly on stage, my eyes bypass those in front in order to find you. Don't think for a second you are too far back, that no one in the audience notices you are there. Because I see you. My daughter used to stand in the back. When she was alive, she danced in the back row. She wasn't in anyone's spotlight but my own. But, oh, how she shined in that light! She wasn't the best dancer, and more than likely, you aren't either. But that's okay. In fact, in my opinion, that's more than okay. Because you're still doing more than the person who refuses to try. You're out there and you're doing it. You're doing it because you enjoy it. And that, right there, is everything. My daughter, Avery, who stood in the back with you, knew you, too. Even if none of the kids in the front row knew who she was, she didn't let that stop her from getting to k...

There were so many supportive, encouraging words said to me through Facebook after Avery died. But as time passes, they get harder and harder to find. And what if the internet connection goes out? Or no one uses Facebook anymore? What happens when I move to the nursing home and want to take this memory with me? Facebook was so amazing in that it helped chronicle my grief. And it kept track of all the people holding me up when I couldn't stand. Truthfully, if I want to write about it with raw honesty, I have to go back to that place. But I didn't know how... until I discovered My Social Book .                Sometimes, you have to go back in order to move forward.   This is 300 pages chronicling October 24, 2012 through April 30, 2013.  Three hundred pages . Every status update. Every post. Every comment. Every photo. Every reply. Every like.     My book of grief.   My book of...

The same person who said Avery's visitation was tacky (because it was held in her school gym in an effort to accommodate the 600+ people who came to pay their respects) was the same person who left a voicemail on my phone 12 hours after Avery died talking about how worried she was for Matt and to have him call her (umm... call him on his phone? I'm sure he's sad, but I just found out my daughter died so I'm kind of busy here) and is the same person who told me that I had no respect for the sanctity of marriage (I'm divorced; although she's never bothered to ask the circumstances) and repeatedly questioned my relationship with God (because I guess you can't believe in God if you're  not Catholic) and who told me I needed psychological help because I chose not to have a large birthday party when my third child turned one. (Please note: none of my children had huge parties when they turned one. Also, I'm the Mom.) I could go on and on and on and on....