Last week was Family Literacy Day and our school celebrated by inviting families to come read in their children’s classroom.
We love reading with our children every day and I especially loved reading in my boys’ classrooms.
We were asked to bring our favourite books from home.
Our neighbours and CC’s kindergarten classmate brought the same book from home.
I love coincidences.
I love these neighbours.
I love reading!
You would think after the milestones of the “magic” one year mark without mom that the raw, ache feeling would float away into the abyss.
“Poof”
But apparently grief doesn’t work that way, at least for me.
I live in a world where I am surrounded by three growing boys, married to a man and trying to re-organize a new relationship with my dad in my brain.
My mom was a force: A balancing point in my male-dominated world.
Here she is in green and black skiing a few years ago with my sister, in purple.
My mom was the idea person. The peacemaker. She was the one who would help me pull the chariot, with the boys in it, when we were out cross country skiing. Mom was full of gratitude for all the people who surrounded her. Mom was a provider of amazing food and had the best laugh! Mom was a planner and organizer. If you asked her to do something, you could count on her ONE HUNDRED percent of the time.
How does one move beyond this loving, vibrant relationship into NOTHINGNESS?
What does “moving on” look and feel like?
How do you just “get over it”?
You cry.
You feel really, really sad and lonely, mad and grateful, full of gratitude and overcome with grief.
And then you receive a wonderful poem from a friend and you know you, at least, aren’t alone.
Thanks Shell for sharing these words: (author unknown)
Grief is very personal.
I would love there to be a recipe for grief to follow or a ‘how-to’ book.
But nope.
No recipe.
No book.
Just living each moment.
Feeling the emotions.
My dad is choosing to cross country ski through this month of grief.
January has thirty-one days.
He has skied twenty-seven days.
Each day.
Getting up.
Getting out.
And skiing.
For a total of ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY- TWO kilometres this month.
One kilometre at a time.
Grief is very personal.
I would love there to be a recipe for grief to follow or a ‘how-to’ book.
But nope.
No recipe.
No book.
Just living each moment.
Feeling the emotions.
My dad is choosing to cross country ski through this month of grief.
January has thirty-one days.
He has skied twenty-seven days.
Each day.
Getting up.
Getting out.
And skiing.
For a total of ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY- TWO kilometres this month.
One kilometre at a time.
Every day.
Making a choice.
To ski through his grief.
I love you dad!
As I watched my littlest one fly through the air on the chairlift, I thought of air, the importance of breathe and God’s Holy Spirit.
This is how my mind works these days, simple moments become incredible moments.
I can be sitting watching my boys play with Lego and I feel love and warmth pour over me like a dousing of water over my head.
I may be listening to a woman speak about her health struggles and I want to bawl my eyes out with sadness.
Often, I see women with their moms and I want to lie flat on the ground, humbled by what I have lost and amazed at how present my mom was in our lives.
Today, I come back to air.
To my breathe.
To God’s Holy Spirit.
I will seek with my whole heart the significance of breathe.
And I will breathe.
Deeply.
Full of gratitude.
I love this journey.
Life.
Alive.
Air.
Breathe.
Breath.
Life-giving Holy Spirit.
A three year old.
His Dadda.
On a chair soaring through the air.
Pure joy.
Great delight.
Even at this height.
No fear.
Only peace.
His Dadda is near.
May we see our Father God this week with His arms around us as we walk, run, ski, ride or meander through the air.
What do you personally think every human being should know or be able to do?
For Sexy Neck and I, we believe it is essential that our boys learn how to move their bodies safely.
Thus, gymnastics is a priority for our schedule and our budget.
Man, it isn’t cheap!
As we move into our winter activities, we say goodbye to our autumn gymnastics class.
Thank you for teaching our boys to balance, hop and roll.
I wonder if we made gymnastics mandatory for us all, what would our Western-living lives look like?
"Be" ENOUGH 