All posts by Be Enough

Family, Grief

Be Glad February is Done

Leave a comment

Whew, February GOODBYE to you!

See ya later to two time consuming beginnings (new semester and planning for next year) at
Sexy Neck’s work.

Every day was a ‘letting go’ experience this month:
DAILY goodbyes to life without mom.

Observing dad’s first warm holiday with buddies and his return.

Feeling the cold weather continue to hold on.

Sensing the letting go that needs to happen on so many things I want desperately to hold on to.

Adios to ten hard fought pounds I lost this month.

Hello to a new month.

Bring on MARCH!

One step closer to destination unknown on earth.

Living a life of complete uncertainty. (Oh how I used to feel in control – ha!)

Completely at peace.

Doing my work.

Speaking my wants.

Living outside of shoulds.

Without fear of making a mistake.

Hanging with my boys.

Making my way in the desert.

Pondering God’s voice.

Waiting and wondering.

In freedom.

Here is a treasure I found while cleaning out our office space today:

20140301-185155.jpg

cancer, Grief

Be Reading a Book

Leave a comment

I am a voracious reader. Well, I used to be anyways. On average, before mom got sick, I would be reading four books at any one time. Usually one bible study, one non-fiction and two fiction books would be stacked on my beside table.

Last week at mom and dad’s house, I looked on mom’s book shelf beside her bed. On the top of the pile, I found this book I gave her in November which was one of the last books she read.

20140227-233031.jpg

I picked the book because of it’s title and wintery scene. I didn’t even read the back.

I remember asking mom about it after she read it in two days flat. She said it was a good light read and that I should read it.

Today, I looked at the book summary. It’s about ‘three people at the crossroads of heartbreak and healing’. One of the characters lost her mom and no longer believes in anything. She believes her mom now speaks to her through heart-shaped rocks.

I may have to start reading again.

P.S. Sexy Neck just walked in the room and saw the book on my lap and asked, “Are you reading again?”

Me, I am still at maybe… Not sure my brain can handle it.

Family, Grief

Be Creating a New Life (Painting again!)

Leave a comment

I realized as I started painting YET ANOTHER item in our house tonight that my sole purpose of painting is to create new life.

Life without my mom a phone call away.

Life without my mom to negotiate schooling and my boys. Schools aren’t the best places for boys these days!

Life without my mom at our sides reading, laughing, cooking, exploring and painting.

I am not completely sure what this new life here in KCity is going to look like. My grief-filled emotional brain doesn’t know what to do in this new life.

So I paint.

I actually don’t really like painting and haven’t painted before.

BUT as I move my brush back and forth in silence tonight, I felt myself moving forward.

The sense of working out my grief.

Peeling off layers of grief as I add layers of paint.

Create new life in the things around me.

Waiting for God to unfold my new life around me in His perfect timing.

Being in my home.

Completely present with my children.

Changing poops.

Making cushion forts.

Playing cars.

Painting.

Resting.

Being.

One brush stroke at a time.

New life.

20140225-223010.jpg

20140225-223017.jpg
(I finished the fireplace tonight and had some extra white paint. I attacked our bedside tables that have been in Sexy Neck’s family for many years and probably are older than us.)

….Stop me if I start painting the toilet….

Boys, Construction, Family, Grief

Be Building a Maisonnette

2 Comments

What did you yearn to have in your childhood home?

A cozy place to snuggle and read?

A place to climb?

A home for your dolls and toys?

Since the day we moved into our house last summer, our boys have wanted to build a fort/Maisonnette under the stairs.

A perfect hideaway.

A clubhouse.

A special space.

My heart longs to create a healing home where we can rest. As last week unfolded, I knew our family needed a project for the weekend. I immediately thought of the fort. We must have hit the right moment as the construction gears were in motion on Friday night about ten seconds after I mentioned the fort.

JC and Sexy Neck came up with the design. I cleaned out my stuff from under the stairs. The boys found some wood and they were off.

20140224-124734.jpg

20140224-124745.jpg

20140224-124755.jpgHere is the finished product on Sunday night:

20140224-124807.jpg

20140224-124818.jpg

20140224-124825.jpg
The boys want to put wood on the sides, add a rope ladder, paint, add a curtain for privacy, a bookshelf and a few more nicknacks will come and go.

The boys were incredible working with their dad. Sexy Neck was amazing at involving the boys every step of the way. The were able to measure and cut wood. Problem solve when the wood wouldn’t fit on the platform. The boys screwed in the floorboard, OC was a natural. Finally, they got to choose everything that they wanted in the fort.

Building self-esteem.

Handwork.

Creating.

Bodies and minds in motion.

Encouraging.

The boys Maisonnette designed and created by them.

Being.

Boys.

cancer, Family, Grief

Be Having Nothing to Give (choo choo!)

2 Comments

We are on a one way track to healing.

Chugging down the track, snotty horns a blaring into my Kleenex.

The rickety old train with its heavier than normal road.

Chugging along.

Not making a stop.

Not picking anything up.

Just chugging along.

20140224-191326.jpg
You want to get on this train?

Observe carefully.

Run along and jump.

This train can’t stop.

It may never start again.

This train wants to hide in the shed.

But with three wee train cars on the back, there ain’t no rest.

Weekends, the big handsome steam locomotive comes along to give us a pull.

But other than that we are stuck with the dirty, coal steam engine.

Chugging.

On the track.

Teary eyes forward.

Trying hard not to fall off.

Wow, this is one big hill.

“I think I Cann, I think I Cann!”

20140225-161829.jpg

Boys, Family, Parenting

Be Painting Yet Another Wall.

Leave a comment

This wall is a paint can full of love for my boys.

First my man, Sexy Neck:

20140222-214759.jpg
And then my wee boys:

20140222-214829.jpg
My imperfect love poured out.

God’s redeeming love making it perfect.

All that I have.

All that I am.

Love I cannot describe.

Rich.

Humble.

Grateful.

A wife.

A mother.

Poured out through paint, through words, through actions.

Freely given.

Love.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13)