I just got a phone call. My Uncle was in Arizona with his motorcycle buddies and he died suddenly of a heart attack.
I haven’t seen him in so long and he lives just a few blocks away.
You just never know.

I am not ok, but I will be. The pain is worse, It’s hard to breathe. Let me put it to you like this…
I would rather give birth to triplets who weighed 20 pounds each, naturally, with no pain killers in the middle of the desert while being stung by 100 bees, in front of a crowd of people who were pointing, laughing and throwing stones at me.

That’s how bad this hurts.

Yesterday, me and my boys stopped to get a bite to eat before we headed out to do what almost turned out to be school shopping. While we were there, I watched a group of women hold hands and say a prayer before they ate. I was raised to pray before every meal to give thanks for our food. When I was young, I would get so embarrassed when my dad would pray at a restaurant, because he tends to get a little loud when he prays. I would keep my eyes open, as if to show the people who would look at us that I was rebelling and didn’t think it was cool to do this! As I got older, I didn’t mind so much, I understood it was just a simple act to thank God for the blessing of having something to eat.

I continued to pray for my food until recently. I wanted my children to continue that small act of thanks to God for what we have. But I don’t do it anymore and neither do my children. For some reason, when I saw those women doing that yesterday, I had a little bit of guilt that we don’t pray before we eat. Maybe we should start doing that again.

Do you say grace before eating?

His voice soothes me. When I hear him talk to me, I know everything is going to be ok. I know that I am loved. I know that if I can’t cope, he’ll be there to help with whatever needs to be done. I know he’ll hold me tight, I know he’ll kiss me gently while running his fingers through my hair, wiping away the tears that run down my cheek. I know he’ll tell me I’m beautiful and have so much to live for. I know that he’ll never hurt me or abandoned me, no matter how ugly things get.
His love comforts my aching soul and my troubled mind.
His love is my saving grace.

I went to visit my grandparents today. It’s been a long time since I’ve driven up to see them, they live about an hour away, but they’ve been very sad and miss me and my boys, so I decided I’d go see them today.
As soon as I walked in the door, my grandma ran up and gave me a big hug. Then my grandpa waddled over (he has a hard time walking), and asked me if I was mad at him. I told him of course I wasn’t mad at him, so he asked why I never call him or visit him. I felt so awful, I told him it’s because I’ve been busy, but the truth is, I just get busy with my ever day that I’ve not made time for them. That is unacceptable. I will change that.

About a half hour after I got there, my mother showed up with my other grandmother. She’s going on 98 and still full of life.

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Auntie, I miss you.
I was trying to go to sleep and everytime I closed my eyes I would see your beautiful smile. And then I could hear you singing to me. Remember the song you used to sing to me? I do. I will never forget it.
I miss your phone calls, I miss you telling me like it was, telling me to get off my ass and do something about my problems, I miss your visits on the holidays. I miss your letters. I miss your laugh. I just miss you.
I am sorry I didn’t call much the last few months of your life. If I had known how you would die so suddenly, I would have called you everyday and told you how much I loved and adored you. I would have told you how proud I was of how hard you fought your illness and how you did it with such grace. I would have told you how I marveled at your strength and courage. I’m so sorry I didn’t.
I called the hospital as soon as I heard you were rushed there. I talked to Uncle, I asked him to tell you I loved you so much, I asked him to tell you that I wanted you to be ok, but if you were just to tired to hang on, to just let go and know that I love you. He did that and he told me you squeezed his hand. He told me that he believed you heard him and I have to believe it too because I didn’t get the chance to tell you myself, so I have to believe you heard him say it.
I took out the pictures of the day we spent at Knotts Berry Farm with Andrew when he was little. I remember how much you fell in love with him when you saw him. And he loved you right back. I am so glad I took pictures of that day because the look on your face reminds me how much you loved my son and I can show him that and even if he doesn’t remember that day, he has the picture to remind him that you thought he was an angel and I’ll tell him how you were my angel.
I’m so glad you’re not in pain anymore but I wish I could hug you so tight right this minute and hear you sing to me. I wish you could wipe away these tears that are falling off of my cheek this minute. I still love you and even though it’s been almost three years, tonight it feels like it was just yesterday that I had to say goodbye.
I love you.

I can’t stop crying. I can’t believe my brother isn’t going to be here when I wake up tomorrow.
I don’t do well with goodbyes. Not at all. I don’t care that I can call him everyday, or email him whenever I want, or write him, or visit him. The fact is I can’t drive down the street and go laugh with him when I’m having a bad day. I can’t run up from behind, smack him in the back of the head and have him chase me to get even. I can’t hug him, pat his belly and tell him how fat he’s getting. I can’t listen to him and my uncle insult each other in fun, I can’t yell “I love you” to him as I’m leaving his house. I can’t invite him over to come play with the boys on the weekends, I can’t send my boys with him to go to the animal shelter. I can’t listen to him pound on the bongo drums while we’re visiting and yell at him to knock it off. wahhhhh
I feel like a little girl at this very moment who just wants to hug her daddy and tell him to make everything better. This is much harder than I thought it would be.
Saying Goodbye to someone you love is one of the worst kinds of hurt there is.
It didn’t help matters that as I was walking out the door in tears, my husband’s wife’s sister handed me a card that she had written for me. I thought it was very sweet of her. I read it as soon as I got into the car and oh.my.God. As if I wasn’t crying enough already. Here is just a little bit of what she wrote…
“There is just something about you, you are a beautiful woman, inside and out. You are warm and friendly and have always made me feel incredibly welcome and comfortable. And more than anything I have noticed about you, you are real. It is an amazing quality to have, one that many people do not, but you certainly possess it…”
It goes on and on. It amazes me that she would go out of her way to say such kind things about me, it truly does, but rather than dismiss it, I’m going to try to take it all in. I never do that, I always discount anything positive one says about me. Anyway, her card did help ease my hurt a bit, but damn this hurts like hell and yes I’m a big baby.
I don’t want him to go, dammit. He’s my little brother and I need him to stay.
This hurts more than I imagined it would and I need to go get some more tissue because I’m starting to taste my boogers.
Please keep them in your thoughts as they will be traveling for the next couple of days…

Sometimes I wish I could go back to when I was a little girl and all was right with the world.
I’d wake up to my mom opening my curtains singing “good morning, good morning, good morning, it’s time to rise and shine, good morning, good morning, good morning I hope you’re feeling fine…”
I’d go potty and walk down the hall to the smell of churizo and eggs. I’d ask God’s blessings on my food and eat it until my tummy was content.
The biggest worry on my mind would be who I would play with and what we would play. I’d worry about which man I would be married to when we would play house (which almost always was Gopher from The Love Boat).
I would sneak out my moms pie tins and make mud pies in the back yard with my sister. They would be so beautiful. We would use flowers and sticks and leaves to decorate them and then take them to the neighbors as our gifts of love. My only heartbreak in life would be when the little old lady I made the mud pie for screamed at me to get the mud out of her house and slammed the door in my face.
But I could run home and cry to my mom and she would tell me that she thought my pie was beautiful and she would save it for all of her friends to see.
If for only one day, to wake up and not have to worry about bills or my weight, or my job, or my car breaking down, or my husband being upset with me, or my kids getting hurt, or my grandfather being so sick he can hardly walk, or my grandmother suffering heart attacks in silence or losing my favorite aunt in the whole world to kidney disease or any of the things that weigh me down in life right now.
But that’s not going to happen, so instead, I’ll wake up and open my sons blinds and sing to them “good morning, good morning, good morning, it’s time to rise and shine…” and I’ll kiss them and tell them how much I love them and I’ll feed them their favorite breakfast, German pancakes, send them off to school and thank God for all the blessings in my life. Then, while they’re at school, I’ll dig out all my old pie pans and have them ready so I can make mud pies with them when they come home from school.
I can always dream about being a little girl again, but my boys will only be boys for so long, so I’ll just enjoy my time with them and hopefully help make their dreams come true.

My appointment went well. I won’t go into detail, but it went well.

And for those of you who got all upset about the burrito incident, like Oprah says, don’t you realize it’s not about the damn burrito?? It’s about not being heard, it’s about the fact that after 12 years of being married the man doesn’t know how I like my burrito. And as for me going and getting it myself, I do but you see, I come home from work every night and cook a meal for him, so I don’t feel bad about sending him to get me a burrito or curly fries every once in a while. Apparently not everyone thinks me throwing a burrito against the wall is funny, sheesh, lighten up people, even the man laughs about it now.
*(thanks for the pic, Robyn)