Blessed with a full life

Bill on Lake Washington

This evening is the end of a four day weekend.  Back to work tomorrow.  Work is good.  Work provides structure to the days and weeks.  But I honestly think I could go a long, long time before I ever got bored without going to work.  There are so many projects I would like to work on.  So many things that never seem to come to the top of the priority list.  Sure the temptation would be there to lay around reading and eating bon bons.  But I think I would get bored with that pretty quick.  I don't do that with the weekends I have now, why would I do that with more free time? 

I have all of these little projects that all have to do with Michaela.  To the outsider, it must appear that I am a woman possessed.  That I am not getting through this, that I am not coping.  That is just not true.  My life is abundant.  I am blessed with friends and family, home and a comfortable income, interests and health, the list goes on and on.  The fact is, I make time for these projects and to talk about Michaela, because that is the only thing missing from my life.  And I want to make sure that she gets her fair share.  She isn't here now demanding my time, reprimanding me for not paying enough attention, asking me for help.  She never will be again.  So I have a need and a responsibility to make her a place in my life that is tangible. 

To make that place I will blog, I will journal, I will make a physical place in our home for her things, I will talk about her every chance I get, I will follow the lives of her friends, I will talk to her about what is going on down here and mostly, I will cry when I feel like crying.  If all of that makes me crazy or obsessed or not coping well, then so be it. 

I will also enjoy the other parts of my life.  I will kayak and bike ride, I will travel and scrapbook,  I will learn new things and do new things and go new places.  I will watch my family grow.  I will love my husband and I will love my family.  I will shop and sing and dance and hike and work and entertain and go to the beach and enjoy sunsets.  All of these things will take time, my days will be full and blessed.  But I will not forget my daughter and I will make time in each and every day that belongs just to her.  And sometimes she will take my breath away and hurt my heart in missing her so badly that I will have to stop in my tracks and give her the time she demands.  That is ok.  Angels need their mothers too, sometimes.

The last few weekends I have been working on my 2010 scrapbook.  Scrapbooking has been one of the harder things for me to resume, but something that is important to me.  There is no 2009 scrapbook .... yet.  There will be.  Some amazing things happened in 2009.  Michaela graduated college, Heather graduated High School, Bill and I went to Hawaii, David visited for 3 amazing weeks...all of those things need to be in an album.  I have an album for every year since the kids were little.  So I'm catching up on 2010 and then I will do 2009.  It won't be easy, I'm sure. 

Just a few weeks before Michaela had her accident, she went through all of the albums.  She asked me if she got them when I died.  I laughed it off.  Told her yes, but I wasn't planning on going any time soon.  She just laughed and said she wanted to make sure she got them and not David.  Sibling rivalry never ends.  But that is the big thing, the big difference, the big loss (or one of them, anyway)....I don't have a daughter of my own any more.  There is no relationship that is the same as the one a mother has with her daughter.  Nothing can ever replace that.  .... but that is another subject.

Life is Grand