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Things Change…

26 minutes into a sermon that if God could have physically pushed me to listen to He would have…that was the name of that section of the chapter. Things Change.

If you are looking into my life right now from the outside, it wouldn’t take you a hot second to figure out there is a lot changing in my world. That “Change” could be the name for the summer of 2023. (Summer is ALWAYS when my life has major changes.) When Tim and I take a second to analyze this summer we talk about the good and bad changes. Obvs is that the good change of getting married. Officially joining our two families and our Brady Bunch of dogs. Less good would be his hospital stay, the permanent arrival of diabetes in our life, and the loss of Grammie.

Deeper than that is the whirlwind my head is doing at the transition between what my life was and what it will be. They don’t give you a manual in life for navigating grief, losing your in law family (for the most part) in the process, falling in love again, and entering into a new family. You can fall head over heels madly in love with someone…and still have days you miss all that you knew before. And you KNOW you won the lottery of guys – when you can tell him that and he understands that. Not only understands it….but isn’t threatened by it. In addition, Tim’s friends and family has been amaze balls at welcoming me. It’s easy to see where he gets his generous spirit.

The last few weeks have been littered with tears, panic attacks, and anxiety. I’ve had trouble placing my finger completely on why until my sweet niece nailed it on the head (again) as she is so prone to doing. It’s grief. Again. My boss doubled down on that and said “yep that makes sense, you did this when you and Tim started dating and you realized he was important.” It’s slightly amusing how often I forget I’m surrounded by people who know me better than I know myself. With all changes comes moving forward and farther away from what I’ve known.

I read something in the new anxiety journal I started this week that said anxiety sufferers literally live in flight or fight mode all the time bracing for doom. It’s an involuntary psychological reflex. My summer hasn’t helped that I’m sure. One of the reasons I picked up the journal though is I am hyper aware that this is a season in my life that I should be able to finally let my guard down and have joy and I’m missing it. I am literally missing it in this state I’ve been in. Insomnia is my friend, eating is an erratic activity of either little to none or way too much, and tears are always on the surface. It’s bonkers. (Side note though – I’m also going through tremendous changes at work and that’s not helping!)

But while I am a long way from being able to deal with it as I get older I am coming to understand that the constant in this life is…change. I’ve come leaps and bounds in the last few years in how I deal with things and while I don’t enjoy the tears and panic attacks those are healthier (knowing what they are and how to deal with them) than the ways I have in the past.

Today I will be surrounded by seven women who have impacted my life in one way or another and we will celebrate this season of change. Because four weeks from today I marry a man who has changed me more than I thought was possible a few years ago.

Dang “C” word. It can be a good word too.

Blessings y’all – Amy

12 Years Later….

I’m very nostalgic these days, and I know that’s normal with all the change that is going on in my life, but today’s trip down memory lane is triggered by the calendar. 12 years ago today I started at TLC. When I texted my bosses this weekend to share my engagement news all I could think was how many life events I’ve walked through while seeking refuge inside these four walls. How the person that they see day in and day out has changed in the last twelve years. Hell, I don’t even have a picture of myself on my phone that goes back that far….

Twelve years ago Fred and I walked through these doors together. I had been interviewing to make a change from the small struggling landscape company I was working for because I was tired of chasing payroll each week. One of the interviews I had gone on was good friends with our owner here. I got a call and being the “we’re a package deal” person I was I asked if they needed a garden manager too. Turns out they did. When we started in July 2011 TLC was operating out of a house with several buildings attached and a huge yard. I fell in love with the yard dog named Tigre and discovered I was very much a dog person (sorry kitties!). Now I have six dogs!

It would be not long after that that Lee moved in with us and we were bursting at the seams in the townhouse. October 2012 TLC moved into the office where we are now – the same weekend we moved into our first house! Where I promptly came down with bronchitis from the stress and an untreated sinus infection.

We lost PawPaw in May of 2014. TLC never missed a beat in their unwavering support. It was the first really significant loss for me in my life and while I stuffed it (or thought I did) I know now it changed me. It changed how I interacted with my family so I know it changed how I dealt with everyone. Sometime in that same year we started dialysis on Fred. Not gonna lie I was in so much pain the dates get really fuzzy. TLC was completely supportive of my completely unstable schedule and I worked from the dialysis clinic, early mornings, weekends, late nights – work was my escape when I could get it from everything as I knew it changing at home.

February-ish 2015 Fred became unable to keep working. He wasn’t safe behind the wheel and his eyes were shot. Yet again TLC was the one constant. I was the provider of the house and work was my safe place. Through dialysis, Fred’s amputation and rehab, all of it – all I got was support from almost everyone.

I’ll never forget the call I got from the owner the day I had to say guys it’s almost time for Fred to go and I need to be here. “Whatever you need – we’re here”. So much is fuzzy from that time and the years after. But I remember that. Work had been my escape but I was able to turn it off and be right where I needed to be at the end. That’s something there aren’t enough words to be thankful for.

Somewhere in all those years we got three kids through high school, graduated, and two of them through college/trade school, and married off!

COVID years, the bottoming out I did in 2020 where most people don’t know just how low I got, and the recovery period of the last few years….still they were here. Even the days I said “I don’t wanna do this anymore…” my boss walked me through it when I know he really probably just wanted to strangle me. He had no experience with depression, and anxiety, and all the things that plague me but steady as a rock he’s been.

Sometimes we have to look back to be able to know how far we’ve come and see all the lows and highs to appreciate it. To know that it’s normal to have days you want to run away from home because home will always be there. It’s a constant. It’s where your heart is – when it’s hurting, when it’s broken, and when it’s so filled with joy you are going to burst.

12 years later I’m thankful that no matter how far my wanderlust takes me I’ll always have a home to return to.

Blessings y’all – Amy

Don’t Waste It…

As I look back on my life I’m reminded over and over again how precious life is. Yet God continues to send these huge grand reminders of how quickly it can change because apparently I keep forgetting. Guess I’m a slow learner in His mind? I get lost in the minutia of being a workaholic. I get lost sometimes still (though I’m much better than I was) in the noise in my head. I get lost analyzing if I am enough, did enough, said enough, or was enough for whoever whenever. #inserteyeroll

I stumbled around in a fog of darkness from 2014-2021. I had moments that I remember but mostly at this point there is just pain and darkness. One of the reasons I am religious with TimeHop every day is because despite the days it brings tears it reminds me there was joy. There were moments I remembered to soak up time with my children. There were moments I called them out for being the amazing human beings they are (when you doubt yourself as a mom these reminders are important). There was joy and thankfulness and immersion in the moments.

As I’ve tried to stop myself from doing a deep dive off the dark cliff that is currently looming in my head I need these reminders. It’s a long time adage that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle. Maybe it’s not that He thinks I’m a slow learner….maybe it’s that He is reminding me not to waste this life He has given me. Not to spend every waking moment (and moments I should be sleeping) obsessing about work and if the yard is nice enough. Maybe it’s His reminder to love harder. Laugh longer. Live LOUDER. One of the biggest benefits of counseling is that it teaches you to look at what is fact and what is feeling. What I’m feeling right now is scared. Overwhelmed. Tired to my bones. But the facts are that this man, this relationship, and the ME of today is different. Each day is different and the outcome can (and will) be different.

I’ve heard from several people already that this situation we’ve found ourselves in has triggered change in their life. Reminded them of what they need to be doing. So as I look for silver linings to all the crap life is throwing our way right now…that’s the one I’m focusing on.

Don’t waste it peeps. Life can and will change on a dime. Work doesn’t matter – you’d be replaced in a heartbeat. Crappy relationships – put your time and energy into people who see your light inside and encourage it to shine. Do the thing you’ve been telling yourself you are going to do – no more procrastinating. Just live as loud as you can and don’t waste a moment. The time we have here and the people we are given to love are precious.

Blessings y’all – A

Coping Mechanism

I started this blog in the peak of my angst and beginning of my grief recovery about two years ago. Since I’ve used it as a both a sharing mechanism, to purge, and as a coping mechanism. Doesn’t surprise me as I’m trying to process this week that I’m back here. Probably gonna be a little rambling cause my thoughts are swirling at warp speed but it is what it is.

No joke y’all – this week has been a LOT. About 4 pm yesterday the emotions and the tears finally forced their way out and got the better of me. One of the millions of things I love about Tim though is he already knew they were there. He also knew I’d let them go in my own time and didn’t poke. But when he scooted over in the hospital bed and opened his arms for me to sit next to him there was no stopping them. My greatest fear is losing him.

I have no idea where in childhood I learned to hide feelings in time of crisis to “protect” whomever was in harm’s way but it’s a muscle memory reflex as sure as breathing. Both with PawPaw and with Fred my role was to “be the rock”. With PawPaw my grandma counted on me to listen to the doctors and be able to explain it clearly to both her and him. I was young enough then I didn’t really understand emotions like anxiety and pretty much ALL of my emotions got packaged up and set on the shelf. It’s been interesting to discover this last couple of years that I’ve still been unpacking that dusty box. With Fred, I was caretaker, parent for the kids, sole provider, chief bottle washer – you get the idea. Who had time for processing emotions? And I damn sure tried hard not to let him know how scared I was.

This week I stepped into those shoes as if I never left them. The difference this time was after the initial shock of where we were and the situation we are in – I knew that wasn’t ok. That’s NOT what two and a half years of counseling has taught me. I’ve done too much work on understanding that what I need is actually a BETTER way to help in crisis than the unbending “I can do anything in any situation all by myself” person I’ve always worked to be. This time I’ve leaned hard into my tribe and worked at asking for help. It doesn’t come easy – feels like admitting weakness – but it has helped more than I ever dreamed it could.

In a rare turn of events I’ve checked out mentally on work and you know what? It hasn’t burnt down (or at least not that anyone has said). I spent so much time with Fred working bedside in a hospital, pulling late nights, trying to work a full week and be a full time caretaker. Allowing myself to center on what Tim needs this week I know is the right thing for us. Doesn’t make it any easier for a workaholic like me but I did learn a few things the last time around this particular sun.

Tim is worried because as is usual when I’m in stress food isn’t my friend. My stomach isn’t playing ball with anything I put in it. Sleeping in a hospital chair isn’t helping either. But letting the tears flow, reaching out to safe places to say any of the million things I’m thinking, working hard NOT to draw comparisons to the past as much as I can in this eerily similar situation – all of those things are helping a little at a time. But there is no getting around it. Being back here, dealing with this disease in someone I love, is HARD. I just have to remember what the counselor says to me all the time – I am a different woman now than I was a few years ago and I have different tools in my tool box and a deeper understanding of who I am and how to process hard situations. There was a moment yesterday I would have said she was dead wrong….but I know she’s right.

Thanks for listening to my rambling…it’s just one of my tools in my dealing with life toolbox. Blessings y’all! – A

Fathers Remembered

It’s taken me a few days to organize my thoughts about Father’s Day. One thing I’ve learned about grief…there are times to share it in order to heal and let your tribe carry you. And there are times to be still in it and just….remember.

For those of you who don’t know my story – my mother is on husband number five if you count the one she married twice. My dad said peace out the first time when I was about a year old and permanently when I was around eleven. To be fair he is an addict and he can’t handle life let alone my mother or a kid who was born with a birth defect and needed constant medical attention from birth until age 18. No idea where he is but the last time I looked he was doing a stint as a guest of the state if you know what I mean.

My mother is a peach when it comes to men. “Father” #2/3 was abusive. In all forms of the word. When we finally got away from him it was straight into the home of “Father” #4. An improvement from the previous one save for the fact he was emotionally abusive. He only wanted my mom…us kids with our assorted problems were baggage. Blessedly I don’t know hubby #5 and never will, I’ve cut that tie, but I’ve heard he’s more of the same. How I wound up with the angel I married and the one I now live with is only by the grace of God. Certainly not by example!

I digress. My point with all that is that my PawPaw was the only constant positive father figure in my life. When my mother couldn’t handle my medical issues she would dump me at my grandparents for them to take me to doctors appointments, care for me, etc. Mom and PawPaw were the epitome of what home life for a kid should have been like! Summer church camp when they could convince my mom to let me go, camping at the lake with their friend group, favorite stories, all of it. When I found out Em was coming I was more afraid of letting down PawPaw than anyone…and he didn’t miss a beat. He used to take me out to hunt for Sesame Street baby stuff for her when I decided that was the theme for her nursery.

He’s been gone nine years now. There are still days I just want to call him and ask him how I do something. Fix something. What he thinks about something. As I get older more and more of the people around me are in the same boat my heart hurts for all of us but it somehow makes it easier.

There is no escaping the pain of knowing my kids pain on Father’s Day though. They are too young to have to bear that hurt. Too young to have to have all those painful moments where they just want their dad and he’s not there. Fred should be here for all the ways their lives are changing. For the young adults they have turned into. To give them the guidance that only a dad can give. See one thing I’ve learned as I get older is once they cross that adult line moms and dads have more clearly defined roles than they did when it was just snot and diapers. They can’t fill in for each other.

Some of the things my kids have told me that Fred had to say when I was out of earshot make me shake my head. One because I can see him being that mischievous and two because they go directly against some of our parenting philosophies. But Fred wasn’t as overprotective as I was/am. Because of the things I survived as a kid I knew how ugly the world is and wanted to hold on so so tight. He knew they needed wings. That’s the biggest thing I wish he and they hadn’t missed…

But you can spend your life in a constant state of missing the past and filled with regret or you can be thankful for what you had and cherish the memories. I think my point in all this is that this Father’s Day, while I hurt as much as I always do, I also just chose to remember them. The way they cut up together. Made me laugh. Protected me and loved me no matter what. Neither ever judged me for all the ways I know now that I was broken and flawed. Neither ever ever told me I was doing it wrong – life, parenting, anything. They just loved me. And that is worth honoring their memories and just remembering them. PawPaw as the father he was to me and Fred as the father he was to my children.

Blessings y’all – Amy

Rooted in Blessings

Most of my world right now revolves around “green stuff” as Tim calls it. (For those of you who follow me on Insta or FB sorry about the garden overload!) But when I was watching a show I follow on Discovery + called ‘Growing Floret’ the other night it finally clicked as to why, after 23 years in the landscape business, this is the year I’m so passionate about it.

After Fred passed the flight reflex I’ve always had got worse. Way worse. I wanted to be anywhere but home. My mind was filled of thoughts of getting out of Texas, anywhere but here, I didn’t care. Never really realizing that I was running from what was inside. And that no matter how many miles I put between home and those that loved me I wouldn’t be able to ever escape until I stopped and healed.

Cue up today. I’ve always had a green thumb. I will proudly say I got that from my grandfather. But in years past my gardening was to pay homage to him. To be close to Fred. It wasn’t about me. It was about pleasing them, honoring them, missing them. What I have finally realized is different about this year is that the fear is gone. Fear of “doing it wrong”. Fear of disappointing them. Fear of anyone’s judgement if it doesn’t yield, look right, blah blah blah. Something about the changes in me in the last two years have allowed me to do this for ME this year. And to be ok with it being for me. I still look at all my magazines. Watch the green shows until Tim, I’m sure, wants to throw the remote and I soak up TikToks and YouTubes like a sponge. But if it dies? Doesn’t yield like I want? Pull it up and start again. (There is a life metaphor in there somewhere I’m sure.)

This spring in my business hasn’t been any different. In fact it’s been 100x worse. My anxiety, when I focus on it, is off the charts. Panic attacks are a new thing I’m not really fond of. I’m going through huge changes at work. The pressure is intense. But a not so little difference this year? I pull up to the stop sign at the corner each day and my body lets out a breath. I sit at that stop sign for a fraction longer than I have to and I take in my yard. It’s not pride I feel. It’s peace. I’m home. More importantly? I WANT to be home.

As I walk towards my “shades of Caribbean” painted gate along the brick path that I saw in my magazines and Tim made a reality the fear, stress, and worry of the day seeps out of me. The gladiolus are starting to reward me with gorgeous blooms that make me smile. Once I get inside the gate I have to force myself to go inside and say hello to Tim and the dogs before I race back outside to see what changed in the last 24 hours in the garden. (And yah somedays I forget to say hello to them!).

I grab my “f*&% it bucket” as I call it – which houses a skirt with all my tools on it and a wide open space for all the weeds I’ll pull and cuttings I’ll take off if need be – and I head outside. I usually have about 45 minutes after I get home while Tim is still working that I get to be outside in the garden and unwind. Tim worries constantly that I’ve bitten off too much, that it’s too much work, and what I can’t quite make him understand is that it’s a form of medicine that if they ever figured out how to bottle would put the pharmaceutical companies out of business.

Despite having harvested about 10 lbs of squash at this point I squeal like a teenager at each new little “baby” that emerges. I check the cukes and wait impatiently for enough to be ready to start canning. I hover over my tomatoes like a mother bird – so afraid the squirrel is gonna take them again this year. I pore over seed catalogs and sites looking for something new and different I can try my hand at growing.

And I now I realize. Despite my teasing Tim about his travels this summer – I am content to know I’m gonna be home in my garden. I’ve waited a long time to feel some sense of home and hearth again. To be able to open my heart to love and to be loved again. All of those things are the reasons my home and my heart are thriving. Like my beautiful plants God nurtured me through the tough times, watered and fertilized me when I was withering, and now my roots are strong again. I trusted him when I was broken and dying and unable to see the sun and he nurtured me the same way I do any of my plants.

Colossians 2:7 – Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.

I’m thankful. So very thankful. Blessings y’all – Amy

Where’s The Instruction Manual?

When our kids were babies probably more than one of you thought more than once “I have no idea what I am doing – why don’t they come with instructions”? Maybe not. Some people are born with inherent parenting skills or are blessed with a strong familial support system so that they never felt overwhelmed or out of their league. I fell somewhere in the middle of all three (and I really want to meet the person who felt like they had it all together all the time with a new baby)!

I grew up taking care of my siblings so I had some parental instinct. Even still I remember many a time calling my grandma in tears when Em was an infant saying “I need a break please come get this child.” By the time Fred came along Em and I were working our way through the toddler years – and more of those phone calls to my support system. But with the arrival of Fred in my life I suddenly had a teenager and a pre-teen too. Guess what? Their instruction manual was missing too!

As a parent our beacon is to want for our kids either better than we had if we had a traumatic/terrible/less than ideal childhood or to recreate the storybook childhood we had in our minds. Even with those as our very loose guidelines parenting is like feeling your way in the dark blindfolded with your hands tied behind your back. You navigate through the toddler years hoping you don’t lose your mind from saying “no” a thousand times a day, you enjoy the age five to twelve phases when they are curious about everything and you are too cool for words, and you are dumbfounded when thirteen hits and you know nothing and can say nothing right until about twenty-five. A manual would have been helpful especially in that tough last phase…

With God’s grace, a strong support system, and a little bit of luck you get them all to adulthood. You turn out amazing human beings into the world that you are proud to call your own. But get ready. This phase is the most crucial of all. This phase is the one that if you screw it up it is worse than all the other phases combined. And you still don’t know the rules. You are baffled when they don’t call – you once were the most important thing in their lives. When they do call you don’t know how to turn off parenting and not give advice and have no understanding as to why they didn’t heed it. And the quiet in the house will make you miss the days of bickering, blaring TV’s, and overwhelming noise lemme tell ya.

Why didn’t anyone tell you about this phase? How to let go? (Here to tell ya I bombed the test on letting go.) Probably because that damn instruction manual is still missing. You don’t know when to call and when not to. You didn’t know that when your phone lights up and it’s one of them that your heart is gonna do the simultaneous leap for joy and stick in your heart thinking something must be wrong. If they are adults, you are old enough you don’t remember the freedom you craved at their age and how your parents were the last thing you thought about as you made your own decisions and choices. A cruel twist of getting old is you really do forget what it is like to be young. And what it was like to have that confidence that the people who love you most will always be there.

Sitting where I’m sitting now, missing my stand in parents (my grandparents), I think of all the times I wish I’d called more or gone by more. Heeded their advice when it was offered. But also with the wisdom to understand that this circle of life IS the instruction manual. We all do it to the best of our abilities and hope when we’re gone that we are remembered as strongly and as fondly as I miss them. If we are? We didn’t need the manual. We did just fine on our own.

Blessings y’all – Amy

Lent Fasting Illuminated a Demon…

For most of Lent (I did not make it all the way through) I gave up sugar…and by extension alcohol. I had a planned trip in there that I knew I wouldn’t make it all the way but I did make it 37 days without either. It was far more difficult than I ever thought it would be. I think of myself as eating, for the most part, fairly healthy. After all I have extensive stomach issues that cause problems with gluten, beef, and some dairy. Stress issues that can also cause challenges with salad greens if the stars aren’t aligned just right. OK, let’s be real – all around eating is a challenge for me.

In those 37 days I had intense cravings for things I quickly recognized were more ingrained habits than anything. I chew gum when I work at the office – over and over starting a new piece all day long. I always have to have something in my water – never plain water. I have an intense sweet craving at night. But I knuckled in and pushed through them.

Also in those 37 days I began to sleep like I haven’t since my last Whole30. Uninterrupted 6+ hour nights (that’s a lot for me). My brain got sharper, my productivity shot up at work, and overall I just felt better. I guess you don’t realize you feel bad until you feel better?

Cue up the re-entry weekend. Alcohol was reintroduced first. Wine specifically. I didn’t immediately connect the lingering daily headache with the alcohol. Nor the restless nights that returned. Until they were there for a week straight. Once I brought back in sugar and those things ramped up the light dawned…

I am apparently very sensitive to sugar. Alcohol breaks down as sugar. Duh. The sugar demon in general is apparently the responsible party for years and years of 2-4 hours of sleep being my norm not the exception. I had a piece of GF banana bread last night before bed and slept all of 3 hours and am blessed today with a hangover type headache.

I feel dumb for not realizing it sooner and frustrated at the changes I know I’ll have to make (and probably struggle with) in order to balance having a normal type life with what my body needs.

Who said getting old was fun? They LIED.

Blessing y’all – Amy

A Year of Gluten Free

I have been tested for Celiac twice – tested negative both times. I have done three, maybe four, Whole30s and each time feel like I won the lottery in terms of energy, clarity of mind, and sleep improvements. For those that don’t know a Whole30 is 30 days without wheat, dairy, processed food (anything you can’t pronounce), beans, or alcohol. Each time I found my way back to bread, pasta, and flour. When my stomach issues spiraled out of control late 2020, and didn’t get better after removing my gallbladder end of the same year and all through 2021, I knew I had to get radical.

End of 2021 I was down 90 lbs and getting 2-3 meals a week to stick with me was a win. Tim came into my life and he’s a big fan of eating! LOL. Forcing more food into me was just making it worse. Fast forward to spring of 2022. We came back from a cruise and I felt horrible. Docs had run tests, nothing showed up as far as a medical cause, stress seemed to be the only consistent trigger we could really pinpoint. I knew from my Whole30 history that bread and dairy were triggers for me. Giving up cheese meant giving up Mexican food (and that wasn’t happening!) so gluten drew the short straw.

I would say it was late spring/early summer before we really started to notice any change in how my body was handling food. But slowly I started to both stop losing weight and started putting some back on. Everyone around me was thrilled at the putting back on part, me not as much, but I also knew I needed a little. Late May, early June, I was in Lubbock and did a wine tasting with my niece. They put out those little oyster crackers at our last tasting and I ate them without even thinking about it. Yes, I may have had a few too many tastings that day! I can’t begin to describe to you the stomachache I had that night. I’m not sure I’ve ever had one that bad. I knew in that moment that I was definitely on the right path.

Staying gluten free, once you get used to it, hasn’t been as hard as it is in the initial 30-90 days. I try to always use the phrase “gluten sensitive” at restaurants as opposed to allergic since the allergy word sends people into meltdown mode. I have been on three cruises in the last year. Two of them they were awesome at accommodating – one was a new ship and they were struggling. On my last cruise we have some question that everything I got was in fact gluten free because I was sick as a dog by the time I got off. We’ve been able to tell pretty quickly these days when I’ve gotten a hold of something I can’t eat vs when I’m having a stress flare up. Exposure takes days for my stomach to settle down and stress is usually quick as long as I’m not under prolonged stress.

Don’t get me wrong. I miss real pasta. There are some really good substitutes but you can still tell the difference. I miss flour tortillas. I miss cookies fresh out of the oven. But the longer I am gluten free the better my stomach is getting, and the longer periods between angry outbursts from my body, the more I know I need to stick with this. Plus most Mexican food is gluten free. 😉

There are a ton of articles about how our bodies just aren’t made to process the food we are being given these days in our mass produced food world. Some of us are just blessed with the sensitive stomachs to support those theories I guess.

If you had to give up one food group what would be the easiest? The hardest?

Blessings y’all! – Amy

Calendar of Tears

For Christmas I gave Tim a calendar that contained all of the special people in our lives birthdays, anniversaries, important events. I also noted a small heart on days that are anniversaries/days that can be trigger days for me or have special significance.

Talking to Em last week after Mom’s birthday about us being able to take a breath after February I sort of put together in my head why those small hearts on Tim’s calendar mattered. The calendar of my life is marked with days to look out for, anticipate, pray over, and sometimes shed tears. A calendar littered with tears…I’ll explain.

In the aftermath of early grief those days – anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, special memories – they are like a tidal wave slamming into you and taking the breath out of you. What I have found is that as time moves on you don’t quite know on those days if you are going to get a tidal wave or just a lapping at your ankles. Call me crazy but the uncertainty is almost worse.

As I have grown older the calendar has become littered with “seasons” that have nothing to do with the weather. Periods of weeks or months where the bracing for the wave or the splash is just endless. December is a bad one. February is another. And by some odd quirk of dates there is a six week period from April 24th to June 5th that marks off when Mom died (4/24), PawPaw (5/14), and Fred (6/5). The three most important people in Em and I’s lives died within three weeks of each other on the calendar – just different years.

Some would say “why not just ignore those dates if they hurt” (yes I’ve had that said to me). For me that is also the same as saying to me “why don’t you just forget them?” Sounds pretty dumb huh? But it doesn’t work like that. Ignoring pain doesn’t make it go away. It gives it power and strength. Acknowledging them, celebrating them, speaking of them – that’s where the healing begins. It’s allowing yourself to remember they loved you and you loved them.

This last anniversary of Fred and I’s wasn’t special in terms of a big number or any particular significance . He’s been gone almost six years and we would have been married for sixteen. But this year was the tidal wave. Not a bad one mind you – God brought some pretty awesome memories to the day – but a tidal wave nonetheless. It’s hard to miss someone. It’s harder still when life is moving on and you are really happy.

I heard a sermon today that the message was “I’m not done with you yet, there is more to the story”. Move forward, you aren’t finished yet. Those words lifted my heart in ways I can’t yet explain to you. But what an awesome message.

I couldn’t have said this a few years ago but what if all those tears on the calendar are just part of God’s story for me? For my kids? I’ve seen those tears shape all of us in ways I know we wouldn’t have changed on our own. If we think about our pain having a purpose does it make it easier to bear?

I’ll never stop acknowledging those special days. I know there will be additions to the calendar as I age and those that are older still leave me too. But maybe I’ve reached a point I can understand that sometimes we need the tears each year to continue to wash what hurts and clear the path of where we’re meant to go.

Blessings y’all – Amy