Then we went to church. I knew that church was going to be a Missionary homecoming. I was glad about that. We have known this missionary and his family for a long time, so I knew that it would be a great meeting, and it was. Sometimes I get a little bitter about the missionary thing. We have lots of people with missionaries out. A lot of them say how much they miss their son or daughter and how this is the hardest thing that they've done, etc. Some are more dramatic about it than others, but you get the picture. I have had a missionary out for almost 19 years and I have never received an email, a phone call on Mother's day, nothing. And now I have sent out another, and it has been almost a year. I don't get any progress reports, no letters. I just have to have faith and patience for the next 40 years or so. No problem. I am sure you can sense my bitterness and sarcasm. Anyway, overall church was good, I made it through.
When we got home Lance had made a card for me that had baby pictures of all of the kids with their birth dates underneath. He wanted us to all gather in the living room and talk about the kids when they were born. So that was fun. Then Hayden had a little card for me, and Hilary had made me a card. Heidi told me that her present wasn't done (something she had made at school).
Then one of my friends that is a photographer called. She had been wanting to take pictures of Halea, but we just hadn't found a good time. The weather broke for a few minutes and so she called to see if we could meet her. So we ran over to this field where there was a white piano! Someone else had been using it for another photo shoot. Halea was thrilled because she really would have loved to have done some pictures with a piano for her senior pictures. We spent an hour or so out in the field taking some fun pictures. Yet, another amazing service from an angel hear on earth.
We went home and I got in my pajamas and went to bed pretty early.
Monday I felt like I was in a total tail spin. I could not gather my emotions or think rationally. Hilary and I went to my work out class, but I was having a bad day. All I could think about was how different last Mother's day was.
I was holding Tates on the front porch and I knew deep down that it would be my last Mother's day with her, but I was so happy that we were all together. I was so focused on her that I didn't have time for any selfish thoughts. This year I had a hard time focusing on what I do have. All I could think about was how different it would be if she were here. How no one in my family realized or talked about how hard this day would be for me to have without her. No one missed her presence, except for me. I could only focus on my feelings of how I felt like my family didn't appreciate the things I do and that they showed that by not doing much for me. I know that they appreciate me, I just could not pull out of it. I could not stop the loop of angry, unhappy thoughts. It seemed like all day Hilary was talking about Tatum, which usually is great, but this day it was just making things harder. She asked me when we were going to buy Tatum some shorts for summer. My heart was just so sad.Monday night, the hospital called for me to do some hand molds on a young mom that had taken her own life and had left two young children behind. This just broke my heart. Here I am wishing with all of my heart to have all of my children here with me, and this mom has now separated herself from her children, forever. How desperate she must have felt, that this felt like her only solution.
On Tuesday I was called into the hospital early in the morning. This family had tried desperately to stay pregnant with a little baby, to no avail. Their sadness was so palpable. All of these scenarios got me thinking, and so I decided to be done. I knew that the feelings I was having were not what I should be feeling and the only person that could fix those feelings was me. I have been given so many blessings, and I love my family. I have great kids and a really wonderful husband who loves me even when I am crazy! I have the gospel that helps me navigate through the hard things in life and teaches me what kind of person I should be, and I was not being that person.
Tuesday afternoon I was out doing some errands, when I got a message from a friend saying that she had left something on my porch because she knew that Mother's Day weekend was probably a hard one for me. This person was one of our Angel Watch patients that her baby has survived. He is adorable, and a lot of work. He is a 24/7 constant care, and she is the best mom. She also has 8 other kids, and a husband. When she dropped this treat off to me her little guy was in the hospital, for the millionth time in his life. How could she have possibly thought of me? Seriously there are angels here on earth. When I got home there was an enormous slab of cake!!! Well, here's the thing. I am truly a cake-aholic. I cannot turn down cake. I have made a resolve in the past few weeks to really try and cut back on the sweets, because I know that this is part of my weight and hormone problem. When I saw this cake I could not resist. I thought I might have a few bites and then keep a little for later. Well, I was wrong. I had a few bites and then I thought, "what if the kids get home and want a bite?" So I ate the entire thing!! I was afraid I might go into a sugar coma, but I amazingly survived. I have worked hard to build up an immunity to sugar:)
Wednesday Hilary and I went to a funeral for one of our patients at the hospital. It was truly amazing. The parents are from Honduras, and so sweet and humble. Their baby lived for just a few short hours, but you could feel their gratitude for such a small amount of time. Every talk was so sweet and emotional. The fathers brother could not attend the funeral, so he wrote a letter that his son got up and read for the congregation. He wrote the letter to the baby. He told the baby to not worry about not getting to spend too much time in this world because he wasn't missing out on much. It was sweet the way he said it. He told the parents to not be sad, in a good way. Then he ended the letter with "what did your parents do to deserve such a perfect soul in their family. What did I do to have such a perfect nephew?" The way he said it was so tender and sincere. It just made me think about how lucky we are to have Trevin and Tatum as our examples, our beacons to remember, always remember the things that we know. It is so easy to forget with the constant barrage from the world. It was a great funeral.
I think that spring in general has been hard for me, and it probably always will be. There is new birth evident all around us, the sign of new life and a hard winter ending. Which normally is so welcome, but it is also another reminder of another year, gone. On our walks we have been visiting the new little lambs. The kids love them. They are so cute, but every day it seems they are bigger.
Hillary loves to get out and feed the little lambs. She squeals and laughs! It is so much fun to watch her get so excited to see them.
On Friday I had a little burst of energy and so I decided to focus on my yard. It has been very neglected. I didn't really do a good fall clean up, so I knew that it was going to be a challenge. I started with the little rose bush area. The bushes needed to be trimmed and there were dead leaves and grass all grown around them. I started clearing, and weeding, and pruning. In the process I realized that one of our rose bushes did not survive. I was pretty sad about that. So I took it out of the ground and started clearing all of the weeds and grass around the area. I weeded in the rock area above it, clearing and clearing all of the dead leaves and over growth. While I was doing this I started thinking about how this is like life. There are cycles in our lives when we need to clear out the dead and overgrowth with in us, to make room for the new growth. It is a very hard and difficult process, but it is how we learn and become what the Master of our souls knows we should be. So there I was, clearing the leaves and dead branches, making room for the beautiful new blooms, sobbing in my back yard thinking of my own process of clearing away the heavy sadness that I have been carrying this hard winter. I feel the growth, I feel the happiness peak through, I know it's there, I am just learning to make room for it. I was grateful that the work that needed to be done was in the back yard. I am sure my neighbors already think I am crazy, no need to confirm it for them!
Friday Hayden came home with his baby from Child Development. It turned on Saturday night and he has to fix every cry until Sunday night (tonight). Hilary is thrilled about it. She could not go to bed last night because she kept hearing it cry, so she would run in to take care of it. We get to take it to church today! This should be interesting.
Saturday was the Running With Angels 5k. This is a run that was organized by a good friend that I met at the hospital many years ago when they lost a second baby. She organized this little 5k years ago to raise money to give to the Womens and Childrens department at the hospital. I have attended almost every year. It has grown from a few hundred runners, to having to cap the amount of runners to a thousand! Most of the runners come to run for someone that they have lost. You see lots of teams and families running together. It is sweet. I usually know a lot of the families, so it is a little reunion for me. I really love getting to see families surviving and standing together and remembering. At the beginning of the race they have several boxes of doves that they release, symbolic of all of our loved ones. This year they asked if our family would come and be one of the families to release doves. It was another sweet honor shown by sweet thoughtful people, angels among us.
Hayden had his state tennis tournament so he could not be there, but the rest of us were there. As we released the doves I looked over and Halea had tears streaming down her face. Some times it just strikes us how much we miss our sweet Tatum. It was a tender morning.
Then the race began! Halea lead all of us of course. I ran with Holden. I thought for sure he would be done after a mile and need to walk. No way. He ran the entire time!! Our first mile was an 8:35, the second was an 8:24 and our third was a 9:05 (i blame it on the hills). He did so awesome. Lance pushed Hilary and ran with Heidi. They finished not too far behind us. Everyone did so great. It was so fun to do something together as a family to remember our sweet Trevin and Tatum. We are blessed.
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