Just Thinking

Turn my kids loose with a camera on a Sunday afternoon and anything could happen.  I'm blaming Veggie Tales.


Don't worry...it's not real blood.  Our resident thespian was amused with everyone's concern over his head wound so he dressed up to take the dog for a walk this afternoon...and posed with a pineapple.

And Joie snapped a few face shots in a moment of afternoon boredom.

Like the new haircut?

 Lately I've been thinking a lot about Joie.  

And moving on.

Do you ever move on?  Really?

The other day I came home from a quick trip to the store with Megan.  When I left Joie and Gabby were at the computer singing their favorite songs to YouTube at the top of their lungs.

When I got home, Gabby said, "I think Joie's sad, but I made her feel better."  A few seconds later Joie appeared in the kitchen holding a family picture taken at Niagra Falls of her with her mom, dad and baby sister.  She was crying.

I hugged her and cried too.  Apparently if you sing the wrong songs on YouTube it all comes flowing back.  Forget moving on.  It's all still there, just as real as it was the day it happened.  Life goes on and other things fill in the empty spaces, but there's that place the pain goes in your heart that gets re-opened once in a while, and ouch.  


Last week Joie's bereavement coordinator and super awesome grief counselor from Primary Children's Hospital (see her great blog about grief here) sent me an email, and inadvertently tucked away in the middle of the email was a phrase about your transformation being part of the legacy to your loved one.

I see us transforming a lot lately, and it's tuff.  Our relationship (that was been built on grief) has a need greater than any of us to be about something else.  It's more than a desire.  It has to be. 

Lately I'm very aware that she and I are getting to know each other in ways which have nothing to do with being here because her mom isn't, but because I'm her mom, and she's my daughter, and we love each other.  Not because we have to but because we want to.

It's about looking at her and seeing Joie, and not thinking about Ruth, Nick or Audrey.

It's about giving her permission to be her own person.

But I struggle with how, both because this step is new territory, and also because I have to.  Just like we had to get through the loss, and and the adjustments, and the healing.

So we're in this weird middle place, and probably always will be...moving on, but never really moving on because always and forever there is this little place in our hearts that always remembers, and when that place gets touched...

Whether it's by YouTube or a memory...

There are moments we miss them.

And we cry.

And we move on.

And transform.