I keep having some panic attacks.  I am moving in a week and I cannot help but feel panicked and jittery.  My heart keeps thumping in odd ways and it is hard to breathe.  I mostly feel a sense of pure unadulterated hatred.  I hate the man who bought our house and my grandparents’ house.  I know he is just going to tear their house down.  After 50 years together there, he will tear it down like that because he doesn’t see sentiment there, only profit.  I cannot stand people that profit by taking advantage of others.  I want to hurt him, just cause him to have a million paper cuts and then squirt lemon juice into each one and then rub salt into each one after that.  I can’t talk to my Dad about it because he’s stressed as it is, but I am just so sad about leaving.  This is my home.  I have lived here since I was a little kid.  I can’t remember anything else.  I remember playing with my grandparents in their living room.  They had their brown carpet still and we would lay blue sheets on the floor and we would pretend we were fish swimming in the ocean.  Or, I would be taking a bubble bath and playing with my Barbies.  Or I would play in my tiny pool in the back yard.  Or my grandma would hang laundry out on her wash line and I was so small I could crawl into the sheet bundle and sleep there as the sheets dried.  My grandma would sing away in a manger to me as I drifted off to sleep.  In the winter, I would pretend to be an ice skater on the little ice patch that would develop in the driveway.  When I was older, my Dad and I would play basketball in the driveway.  As a teenager, I had my room in the basement and it was so cool.  I had glow in the dark stars all over, Christmas lights hanging around the room and a fridge and microwave. I remember my grandpa gardening.  He had such a big garden.  So many strawberries, grapes, corn, rhubarb, soy beans, raspberries, apples, pears, peaches, and green beans.  He’d be out there all day long.  He had his straw hat and shirt unbuttoned and old shorts on with braces on his knees and an old pillow for him to kneel on.

My house is where I brought all of my babies home to.  Where Chris and I first became husband and wife.  It’s where we had triumphs and tragedies and it is hard to leave.  It hasn’t felt completely like home for a long time now.  Ever since my grandpa started selling off pieces of his land.  He sold the lot next to him to a couple who are so self absorbed and rich and just jerks.  The lot next to my house was sold to the awful neighbor who bought both houses for a pittance and who acts like he is a saint for doing it.  I am so bitter.  I bet I would taste like a lime if someone bit into me.  I can’t stop crying.  I hate the idea of leaving here.  My grandpa isn’t here though, his spirit is in heaven.  My memories though, they are here, as deep as the roots of the trees in our front yards.  I hope he gets what is coming to him.  I hope a spider bites him and he loses a finger.  I hope termites infest my house and it costs him a lot of money to rid the house of them.  I hope there are so many things he has to fix and it isn’t possible for him to tear down my house.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about Gavin and about what he’d be like now if he were here.  I’ve been thinking about how different my life would be with him here.  He’d probably be going to a special school right now, one that could accommodate his wheelchair and whatever else might be going on with him.   I guess I’ll never know what could have been and it will always haunt me, hang over me like a fog, clouding an chilling me inside and out.  I had thought that I was sparing him from a life that probably would have been too short and filled with bitterness and longing.  I never gave him the chance to challenge the world and prove what he could do.  He could have done great things even though the world would try to hinder him.

My life right now would revolve around him and his disability.  I would be forever worried about him getting an infection in his shunt, getting picked on or pointed at, how we would pay for a new wheelchair as he got older.  I would be preparing for a life in which he would be with us forever.  Just as the lack of his presence here fills me with the most profound sense of agony and longing, so too does his imagined life.  I can see him getting older, feeling embarrassed that I would have to see him naked to help him go to the bathroom or get into the tub.  I can see his face filled with longing as he watches a pretty girl walk by and doesn’t try to approach her because he is afraid of being turned down.  Would anyone hire him, a boy in a wheelchair?  Would he ever get married?

Maybe he’d overcompensate for his lack of mobility by being outgoing, jovial, inspiring, the class clown, the guy everyone likes.  Maybe he’d be respected by his peers, good looking and fun.  I guess I’ll never get the chance to find out.  I wish I could have seen him, just once.  I wish I could see him in a dream or something.  You know how you hear about those dreams where a loved one visits you in a dream to let you know they are fine, I want that to happen.

So, I haven’t written in a long while.  I don’t really have a good excuse, I guess I’ve just been lazy or not in the mood.  Anyway, I wanted to sit down now and lay out some groundwork for the upcoming year because I feel like I need to have a plan going on and in writing so I can look back on it for reference.  I’ve been dialing more in to the messages at church and I want to keep it in my mind.  pastor Steve is big on setting up goals and I think this is good.  I think I just have had tentative goals set up in my mind to accomplish in my lifetime, but I haven’t set an immediate timeline for when I want these goals to be accomplished, so I think I need to do that because if I allow myself too long of a rein, then it could be years before some of these things get accomplished.   Alright, so here it goes, my goals for 2016:

1. I want to lose 50 pounds (preferably more, but 50 for certain)
2. I want my house to be ORGANIZED!!!!!  No Clutter!!
3. I want to be on the road to being debt free!  All small bills gone!
4. I want to tithe weekly $10-20
5. I want to get more involved in the church and get to know more people in the church body
6. I want to read the Bible every day for 30 minutes
7. I want to set up a prayer schedule
8. I want to set myself a daily schedule to follow
9. Pass my TAP 400 test!

I think these are all reasonable goals and I cannot wait to tackle them.

Tomorrow I am scheduled to welcome my second daughter, my 6th child, into this world.  I am in awe as to how little time now I left without her inside me.  I’m anxious to know she’s safe, but I’m scared as hell to have 4 children in the house.  I worry I’ll fail them all miserably.  How will I nurture them all at once, give each one what they need from me?  I also worry how I’ll maintain my sanity and how we’ll provide.

So far preparations are going well considering I’ve been incredibly sick for 3 weeks.  I’m only now feeling more like myself.  I still have a sore throat and bad cough, but not so much mucus buildup.  We’ve all been sick, so Christmas felt more like work than fun.  The kids are pretty good now.  My mom is super sick though.  She was supposed to keep the kids for me, but she can hardly function.  Anyway, most all of the wash is done, I need to clean the boys’ room.  I cleaned her room and the kitchen.  I want our room mopped and our clothes up and put away.  I’m at the store waiting for Meem and then I need to go in and get food for the week.  Crazy how fast this day is going, the day I really need to get stuff done.  (Sigh)

I never knew one day could hold so much heart ache for me. 5 years ago I thought it could not be any worse, now I know it can be. Today my son Nolin would be 5 years old. He’d be in preschool learning so much. He’d be looking forward to the holidays and playing with Ebin. He’s so tangible in my mind that I could almost touch him, almost. He’s sometimes as real as his brothers, other times he’s as insubstantial as smoke. I should be planning his big boy birthday, but instead I am racked with grief almost unable to move. I should be filled with the joy a mother know as she watches her children develop and grow, but I am in a state of limbo, stuck dreaming a life for a boy that will never be….
As if today wasn’t difficult enough, it also marks the one year anniversary of the passing of my Grandpa. Perhaps I could get through the day if I could hold my boy and celebrate his birthday, but here I am, sitting in my room which is in desperate need of a thorough cleaning, crying and grieving for the lives that weren’t meant to be here.
I can’t help but wonder if my grandpa chose this day to die. He had such a connection to Nolin, such a heart for him and it just seems like too big a coincidence that he would die on Nolin’s birthday.
As terrible as I feel right now, I would not go back a year. I cannot wait for 2014 to be over. I cannot wait for good things to happen again. I cannot wait to feel safe, carefree and blissfully happy.

It just seems my Grandfather is everywhere lately.  I see him outside in the strawberry plants that he left behind, in the gardening hat he always wore, on the TV when there is a really great old movie playing on TCM, at night when there are lightening bugs flashing their lanterns at one another.  Each things fills me a memory…..wooosh I’m a child walking behind my grandparents as they are on hands and knees picking strawberries and putting them in boxes…..wooosh I see my grandpa standing tall in the kitchen as he places his hat on his head and heads out the back door to the garden….wooosh I am in the living room sitting on the couch as he sits in his easy chair and he’s asking me if I have seen this movie before because it’s really good….wooosh I am small girl outside late with a jar in my hands and my grandparents are sitting at a picnic table as they watch me catch lightening bugs.  All of these memories are good, so good that they are bad.  Instead of just being good they morph into little landmines and each time my brain triggers one it is almost deadly.  I know what he’d be saying right now, “Why are you sad?  I am happy and whole and with my Savior.”  I should be happy for him, I am happy for him, I’m jealous too.  I wish my suffering was over, but I suppose the testament of a person is not them rejoicing when everything is good, but them rejoicing when everything is bad.  I suppose I have a lot left to learn and it is too bad that my spiritual guider is not here to help me. 

Another very Godly man has left us, Dave Lugari.  I haven’t known Dave that long, just a year, but in that time it was made so very evident that he was a man of God.  I don’t think I ever heard Dave utter any word that was not wisdom.  He passed just last Sunday and his service was this morning.  His passing made my grandfather’s death much more real in my mind, like it was all happening again.  Dave had ALS, which stripped him of his physical strength just as Parkinson’s did for my Grandfather.  I never knew Dave before the ALS, so I never saw him as physically active, but he was to the extreme, but I never heard him complain or ask why, he just accepted his fate with an easy grace.  He was a real person to emulate and look up to and he will leave a strong legacy behind him because I don’t think that anyone who met him could ever forget him and the type of man he was.  This is really an endeavor because people are remembered, but remembered for what?  I think we all should strive to be remembered for our everlasting devotion and Godliness like Dave was, like my Grandfather was. 

There has become a new kind of normal in our family without my Grandpa.  Some things haven’t changed much at all, but other things seem like there is an ocean between what it was and what it is now.  Some days I don’t think I miss him that much.  I feel at peace with his passing because I know he’s in Heaven and he’s happy.  Other days I ache for his presence.  Sometimes I think I see him shuffle down the hall to the kitchen, but I know he hasn’t and I know he’s no ghost traipsing around the house, hoping one of us will notice him.  Today I ache for him.  I also ache for Grandma, left behind, left to suffer emotionally and financially.  I miss him the most when I see the misery in my Grandma’s eyes.  If he were here she wouldn’t suffer so, she could go on complaining that he hasn’t taken his medicine or that he got out of bed without letting her know, or they could sit on the couch watching movies.  Now she goes to bed alone, with his shirt beside her and there is no one to wake up for and watch sleep.  They knew each other for 2 weeks before deciding to get married.  Can you imagine?  And even with all the disappointments and setbacks and arguments, they loved each other so so much.  My Grandpa was such a gentle man, such a kind man.  No one else will warm my car for me early in the morning before I have to go to work or take Ebin to school.  My heart just feels heavy today for both of them and for myself and the rest of the family.  I was looking at Aeris crawling around on their floor and it made me sad that she won’t remember him at all.  He loved her so much too.  he said she had the most beautiful smile, a smile that could make anyone smile in spite of themselves.  All I can do is cry and breathe.

So for a while now I have been attending this awesome church, The Encounter.  I hadn’t been going to church for years, not since I was Ebin’s age probably.  In the Spring I felt so lost.  Every aspect of my life seemed helter skelter and nothing at all seemed certain.  I had a renewed sense of loss over my sons deaths and nothing seemed to quench this despair.  I started to feel like God was calling to me, that if I tried harder to walk beside Him, instead of acting like a distracted child who has to run up to catch her parents every ten feet because something has caught her eye, I would feel better about life.  I started by getting a devotional and a book on loss.  This helped, but the yearning was still there, the pull toward Christ was still there.  Last October I had a baby shower at a friend’s church.  Her husband was a youth pastor there and I thought it would be perfect, this one unconscious action led me to The Encounter.  In my time of need, I thought I’d try going to church again.  I wanted to go to a new church, a contemporary one that would help me grow, but I decided that if I was going to try this church out and if I liked it, I was not going to be flippant about church any longer, I would go every Sunday, health permitting, even when it would be hard to go.  I was not disappointed.  The first few months, looking back, were messages that God used to draw me in, to remind me that I am not alone, that He good and not only that but, He works toward my good as well.  The messages now, I believe, he is using to address issues in my life, problems he sees, that need to be rooted out and dealt with.  Thank God for The Encounter, Pastor Steve and Rae Jean Clason, and all of the members and attenders of the church.  Thank God for these messages even when they are difficult ones to hear.  (I pray to you, God, that I can take these messages You are delivering to me and help them to change those areas in my life that need to be changed).

Today’s message was about the value and the meaning of marriage and what commitment one is really making when one gets married.  There were four points that people struggle with and which can tear a marriage apart if they are not rooted out.

1. Put other’s preferences before your own
2. Give your spouse access to your life (access to text messages, emails, phone calls, facebook, bank accounts, etc).
3. Put aside affordable “toys” for the greater financial good of the family (Christ struggles with this)
4. Let go of emotional betrayal (I struggle with this)

This message and the subsequent Refuge meeting afterward led to contemplate the decline of marriage and how society has devalued the sanctity of marriage and promoted sexual promiscuity.  It led me to the fault in my own life, one that I have regretted since it happened, one I wish I could burn out of my heart and mind, but I cannot, it’s there waiting in the back of mind, a mental time bomb that detonates, regenerates and detonates again. 

When I was a senior in high school I made one of the stupidest decisions of my life.  I agreed to have premarital sex with a guy I thought I loved and who I thought loved me in return.  I was 17 and much older than some girls nowadays that have made this choice, but still, it is not to my credit.  I fell into a trap that I think a lot of girls fall into.  I had very low self esteem, never had a boyfriend before, and dreamed of finding someone who wash away my self loathing.  When a guy finally showed interest in me, I let go of all of the mental reasoning that I possessed and fell for all of the old lines and ended up doing things that I had chided girls for in the past.  When I lost my virginity, it was almost as if I had lost a child.  I felt so empty and worried then that sex would become something jaded for me.  I had found our Christian Dating and marriage class at school hokey, but now seeds of something were planted in my head, seeds of what God had intended for me and how He knew what was best even if I scoffed at His antiquated ideas.  My boyfriend had slept with multiple people before me and so this was nothing new to him, even though it felt alien and unnatural to me.   I had never been a sexual person, but I compromised myself in a moment of weakness to please someone else.  I regret the rash actions of my youth, but it is amazing how God can turn something so wrong into something right.  Through this relationship I found the man God intended me to be with.  It is not the path that he would have chosen for me, but He led me to my destination nonetheless. 

My husband and I have been married for 7 years now.  We dated for 2 and half years and were engaged for another 2 and half years after that.  We have not always been on each other’s side, we have fought and yelled and name called and been nasty to one another, in spite of these things we love one another.  We have struggled together, sometimes clawing our way out of a pit of despair, and become stronger.  There have been times that we have doubted our union, wouldn’t it be easier and better for each other if we ended it?  Wouldn’t be happier?  There have been instances when we have made each other miserable.  We regret these actions because we love one another and respect our family unit.  The seeds I talked about before, are becoming sturdy plants within me.  I realize now that God intended me to find Chris, that we complete one another in so many ways and even though he can make me more mad than I think I have ever felt in my entire life, he is the one for me and I feel reaffirmed in the idea that if we can make it through losing two children, we can make it through anything. 

Well, things here are so very up in the air that I feel so very overwhelmed that I feel anxious.  After we got back form our trip to Florida in June Chris made up his mind that we would move down there.  So, he put his route up for sale and a guy named Zack is buying it and everything is almost through with it.  I cannot believe how fast that went, but I think Chris is correct and Charlie just wanted him to quit.  Everything seemed to have moved so very slow and now it is going too fast and I cannot keep up.  UGH  I am just praying so very hard that he and I can get jobs and make all of bills and have insurance and everything we need.  This is what scares me the most, more than finding a place to live and everything that goes on with that.  Chris is not what one would call a saver, so I am stressed.  True his checks have been smaller since Target and Costco opened up, but we haven’t had to pay for rent and utilities and child care.  I am freaking out freaking out freaking out.  I guess if we can’t make it, we’ll just move back, no harm no foul, but I think we’d both kick ourselves if we didn’t try and we’re sick of relying on help, we need to do this ourselves, we need to be independent.  I feel like such a piece of shit and like such a child because we still rely on other.  I just want it to be a year from now so I know how things pan out.

In other news, Ebin is in first grade now!  I love his teacher, Mrs Dearing.  She’s so very nice and good with kids that age.  I’m glad she’s so caring because that is what Ebin needs.  Ebin has joined cub scouts and the first meeting is tomorrow night, by which time I will be dead on my feet because I’ll be subbing all day.  It’ll be my first day back and I’m excited yet anxious.

Adin is completely potty trained.  I cannot believe how easy that was.  My grandma just asked him one day when I was at a doctor’s appointment if he wanted to use the potty and he did and has ever since.  I knew for a while that he was ready but he was just being stubborn about it, but now he goes on it exclusively and he doesn’t pee at night or anything, so I am DONE buying diapers for him!!!!  He is so smart too.  he speaks and you understand every word he says.  He is so observant.  He is now asking me about Nolin’s pictures.  He asks, “What happened?”  Right now he is sitting beside me and he said, “Chocolate is good, mm hmm.” 

Aeris is now sitting on her own and crawling.  She’s also saying ba-ba and mama and dada.  She has said Daddy and Mom as well.  She’s such a happy girl, always smiling, always glad.  She is such a bright spot in my life, but those two are a lot of work and between the three it gets to be a lot and I feel stressed.  I definitely don’t want any more kids at all.  I am just looking so forward to when she is two and potty trained, ahhhh that will be great. 

They are all sleeping in their rooms now and I am so thrilled!!!!!  I don’t know how we survived before when they all were sleeping in the same room as us.  Her in her swing and the boys with us.  When she turned six months old I broke her and Adin of it at the same time.  I just decided it was time.  I put Ebin and Adin in their room and told Ebin not to let Adin out.  he cried for about an hour and then went to sleep.  Ebin was good, as long as Adin was with him then he was fine.  Aeris cried for about an hour and half and then went to sleep.  The next night, she cried for a half hour and Adin for ten minutes and then after that they were both alright. 

Ah, anyway, that’s us in a nutshell right now.