2011

It's hard to look back.

As I read my journal for each month, I am amazed at all we went through.

The words and images bring tears.

Some days, the days I don't really think about what has happened, are fine.

But when I do think, when I do remember

There is no air to breathe.

I miss you my friend.

I miss your smile, and the twinkle in your eyes.

I miss holding your hand

and knowing that you were really there.

You weren't supposed to leave us.

Watch over us Kenny.

Take care of us just as you always did.

I am doing my best.

Perhaps they are not stars,

but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones

pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.

Eskimo Saying

Happy Birthday Graham

I am blessed to be your mom.

Build me a son, O Lord,

who will be strong enough to know when he is weak,

and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid,

one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat,

and humble and gentle in victory.

Douglas MacArthur

Do not stand at my grave and weep; I am not there. I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow. I am the diamond glints on snow.

Anonymous

photo by cheryl sparks

I am ready to see the snow. To feel it on my face. To hear the silence of it all. I am ready.

This season of Thanksgiving and Christmas has given me time to think. I am grateful for that.

I have been blessed. I realize that I did what I wanted to do over the past five and a half years.

Each day was heartbreaking.

To look at the love of your life, and slowly lose him.

To no longer have the chats, the teasing, the bantering.

To know that I had to think for him first, always, without him knowing it.

I would sometimes think that this must be what it is like to die a death of a thousand cuts.

Five and a half years.

Those daily cuts have stopped.

I am grateful for them, though.

It is because of those days that I am now able to smile.

I will manage the tough moments.

Putting the angel atop the Christmas tree.

The first ornament we bought together.

I will embrace those moments of sadness.

And then I will smile. For I was blessed.

What we have once enjoyed we can never lose.

All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.

Helen Keller