Letter"s to Heaven

When I came home from the hospital that early morning of June 11, 2006, I was no longer who I had been just a couple short hours earlier. I walked into the hospital with my husband, I was a wife, a mom, the other half of a couple. When I walked out I left with my oldest daughter Martha on one side of me and my cousin Linda on the other. I was a widow, a mom, and the remaining half of a couple that was missing the other half.

The first hours were spent with phone calls, people coming and going, and though I remember every single detail, it was spent going through the motions of living in a robot type way. The first night came slowly and quickly at the same time, and though there were people in and out all day, the night was spent with just fve young children and me.....their first night with no daddy, my first night as a widow. You could still feel the presence of Kenny, you could still smell his scent all over the house, you could pick up his clothes and the lingering smell of his cologne that even washing them didn't  remove was there. Part of me felt like I was dazed and groggy from a nightmare that though I had woken up from  the feelings and effects hadn't quite gone away. But my heart knew what my brain was trying to deny.This nightmare was now my life. I now had five children ages 3-13 that were my responsibility all by my self. I had to somehow allow them to grieve, yet convince them this was okay. We had to move forward through the days, with hope, love, and optimism.

The first days turned to weeks, then to months and during that time I wrote letters to Kenny every day, sometimes many, many times a day. I accumulated 24 notebooks of letters I wrote to him. They began as ways to tell him about my day, the kids days, the obstacles we faced or endured. Gradually they became letters about us, our life together, some of our dreams, some fulfilled but many shattered that fateful early June morning. I recall thinking I am supposed to be strong, Kenny expects me to be strong, be optimistic, readjust the plan, keep going forward. I must do this for him. He taught me how to live with the glass always half full never half empty. These notebooks will belong to my children one day, when I am gone and hopefully they will give them some idea of who their dad was as a whole man, not just as their dad. I tried to put some of his youth in these letters too, things he had told me of his childhood that he would have told them had he been here to do so. I tried to share some of their daddy's history and life with them. I found work, I tried to keep the family together, constantly believing with all I was that we would be closer, stronger, better people because we had not only gone through this, we had not only survived this, but we somehow would be  a family despite it all,

I remember rushing home and grabbing my pen and current notebook of paper and writing everything to him. I knew in my brain it was not as if I could mail these letters to heaven, but my heart kept hope that he knew. It was that hope that kept me putting one foot in front of the other daily. It was that hope that made me wake up everyday and strive to do more than just go through the motions of being alive. It was the knowledge that Kenny expected me to raise the children to be happy people, who looked forward to the future. Their futures were still waiting and though the greatest part of who I was and who I am died with him that day, though my future was altered by his death, though my dreams for my future were snubbed out in one breath, somehow he also expected me to remember that I too had a future to create and build, to plan, to want.

I remember the moment it hit me that there would be no more memories made with him and somehow I was to make new memories with these young people, because of him.

I no longer write these letters. Days, weeks, months, and years have gone by and I still cry. I smile, I laugh, I yell, I do things, go places, make plans, but I still cry. I remain partly that broken woman that walked out of Bayonet Point Hospital that morning. I have remarried, yet I am still a widow.

If I were to write a letter to heaven today, it would be a letter of apology. I know now in my heart that despite my best intentions, I failed him. I was not able to do what he would have wanted, I was not able to create what we dreamed and planned. I tried but with me being only half of us, I failed.Life continues to throw its rocks at me, hitting me almost every time. Though I still get up every time it knocks me down, I no longer do so with much pep. I have discovered as the years went by half full is half empty.

The Road Already Traveled

I am in the season of my life where hopes and dreams of my younger years have come and gone, and are giving way to smaller hopes and less dreams. So many goals unfulfilled, so many dreams shattered, so many hopes squashed by life's circumstances. I stand amazed at the way age maturity changes the total outlooks of us as the years of our youth fade into mere memories.The discovery that we have gone steps beyond, now being halfway through our life and the knowledge that we are somehow all of a sudden in the last third of that life, that we long ago thought was somehow going to be everything we ever dreamed and hoped it would be.
More and more I find myself having to face that my earlier dreams were founded by not only youthful innocence but even more so by the ignorance of youth.

As time has gone by I have learned much to my dismay that the road traveled in our life does not become less bumpy and smoother as we continue our steps forward, but the road tends to lead us in circles, merely a culd-de-sac that we follow around and around and around yet again.

That discovery may well become the most disappointing factor of life that I must not only accept, but somehow I am to do so graciously and thankfully.

As a young woman or perhaps it is  more fitting to compare myself to an older child, I began my journey through motherhood, filled with the misconceptions that I could and would create a family where all would be perfect in my child's world. I grew up in the era of clean family television shows that depicted perfect homes, perfect families, perfect children and like so many in my generation I bought the media propaganda hook, line, and sinker!

In my life I have lived in my share of the too small houses, tripping over the array of children's toys dreaming youthfully of the day that I would live in a home where we had room for everything and all would then be perfect.I daydreamed of the spotless house, for years. Everyone would have their own room and all their belongings would be in it. The day finally came where everyone had their rooms and for a brief moment in my life history I had a living room that did not look like a storage area for children's toys. And then at some point in time , I can't even recall when it happened their stuff start moving into every available empty space. Suddenly all the things they outgrew moved from their rooms to someplace where I would again trip over an array of unwanted toys and an assortment of their belongings no longer wanted but not willing to be completely parted with. Sadly I also discovered I too had an assortment of those items of my own. Knick knacks that moved into boxes, broken items glued together so many times they were basically made of glue now. Life seemed to continually have me moving from enough room to not enough room.

 I have driven my share of clunkers anticipating the luxurious days to come of having the American dream of the perfect car. I have even had my share of perfect at the moment cars.And yet somehow that "oh what a feeling" seemed to elude me. Today I am finally living in that big house and yet I still find myself tripping over an array of children's things. There is finally room for everything and yet nothing seems to have changed. I have had compact cars, family sedans, mini vans, and trucks.I dreamed of having cars we would all fit comfortably in not realizing they don't make those when you have large families, because by the time we add in the sports gear, and the other must have items to the space of the car we are all still cramped into the car. I am now driving a truck that seats 7 with over 200,000 miles on it and dreaming of a day when I can again afford to buy a small car.

I am learning that as we travel along our life's road it keeps taking us to all the same places that we have already been. Much like the way we get in our car and drive along the same roads to go to the same stores, we seem to sit in the passenger seat of our life and take the same roads over and over again.

In the not so distant future I foresee a smaller home and again I will face the living room storage space syndrome. I also anticipate the collections I have gathered through my years being downsized to accomodate what will become yet another start over in the road of my life. Some may say that is the pessimistic side of my nature. My late husband would sometimes say that to me, and my rebuttal was always the same, I am not being a pessimist, simply a realist.

The course of life, the challenges faced seem to also travel around and around the same block of road.

Family DInner

Decisions, Decisions! Mashed Potatoes in one hand and sippy cup in the other. What to choose!!

 Playing with food= FUN

 On the other hand though cup chewing is pretty good too~

Michael is just two days shy of eight months old. Not sure how that happened so fast, but it has. Now he enjoys sitting at the "big" table with everyone else at dinner time. Perhaps more for the attention he gets than actually for the dinner part.

 For some reason mommy thought she could convince him the cup is for drinking from, but he seemed to prefer the idea of it being something to chew on!

 Hey nana......look, look here at me!

I couldn't resist a side view of those chubby cheeks!

Watching him at the table tonight not only prompted me to get up from my dinner and grab the camera, but it also took me briefly back in time 21 years ago when I too put food on a high chair tray for his daddy. Michael will never know his grandpa, but tonight brought back a memory of him as well. The day I plopped applesauce on Michael's daddy's highchair tray, his own daddy stood there with a serene smile on his face just watching his son and me. I sat there looking at him as he said that was one of the things he loved about me. I responded with a what? He said most people would not want to be bothered with the mess this was going to cause. For me I just wanted our son to experience the texture, and feel of the food. Not only did I put spoonfuls of it on his high chair tray, I used my fingers to draw pictures and designs in it to get the baby's attention to it being all over his tray. It is strange how something so fleeting can come back to you to be relived briefly.

Grandchildren can keep fresh memories of days long gone while new memories are being made as well.