on the calendar

There is so much to say and truly by not posting in order I will need to go back and fill in the beautiful details of my life but as the inkling creeps up, pushing me to blog it usually is about the stress.  Don't get me wrong, my life is filled with so much beauty.  Unfortunately beauty and peace don't require cathartic writing to process fully.  They just are because they are beautiful.  It's the ugly, uncomfortable feelings that I need out into the abyss of written words to completely analyze, turn over and process.

For the past two weeks, the monster has been there...the two thousand pound elephant trying to remain invisible in the room.  Really I feel like he just sort of follows me. As we started a new school year there were so many people I feel I needed to "let in" on our family as well as ones I felt the need to warn.  Not every parent is ready to have their child come home asking about death. 

I opened my calendar a few weeks ago to put my niece's birthday party down and took a deep breath, then realized I was taking a deep breath.

My calendar is very different now...it's electronic and not just the free WPZ calendar hanging in my kitchen.  It contains pick ups and drop offs for Riley.  It documents days of kindergarten and preschool and social security deposits.  All things foreign two years ago. 

The words...Sarah's birthday.  Pumpkin Patch.  Halloween.  Charissa's Birthday.  Thanksgiving.  dot my calendar in an unintentionally suffocating manner.  With them I have memories like a slide show float through my mind.  For moments I remember the days leading up to it. 

I'm a believer in signs.  If you read my blog in "the beginning", you know I was looking for them behind every door, in ever dark corner and really felt quite empty handed.  It took a few months for me to decide my signs were much more simple. 

I left the pumpkin patch today, soaking wet, driving to our next stop and saw a beautiful rainbow.  The colors so vivid.  Just as I thought we would catch it, that the pot of Gold would be in the field next to us, it would move.  But in this rainbow I found a moment of peace, a feeling of hope, a hand of comfort telling me that life is as it should be and that despite it all, my heart can rest.  Telling me that even though he is gone, illusive, just out of reach, he is always there watching over us. 

My signs have never been big.  I haven't had dreams so vivid I woke thinking they were real.  I rely on smaller signs.  The week Chris died he told me about this song he heard on the radio that he wanted to put on his IPod by Kings of Leon.  When I catch a chord of that song, I say Hi.  Coincidences?  Probably  but in my psychological schema I use them to find peace, to make a connection to my grief and to smile. 

As I watched Maya and Owen at the pumpkin patch today I couldn't help but catch my breath at how much they have grown.  This past week I ran across a copy of  Chris' obituary in the filing cabinet and sat down to read it.  It's sad... are there more eloquent words to say that?  What struck me most were the words about the bond between Chris and Maya.  It makes me wonder if she would be a different kid if she still had that.  Obvious things would be different but I look at her anxieties and sigh...and wonder, why my babies?  Really, my connection to them is crazy... Since Chris died, every time I look at them across the room, cuddle in bed or simple touch their cheeks, an electricity bursts inside of me and I feel toward them something I had not felt ever.  My bond to them carries me through and pushes me to do more, be more and become more than I had ever imagined..