Back to the blog...

It's been well over a year since my last post...woops! I have ventured to this page several times with the intentions of adding some great words but something always came up or I just changed my mind. I have been busy and I like that. Life has been happening and it's all been good for the most part, I cannot complain.

My Joshua turned 3 in March and woah, he is a handful. I love it. I love his energy. I will admit that I am a little jealous of it sometimes. Our routine is fairly consistent and non-eventful. I have the most amazing relationship with my best friend and he is amazing. Downside is that right now he is in Washington, I am in Oklahoma. Welcome to the military, or a relationship with someone in the military. We have survived a deployment and things are looking to only get better in the future. I can't wait!!!

Rain, Rain

I'm ready for sunshine, sunshine that lasts longer than a few hours. The rain is getting to be depressing...really it is! It was quite nice for a few days, but I believe we are going on a week here, where each day has included some rain. I am also running out of indoor activities, or at least indoor activities that my two year old wants to participate in. So please bring me some sunshine.

That's all I have to say about that...

A reverie

I am void of words, words that used to sing my soul into motion. Taking me up, up and up. Words of a past that dream of becoming the future. A future that finds me in a place where it is possible to love without reservations, speak endless words of truth and to do more than love, but to be loved. The future seems so far away from me. At times you seem so close, I know that I could touch you, but it isn't real. You, my future, have become an illusion. A reverie, where I discover the beauty of unconditional affection.

I realize you cannot dream, wish or want love into motion. To force love will only leave you with an empty passion, a yearning for something more and false perception of a reality that will never be. You will awake only to discover an aching pain and a depleted heart, a heart void of giving or receiving.

And so I say to my soul, find a safe place, a dwelling where you can rest, heal, make yourself whole again and give me words. Words that will sing my soul, my heart, my body back into motion.

Quiet

They say in the quiet you can find rest

In my quiet, I awaken the storms within me.

Storms that take hold and shake me,

Creeping their way to the surface and forcing me to face them.

All I can do is meet them and wait for the sunrise.

A sunrise that brings a new day with it's own set of challenges

Another chance to watch the storms rebuild before me,

I sometimes find sweet comfort in the storms

Storms that mold my heart and strip away the layers.

The storms that wash me clean.

But there are storms that leave me stained,

feeling that I have been drenched in a black rain.

So my quiet becomes a loud place.

A place that shapes, creates and breaks me.

Yet after each storm, I find rest.

The Life I Planned...

I read and I write, I often gather inspiration from music, books and of course life. This evening, for no particular reason, I was reading through a book that I received as a gift as a teenager. "Things Pondered" by Beth Moore, is a beautiful collection of short stories and poems that speak encouraging words to women. Now, I know I have read this book many times before, but this night, one poem reached out to me. As I was reading through it, I felt that pitting feeling rise in my stomach. I have been questioning my life and the unfamiliar path that I have taken, I have found myself in a place I never dreamed I'd be...so what happened to the life I had planned?

I wanted to copy some of the words that captured me below;

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Has someone seen the life I planned

It seems it's been misplaced

I've looked in every corner

It's lost without a trace

I've found one I don't recognize

Things missing that were clear

Promises I'd hoped to keep

And dreams I'd dreamed aren't here

Faces I had planned to see

Hands I planned to hold

Now absent in the pictures

Not the way I told.

Has someone seen the life I planned?

Did it get thrown away?
God took my hand from searching

Then I heard him say

"Child, your ears have never heard

Your eyes have never seen

Eternal plans I have for you

Are more than you could dream.

"You long to walk by sight

But I'm teaching eyes to see.

I know what I am doing

'Til then, you must believe."

He's done so much, I felt ashamed

To know He heard my moans

To think I'd trade in all He's done

For plans made on my own.

I offered Him my future

And released to Him my past
I traded in my dreams

For a plan He said would last.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I will be the first to say that I have created my own plans, often neglected God's will for my life and continued on a way that I thought was best for me. How thankful I am that even still, he has blessed me. Only God knows my whole story, He lets me write each chapter on my own, asking only that I let Him lead me through. It is His resplendent love and the life He has planned for me that allows me to trust and believe that great things are in store for me, here on earth and in heaven.

Here's a toast...

To the little boy who has captured my heart. Your presence in my life is overwhelming. Every day, I pray for you. I pray for your future, that you will let God and his sweet light invade your life and you will live to serve him each day. Learn from each trial, take note from every minor mistake and thrive on the amazing gifts that God will bless you with.
You are so small and so innocent right now, I cherish this time for you. I love you with all my heart. I thank God for you everyday.

Growing up and Growing old

As a child, you feel immortal and the first time you experience the death of a family member or friend, you're left confused. I was by no means morbid, but do recall being curious about what was happening. There were a handful of deaths that I had to experience growing up. A few family members, some very close to me and a couple friends, which shakes you to the core as a teenager. Although, I knew that all those deaths were real and those people disappeared from my life, it still seemed surreal. I am now 24 and my great grandfather, who is almost 91, is slowly slipping away from us and I'm reflecting on death as an adult and it feels different.

Death and dying is a process. Two different processes. This I have definitely learned. I studied Funeral Science in college. I picked it up for no particular reason, it sounded interesting, little did I know it would alter my life and change me in many ways. I jumped in feet first, ready and willing to absorb as much information as I could. My eyes were opened to a world that most know nothing about. The funeral business is very private, as it should be. I was blessed with opportunities and walked into a wonderful apprentice job at a funeral home and thrived. Everything felt natural to me. I was never afraid to touch a body and found that comforting a grieving family was a special gift. A gift I was given. I dealt with the family after the death, helped take care of the body after death, I learned the processes of death. I never realized there was a different process of dying. I experienced firsthand the many faces of death. The old, the young, the sick, the unexpected, the mother, the father, the child and so on. Each experience providing a new lesson for me. I loved my job, finished college in three years and became a licensed Funeral Director/Embalmer. Unfortunately, I was only able to take care of two families as their Funeral Director, before my life went in another direction. Although, I wasn't working in a funeral home, I stayed close to the business and still do today.

A few years later, I found myself working nights in a hospital on a step down unit, which means we had some very critical patients. I was a monitor tech, all of our patients wore heart monitors. I analyzed their rhythms, reported problems, checked leads and many other little insignificant tasks. I was again working in a world that most don't really know about. My first week there, we had a patient who I knew, she was going through so much and eventually died. It was my first time to be on the other side of death, the process of dying.

I remember specifically we had a patient who was on comfort only, she was dying and was just to be kept comfortable. I removed the heart monitor and I saw her pain, her eyes spoke mountains of words, she was so thankful to be getting rid of all the monitors, she wanted nothing more than just to rest. Four hours later, her RN checked on her and she was dead. The Dr. ordered me to put the monitor back on, so that we could run a strip on her. My eyes filled up with tears as I was in the room all alone with her, overcome with emotions while placing leads on the chest, there was no rising and falling, just a sweet stillness. There was no more struggling, she wasn't hurting and I was happy for her, but truly stricken with grief that she had died. I didn't really know her, didn't know her story, but felt for her. Back at my desk, I watched her monitor and every 30 seconds or so her heart would beat, the body was trying so hard to hold on. I was a part of the dying process for her and it affected me.

My great grandfather has lived longer than most and he has had a very fulfilling life. He has accomplished much, he's a WWII veteran , raised a family, witnessed his family continue to grow and new generations be born. What an amazing blessing for him to hold his great great grandson, who happens to be my son. Up until recently he has been self sufficient, lived on his own, still driving(though he shouldn't) and very coherent! How quickly a couple months can change your life. Now he is in a nursing home, unable to balance himself enough to walk, his precious mind is failing him and it's devastating. I know what's happening here and I know that his time with us is coming to it's end.

Dying is inevitable for all of us, we will all eventually die and one by one we will fade from this earth, those who love us will surely miss us, but their lives go on. I want to cherish life, value life and respect the process of death and dying and how it changes you.