Several friends on Facebook have been posting daily gratitude posts this month. I love reading and hearing about what my friends are grateful for this month. I think it is a wonderful ability to be aware of all the blessings in our life. My mom, somehow without preaching, helped me grow up to be aware of good times while we were in the good time and she also made me appreciate small moments of joy in addition to the big obvious ones.

So here is my list  in no particular order:

My family, the one I was born into as well as the family I chose.  Our shared history connects us so deeply.  I am grateful for my dad who took us to Mexico every summer so we could know our family and connect and love each other, otherwise we would have grown up strangers and what a loss that would have been.  Life is richer when we are together.  Y el bailado nadien no lo quita!

My brothers.  I have mentioned them in other posts but think I would be a ship lost at sea without them.  We don’t live near each other anymore but I know they are THERE.  Knowing they are there means everything.

Craig, I chose him to be my family and what a good choice!  We have built a wonderful family together and are raising some awesome, crazy, fun, smart, silly creatures together.  How lucky are we.  And with Craig came his family.  I wish I had had more time with his dad and had the opportunity to meet his brother Jeff but alas I did not.  I am grateful  for my mother in law, Karen.  Magically we truly love each other and don’t have to tip toe around and pretend to be nice like so many other mother in law/daughter in law relationships I know,  I am very appreciative and aware of how great this is. 🙂

My three children. They made me a mom and changed my life in amazing ways. Their love, smiles and joy makes my life worth living and man can they make me laugh!

My posse of friends. My old lifelong gang to my newer friends add such richness to my life and kept me afloat when I was drowning in despair.  They are my extended family and life would not be the same without them.  Thanks guys.

My mom, forever grateful for her and all that she taught me.  She passed me her laughter, her sunshine, her silliness, her great beauty!:), her caring soul and her compassion.  She taught me to turn a regular event into a party.  I will never forget rushing home from school to get dressed up for Josh and Reba’s wedding on Guiding Light!  We actually got dressed up to “go” to the wedding.  How awesome.

I’m grateful for recovery and time.  Even though I still have some really, really rough days, time and work have helped me step further away from grief.  I am aware, even on those rough days, how much better I am doing.  Recovery and being able to rebuild your life is an amazing thing.

Rereading my list, all but one post has to do with people and I think that is appropriate.  In the end the people who come into your life are what really matters, they are ALL that matters.

Happy Thanksgiving lovely people.

I know it is very common for people who have lost loved ones to struggle certain times of year.  Some have a harder time with birthdays.  Imagining what would be happening in their loved one’s life and missing having them around to celebrate their birthday together.  Others struggle with the day the person died, remembering the moment, the sadness, the end of the struggle.  Some people may struggle with both or other significant days, anniversaries and other special days.  Sometimes the days leading up to the day are harder then the day itself.

For me, this time of year always leaves me with an ache in my throat.  It’s right there near the surface and I struggle to keep it in, down inside and put away.  I think today, with the first signs of winter brought me to that hard time of year.  Snow whirling around outside this morning as my excited daughter jumped around trying to catch snowflakes on her tongue.  The cold, cold wind all around as I got in and out of the car to run errands alone. Three years ago we were struggling day to day.  My mom was going downhill and in a few days she no longer responded.  A Sunday morning she didn’t get out of bed.  She would continue to live but no longer communicating with us through writing, just the shaking of her head, a smile, or a hand squeeze.

The first year after my mother died I realized in the fall I was on a strange countdown but this time I knew the outcome.  I knew which day she died, I knew which day she stopped responding, I knew the day she rallied.  It was a strange reliving of her decline.  But every year it’s the same timeline and it is all mixed in with Thanksgiving and Christmas, two holidays that I love.  Quite the mix of emotions.  Being on this countdown doesn’t ruin Thanksgiving or Christmas for me, I have so much to be grateful for and love the joy of Christmas time with my nearest and dearest.  But the countdown is in the background. My mother died the day after Christmas.  Everyone left that morning.  She and I were alone while Maya napped.  I spent the entire day in her room with her playing holiday music on my iPad.  It was an amazing day outside, it snowed all day long.  I watched the snow from her big bedroom windows.  I held her hand.  I combed her hair.  I laid next to her in the blowup bed we had set up by her bed.  I gave her her medication.  I sang to her.  I read to her.  I cried over her as she took her last breath.  I begged her not to leave me.  Alas, she had places to go.

(Just had to stop writing this post to play a round of Plants vs Zombies with my kids so we could beat the treasure yeti.  This is one of the amazing parts of my life.  Writing a super sad post about my mom dying takes second place to what is important to my guys .)

So the countdown will continue again this holiday season.  I was glad this year it started for me in November instead of October as it did last year.  Maybe it will start later and later each year.  The strange thing is it doesn’t really bother me that I relive the countdown every year.  Somehow I feel it keeps me connected to her.  It is a strange mental pilgrimage to my mom’s death that I think I will continue to take every year.