Dear Grant and Jake...and Daddy too: This is not written to you this time...it is about you. You are my favorite conversation topic. All my love, Mom
I've been walking, more like watching my life in the slowest of constant motion. Yet, something has changed; something very important has changed. I can see my blessings as if they glow. It feels supernatural to finally have clicked the right button and for this moment in time to be able to comprehend the pure and insane bliss my life can bring. I'm not working much, and I spend a whole lot of my time in reflection. There is so much silence, the kind of silence that screams at you when at first you don't recognize it! I have been quite depressed in the past six months; feeling sorry for my lack of constitution...or success rather. But when the boys are around it is beginning to fade. I'm laughing again like a little girl at the silliest of things. The boys make me feel like I have flashed back to another time in my life, the time life was free of so much internal and external judgement. The time I was their ages. I remember being five clearly. I remember being eight with a crisp clarity. One day I heard my voice above all of the screaming silence..."What are they going to remember about this time? What will they say about their childhood? Will they laugh about how crazy and silly all four of us are when we are together in those fleeting moments, or will they remember me getting sick so frequently? Will they realize that I was so desperate to be there for them that I gave up on a whole lot of what I thought i wanted in this life, only to find I didn't give up anything? Will they realize that their Dad is the most loving husband anyone could ever have? When his lack of public displays of affection are confusing...secretly in our conversations, when he holds me with conviction... I wonder if anyone else will ever have a Love like that. Will the boys know how much dedication and sacrifice it takes to be a father and a husband but to find a wife who can appreciate what they giving?" Lord, I hope they are everything their Dad is, without the self-doubt.
*Success*: you and I need to have a conversation...! I don't like the feelings you have imposed on me about your implications. You are wrong. I am highly successful. I have what it takes to show my children what they need to know without scarring them. We know have to have family conversation at the dinner table, and giggle the whole time. We r not just a little family God blessed us with...we are friends and a secret club.
And to all of my regrets about the road I have traveled: "I am more than the choices I have made." I know how to explain why what I tried didn't work at times and how to fix it...in their terms.
Grant and I have been talking an laughing so very much lately. This is what he needs. This is the love language he speaks. Jake and I have been cuddling and I listen more to what he says to me now because I realized his love language is affirmation and touch. ...And the love I have for them, well, I can only hope they will have a love like that someday... If they do, my heart will dance.
