Making It

The time flies by...one minute it is November, all of a sudden it is the end of May. What happened to this lost year? I don't think I've ever been so busy in my life...not even when I was single, working 3 jobs, taking care of my dying mother 3 states away. And yet I haven't been busy doing the IMPORTANT things. Every day seems like just another day of chores to get through. The bare minimum of schoolwork for the girls because I just couldn't bear to sit still, to slow down and study, do lessons, assignments, grade papers and tests. Slowing down meant thinking, and for the past 6 months slowing down was perilously close to just stopping altogether.

I do all these mundane chores because SOMEONE has to, and yet....the next morning they are all waiting to be done again. The dogs need fed, the cat boxes need changed, the dishes need washed, garbage needs out, floors need vacuumed, grass gets mowed, only to grow right back again. E needs to learn to spell, C needs to learn...EVERYTHING it seems. There's so little time to teach it all, so little inclination to teach ANY of it. The girls grow, they need fed, and that entails stores, and cooking, and more dishes, and new shoes, and bigger clothes. And ironically, I need smaller clothes that don't fall off. And I can afford neither bigger clothes for the girls, or smaller clothes for myself. And Mom doesn't like this....this seeming waste of time on the things that don't matter as I look back on my life. And I don't like the girls growing, because soon this 6 months that has gone by in what seems to be only a few weeks will turn into 6 years, and then 12 years and they will be gone too.

Softball games begin in 6 days. For the first year in 5 years I don't care. I don't want to go. Softball used to be so much fun. But this year I don't WANT to talk to people. I don't want to watch the man coaching that is somehow no longer my husband...he's just "the girls dad" who sees them maybe once a week. I don't WANT to enter the summer months knowing C will be staying home all day every day because I can't afford to let her take the kids' enrichment classes at the local community college. We will ALL stay home all day because I can't afford to just waste the days going to bookstores, shopping, out to lunch, and I can not BEAR to go hiking, playing at the parks, searching for rocks and shells at the river because...half the people who should be out at the rivers and parks with us are gone. Half a family is gone. 6 divided by 2 is 3. 6 divided by 2 = just me, and C and E. Anywhere I go, anywhere I could take the girls seems empty. I see the ghosts of April, and Brittany, and Danny in all these places, and it's not right that it should be only 3.And who suffers for this? The girls, of course....begging to go here or there, and hearing "No" so often they don't even ask anymore.

It's not ALL darkness, though. Every once in a while the sun actually shines through. I think this week I set a record for "number of good days in a row" within the past 6-7 months. I managed to do school every single day. I managed to get PAST the never-ending daily chores, and wash windows, wash curtains, scrub things that haven't been scrubbed since LAST spring. I actually walked into my kitchen this morning and SMILED at how bright and pretty and CLEAN it looked. I actually have tons of completed work in E's math folder, and I feel proud that she has worked so hard, done so well. C has helped me with housework, she has giggled, we have had happy moments, and we have actually been productive this week.

Thank you, God, for protecting my daughters, for giving me strength, and for this week.

Wow! Hard to Believe, but....

....today is April and Lance's first anniversary! What a year of changes in this family! It has been a very sad year, but the newly-weds have made it through their first year.

Congratulations, and Happy Anniversary! We love and miss you guys!