Grateful Heart

When I think of my life..and all that it has encompassed, I think I have been very blessed.  I am sitting here in the same room with the boys who are arm wrestling with smiles on their faces.  13 and 7.  I think their love for each other will always be there.  Makes it all worth it.  They are making me laugh as they are having a sour candy contest and their faces are all sucked in as they say 'I can take it' and the Littlest is now spitting it out saying, 'this is gonna kill me!' and I'm cracking up.  The Oldest is giving him sound (not so) advice and saying, "just don't swallow the spit, get past the sour layer!" and the Littlest is not buying it.  The Oldest' face is contorted and his cheekbones are very pronounced as he tries to pretend the candy is not sour.  Oh they slay me, I love their antics....

We have a wonderful roof over our heads.  We are very blessed to have that.  We have worked hard for it and we have sacrificed a LOT to keep it that way.  We don't buy things on a whim, we don't do grand improvements to our home just because we want them; things that we improve are definitely NEEDED, not just wanted.  -We have made it through some very tough times but here we are.  Not by luck, but by smarts, hard work and stick-to-it-iv-ness.  By our fingernails sometimes.  But all for these boys.

With losing your child, your entire Universe is altered permanently, first, very starkly, then in smoother ways, like a pebble being smoothed by the waves of the unending crashing ocean (which I've often compared grieving to).  It ultimately comes to just a knowledge, a knowing, a certain intangible thing that is just added to your life that makes you love harder, laugh louder, hug a little more, and become more protective.  That last one, well, that's probably putting it lightly.  Protective.  You could say that.

But beyond that, the normal ups and downs of life are made sweeter by love.  The love I feel for what I work for--our boys--my boys--it fuels everything I do.  I'm not unlike other moms in that way. I know we all are driven for the same things.  I get it.  ~I feel that common driving factor is enunciated in our lives by Lucas and his absence.  So for ME, its magnified.  How I feel life, look at life, appreciate life and protect it.

So in sitting back and listening to the boys banter about silly things and get along and laugh (and fight) and laugh some more...I KNOW how blessed we are.  You could never take that away from me; that knowledge.  It's infused in how I wake up in the morning, when my feet hit the floor each morning, I feel gratitude, it might be groggy gratitude, I might be stumbling to the bathroom with my gratitude..and I will hold my pee until I brush my teeth (gotta do that first you know) with my thanks rolling through my brain and no matter how hokey it sounds, its the truth.....and I pray it makes me a better person.  Sometimes it is not easy you know!  I could easily be bitter and stay that way.   I know people like that.  -Not interested.  That would be so easy!  It would be easier to feel that way and be down about what we don't have!  You have to work at gratitude sometimes you know....

At the beginning of 2013, I enter it with a grateful heart.  Despite the downs and because of the downs but mostly, because of the ups.  We have had many.  And we are still here, still standing, and still a close family BECAUSE of it all.  

-Jenn