life goes on

Every year around this time, me and my widow friends exchange emails acknowledging each other’s struggles as parents of grieving children. This year, everyone was pretty “up” in spite of fearing the worst seeing as how the number 5 somehow seemed bigger than BIG. Each one of us wondered what big epiphany or hurdle would come up for us. And each one of us were surprised when nothing of the sort arose.

At least not in the more obvious form.

Me and my widow friends would have reinforcement that the saying “life goes on” is indeed true. Along with this “moving on” comes challenges. In my case, the flu [coughing and fever (24/7)], pneumonia, dog crap all over the entry way, a random truck taking out the basketball hoop in front of the house, and YaYa fracturing both bones in his wrist after a fall during a bit of rough housing at the neighbors house. *sigh*

Instead of being the loving mom that I strive to be, I was angry at YaYa (for falling). Not exactly my proudest moment. It’s just life but, at that moment, it was also just too much.

If it had been the annual emotional crumbling which I’d grown accustomed to, I might have handled it better — MAYbe. I don’t know.

This morning might have warranted a bit of screaming, had last week been more of the status quo sort of week. Instead of screaming or crying, I laughed when my protein shake fell on the floor – thereby spoiling the rug, floor, and my breakfast. With an 8 AM meeting, I didn’t have time to make another. I quickly cleaned up the mess and headed out the door.

A short while later, I left YaYa at the Peets Coffeehouse just across from my son’s school. He was to walk the remainder of the way to school while I went on to work. By the time he would arrive, it would be the earliest students are allowed to be on campus without a parent. I would arrive on highway about 5 minutes earlier which would save me about 15 minutes of travel.

But as I eyed YaYa crossing the street in my rearview mirror, something was missing. I glanced back at the road ahead, then down to the passenger floorboard. There lay his BACKPACK! *sigh* I quickly turned into the school driveway and waited for YaYa. By the time I finished backpack hand-off, there was a long line of cars with kids to be dropped blocking me in. When I finally was able to turn into the exiting line up, I cut my turn short and was then blocking traffic in AND out. *sigh*

The minutes ticked on and on and, ultimately, I was late for my meeting which had started without me in life-goes-on fashion. And so…as the tagline says, “the journey continues.”

Thank God. But still, I’m ready for this month to be behind me.