Pre-Grief

I know the five stages of grief are real and yet unpredictable. Will the anger run pervasively across my body, like static cling? Will the negotiating be brief, and will depression follow interminably until a moment of clarity, the moment when acceptance begins? A friend of mine who just lost her beloved grandmother said that her own grief mystifies her. I share the sentiment. I am not a cathartic cryer at appropriate moments, nor am I a stoic force of dry eyes and sage words. I feel my feelings and I feel them very deeply, and I generally find people exhausting when I feel good, so I often retreat to my feelings cave in moments of tremendous joy or sadness. This is a problem, especially living 1000 miles away from family. My family grieves together, in its own way, laughing through stories over Sunday casseroles and football, and I, removed from it, will be paused at a stop light for too long and find myself bawling. Because my uncle Kevin died. In February. He died. And I can't believe I'm never going to see him again.

I am also removed from my family's grief because I do not share the vision of the same pearly gates. Oh, I believe in Heaven. But I believe it's not ours yet. I believe in a Savior who is coming back, who will call the righteous forward and take them to that eternal home of peace and life when it is time. So all those Mufasa adages, "I'm sure he's looking down on us now..." and "Your uncle is probably playing poker in God's pool room right now" ring hollow for me.

So as I received the call today that my Nana, one of the most companionable, adorable, hilarious people I will ever know, has been brought home to die in relative comfort, I can feel the mysterious grief besetting me. I can feel the numbness starting to encroach. I can feel the disconnect, that wide gulf pushing me out into my boat looking back on everyone I love still standing on the shore.

And all I want to do is eat a whole tray of brownies.

BFFs

I don't think we should be proud when we work a lot of hours. Not that a good work ethic isn't a point of pride, but I think we should be grateful for our opportunities, and take them as blessings from God. Oh, but now I do so love to complain. And I have, often, about the hamster wheel work-a-day schedule my husband has maintained for the last couple of years while I was finishing grad school. I found myself rattling off his m.o. like a radio announcer, "Three jobs! 70 hours! Often overnight! With crazy people!" I was always proud of him and the way he never complained, working so many hours with such a difficult population. But it was always clear to me how tempting it was to become self-satisfied with this life. As if there was some award at the end of the year for Most Nights a Therapist Has Been Paged In a Row. Oooh, I hope it's a cookie. That would make it all worth it.

This school year, I'm no longer a student, and Lovey Loverpants will no longer be working an insane number of hours with the insane (excluding the hours he has to coexist with me). He'll take a day off each week to spend with Baby Girl while I am prepping my lesson plans and grading papers. Once again, it's so easy to become prideful of this, to congratulate Loverpants for making such a sacrifice, for being such an honorable dad. But you know what? Daddy and Madi Day is a blessing. It's given to us in grace. I'm so thrilled for my family, so excited for more daddy/daughter facetime, and taking it all as a gift and not a given.

***

They're together so much, they've started to dress alike.

Cooking Class

::MELTS::

Since we last met

I haven't posted in a good long spell. I've been preppin' and tourin' 'round the dirty South. I've been fixin' to update y'all on my hi-jinx, but I reckon I've been ever so busy. The day was fair to Midland. Promise so. At this moment, I have a rare and impressive sinus situation that is promptin' me to want to take a nap right quick. I do declare this site will need some updatin' after while. See y'all soon.