I tend to think about my blog a lot when I am writing during the month of April... when I wake up, during the day, in the evening, before I go to sleep, while I am asleep. I mull over topics that I want to talk about or things that happened during the day, so that when I sit down to write at night, that blank computer screen doesn't stay blank for too long. I was all set to write a 'pity me. feel sorry for me' post for tonight at about 2 pm this afternoon. You see, I had put a load of dark colored laundry in the dryer earlier this morning. And when I went to get the clothes out of the dryer, I looked at the little insert where the dryer lint collects and I noticed something in the shape of a ball, it kind of looked like a large pit from an avocado, or a big walnut... And I thought, oh geeze... I forgot to check Joey's pockets again... he must have picked up a rock or a nut from outside. I went to pick it up and as I was grabbing it, it kind of mushed up a bit. That's not what a rock or a nut will do. Hmmm.... I investigated a little more, and soon realized that it was no rock. I'm not sure I've ever seen what happens to poop if you miss it... if you didn't see it in your daughter's clothes and didn't realize you washed and dried it. No. I don't think I want to see that again. I was irritated with myself for not catching it.. I was irritated with Vicki for having so many accidents, and I was just plain grumpy. It took me over an hour to clean out the dryer. It was not a fun task. Then I had to hand scrub some of the clothes, soak them , and rewash them again. I was having a nice little pity party for myself and really wanted you to join in tonight.
And then around 3:30 I was browsing facebook while I was sitting in the car rider line to pick up the kids... Of course facebook is where I get all of my news anymore. And I was saddened, as I am sure everyone was, as they watched the events of today unfold in Boston. And suddenly my shitty day (pun intended) didn't seem so shitty. My pity party didn't seem to be as fun. My laundry disaster, not so much a disaster.
In fact, I would say that I am damn lucky.
I am blessed to have today, as shitty as I thought it was earlier. I am blessed to have today.
All I want to do when I hear of such tragedies.. is hold my 3 babies tight and fling my arms around my husband when he walks through the door after work. And I do. I just want to hole up in our little house and never leave. I want to keep my family safe and snug and loved and protected. I don't want them to go to school, or go to the movies, or go to a sporting event, or go to work someday.... I just want them. Always. And I am damn lucky and thankful that I have them today.
I often wonder, were there this many bad things that happened 30 years ago when I was 8 years old? Is it that much easier to see such tragedies unfold because of the ease of information sharing? Today, I just had to log onto facebook and see the pictures of the post bombing mayhem, read about the horror, and see that the whole world is praying and staying strong for Boston. Or for Newtown. Or for Virginia Tech. Or for Aurora.
It saddens and sickens me the things that I have to 'explain' to my kids, when I really don't know how to explain them or understand them myself. When I was 8, I remember playing with my baby doll and coloring a picture. I remember collecting stickers and putting them in my sticker book. I remember eating Sunday dinner at my grandparents house. What will my daughter remember from when she was 8 years old? A shooting? A bombing?
Well, I'll tell you want I want my 8 year old to remember... I want her to remember that tonight I showed her my old Spirograph.(The little plastic round circles that make shapes when you turn them inside of a larger circle.) The one that I just dug out of my mom's attic. It still has some papers in it from when I was a kid showing all of the mistakes I made to make that one perfectly beautiful, colorful picture. I want my son to remember that we enjoyed Duck Dynasty tonight when we hung out after the girls went to bed, Jack. And I want Vicki to remember that we laughed and laughed and laughed, the kind of laugh that makes you gasp for breath and makes you have to pee, or in my case, pee a little. (I had just gotten done telling my husband that the bathroom floor seemed really slippery tonight... like someone put some pledge wax on it. And as Vicki was heading into the bathroom, I said, 'walk slow Vicki, careful its slippy'.. and no sooner did I say that did Vicki's feet slide out from under her and she took a graceful fall to the ground from an episode right out of Abbot and Costello or one of those shows...) After I helped Vicki up off the floor and made sure she was ok, she started laughing. And I started laughing. And we couldn't stop. These are the kinds of things I want my kids to remember.
Everybody deals with grief differently. And it seems like our nation has to grieve a lot together. I think about the way so many families lives changed back in December. As I was gleefully getting ready for Christmas with my kids, another family was burying their child. And I think about how mass tragedies like this one today affect people and bring people together and we discover heroes all around us. And then I think about how small scale tragedies affect families everyday as well. Someone loses a child to cancer. Someone dies in a car accident.
Death is all around us. Sadness is all around us. Grief is all around us.
And it is shitty.
But I also never want to forget that life is all around us too. Life is here. Life is now. Life is what you make it. We can let the hands we are dealt in life make or break us. Today I cleaned up some shit, and maybe I will again tomorrow. I hope I get the chance.
Live. Love. Pray. Repeat.
Our Father, Who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. On Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day. Our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses. As we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil. Amen.
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