Three

My sweet Grace is 3 today.

Everyday she amazes me.   I love her free spirit.   I love her messiness.   I love her all things princess and pink.   I love that she wears party dresses and wrestles and sword fights with her brothers.

From the moment she arrived I was amazed.  Amazed that God's plan is always so much better than mine.

Because deep in my heart, I always wanted a little girl.   I secretly dreamed about having a daughter.   As each little boy arrived my secret wish was tucked deeper in my heart as I embraced being the mommy of boys.   My heart opened and grew with each one and I was content to be the mama of boys. I was so excited for another little boy.   I didn't know any different and it felt so right.  Yet, God knew and caught me by surprise.

She arrived with all things pink and I adored her.   What were we going to do with a little girl?  We were all a little tentative except Owen.   Owen adored Grace like nothing I have ever seen.  He held her and loved her like only a big brother could.   Their connection was instant.

As she grew we were all amazed.

Her smile brightened every room.   No one could ever be grouchy when Gracie smiled at them with those two bottom teeth.   From the moment she could walk she was running after her big brothers.  Never slowing down because she was too little.

Always in a dress as cute as could be!!   You never knew Grace was just a toddler.  To her she was just one of the boys.

With energy and fire and life.  Grace changed our world.

Happy Birthday, princess Grace.   Never forget that you are God's gift of amazing grace to each of us.

The Unimaginable moment

 

There was more beauty in these 4 days that words can ever express.   4 days that would have never existed without the unimaginable.   The unimaginable that doesn't go away.  The unimaginable that changes everything.   The unimaginable that we will never understand.

 

 

Yet, it led us to this cabin hidden in the trees and it allowed us inside to love bigger. 

 

 

We do things that we wouldn't have considered before.    We rent cabins.  We fly and drive across many miles.  We take time and we learn how to savor each moment.

  

We suddenly know what is important.   We know how we want to spend our time.

 

 

 This moment and all the moments to come are cherished more deeply.

 

 

And we share with our kids.   Not in words of knowing but by being together. 

  

 

In this picture perfect place that God created for us.

 

 

 A place so beautiful it takes our breath away.  Even out the picture window of the living room.

 

 

 Because this is where the normal everyday moments become sacred.

 

 

And, it's in those sacred moments that help us to breathe.

 

 

Moments enjoyed by the edge of the river with a rod in hand.

 

 

Or on the top of mountain where nothing else matters.

 

 

So, I leave you with this one last moment.   This moment that was captured and speaks 1,000 words.  The unimaginable moment that changes everything. 

Home

Our home is the heart of who we are.   It is full of activity and love and noise and messiness. There is never a day when the dishes are done and the laundry put away.  There is never a day when the dust doesn't cling to the furniture and the floors aren't sticky.

Our home is never quiet.    Our home never organized.  You certainly can't come to my house with Good Housekeeping and take pictures for your glossy, perfect magazine.   

This is a house where boys play war around this old blue couch.  You know, the same couch that my husband played around when he was a kid and has been passed onto us.   We talk about replacing it.   But, I love this couch.   It's the couch that we all sit on with a big bowl of popcorn and don't mind when little fingers rub butter all over it.   It's the couch that cradles my babies when they are sick and home with a fever.    It's all I want in a couch.   It's old.   It's worn.   It turns into a jungle gym and trampoline and I just smile because if it gets more stained and more broken....I will love it even more.

This is the floor that causes the clickety clack of high heeled shoes worn by my 2 year old.  This two year old won't wear anything but a party dress and heels.   Always a princess.  Always a party to attend when you are at my house.

This is the laundry room that holds the laundry of 6 people.   A sacred space where I stand and fold and hang and pray over each person as I put their things away.     I love this picture because it shows the messiness of what we are.   We are not perfect and with each load comes a prayer for guidance and protection and love.   The satisfaction of all of it only comes as the last child leaves the house with clean shirts and socks   As they head out into their day, I turn around and promise that I will clean up this space yet most days it doesn't get cleaned.  And it's OK because I know my husband and children are headed out into their day with clean clothes and covered in prayers.

This is the kitchen where backpacks hang in a row as we do our nightly homework.   We wrestle and fight over spelling words and math problems.   We whine and complain as we start each problem.  We dread each paper that comes home with all those red marks over it.   My patience runs thin as I vow never to lose my temper again.   I take a deep breath and ask the two year old for the 5th time to go back to my bedroom and finish her cartoons because she is not much help in the homework department.   A struggle that is always blessed by working together and finishing a project and learning.      A struggle that ends with memorized multiplication problems and better spelling.

This is the 7th dinner I have cooked this week.   Only 2 of the 4 children will eat it and the other two will whine and cry as I ask them to take a "no thank you" bite.    It feels like a failure because I can't ever seem to please everyone and just when I decide that it's pizza every night with sodas and candy for desert....my husband walks in the kitchen and reminds the kids to thank me.   At the same time, he reminds me that today I was a good mommy.   Those words from him reassure me and I am filled with confidence again as I start planning the next days meals even before this one is finished.

Today, as I look around at all of these imperfect things I am so thankful.   I keep waiting for the day when everything will be done and clean and there will not be a struggle.   I have just decided that doesn't exist.   What does exist are these moments that make us a family and these pictures that helps me never to forget.

Hard

My day has been hard and as I sit here in the quiet, even this is hard.     This time of my day is not usually hard.  This is my easy time,  the time that I cherish so very much.  The time between the brushing of four children's teeth and falling asleep.  Quiet time that is mine.   No one is asking for another drink or needs me to kiss their knee when they fall down.   No one is screaming "mommy" while I'm trying to hide in the bathroom (yep that happened today). 

This kind of hard is impossible to escape.   I can't turn on my favorite TV show with a bag of chocolate and feel better.    I can't lay in a hot bath and soak all my troubles away.  I can't scroll through Facebook looking at all the pictures.  None of it is a distraction.

That's OK.   It's really OK.   I know there are hard days.   Hard moments.  Hard seconds.   I have been learning about hard.  Walking with it.  Sitting with it.  Laying in it.   It's just that I'm a little bit tired of it and overwhelmed by it.   I am overwhelmed by it because it has changed me.

I have changed so much that I can't even do the things that I once loved.  One of my favorite things used to be sitting down at this computer and writing.   I would write about my day.  I would write about the kids and this beautiful life we have.   I made collages of pictures from our days so I would remember each moment.  It was my creativity, my passion, my joy.

I stopped writing about 18 months ago.   I do try.  I make a valient effort to make the words come.   Yet, the joy is gone and so are the words.

You see.....life became hard and then I became hard.    I can't open up my heart long enough to let the words flow because I'm afraid.   The fear paralyzes me.  The fear that when I start to open up.....I'm not quite sure what will fall out.  I can't seem to break down those walls of vulnerability that I used to have when everything was easy and happy.

The hard.  The fear.   I want to write it down now.   I want to give it a voice and stop pretending like it doesn't exist.   It exists and it is life changing.

My 13 year old niece who I love more than anything in the world has a brain tumor.    The pain of that is beyond any words that can be written and what is left is fear and unfairness and sadness and anger.   As each day goes by that fear and pain doesn' go away.   It catches in my throat and I can't seem to get passed it.   Yet, it felt manageable until my dad called me 2 weeks ago and said "colon cancer".    The fear and the hard just got a little bigger.  The light and hope that was there is slowly getting darker and darker.

Tonight, in all this hard there is only one thing that is certain.   There is only one reason I am here writing.  My faith.   My faith in the goodness of my Creator.  His light isn't as bright these days but it hasn't disappeared.   He hasn't left and the only thing that I do know is that He will never leave.    I may have lost my faith in joy and peace for today but I know that someday they will return.    In time, that will even return.

Tonight I can sit here in the dark quiet of my house and just cry.   I can cry for the girl who is changed, for the joy that has disappeared, for the hardness and fear. I can look up at that dim light and trust that it will always be there when I need it.  I can trust that all this hard won't change me so much that all is left is bitterness.   I can trust in brighter days, days when I can again write and when I won't let the fear paralyze me.   This is enough to sustain me, this gives me the strength to wake up tomorrow and continue even though it is hard.   I also know that it is in the tiny bits of gratitude that the light will get brighter and that is what I really need.  So, here goes.....

Today, I am thankful for:

A group of mom's who sat around a table at lunch and shared their lives with me.
A two year old who cuddled with me while she sucked her thumb and held her "butty".
A 10 year old who amazed me with his yo yo tricks.
A husband who gets to travel and see old friends.
A 5 year old who loves music and plays it all day
My high heeled shoes that I got to wear today.  Those ones that make me feel beautiful.
A smile from an 8 year old whose teeth are just now starting to grow in.
A long conversation with my mom who I miss so much.
An email with a dear friend who helps me through my health journey.

Standing Together

I have this dream.   It is a dream that stirs deep in my heart and is never very far from me.

My dream looks like this. I am standing in church surrounded by thousands of people.   We are standing in the pews all packed together and no one has elbow room.   Everyone is singing.   We are all singing the same song and our voices mix together and become one.   One voice that reaches the Light.  Our Light.  The One who loves us and created us and knows us.   We are praising Him and the joy overflows.

I stop singing for a moment and I look around because I know something is different.   The people that surround me are NOT the same people that come with me to Mass every Sunday.   I look closer and really see them.   I smile and sing louder and my heart sings with joy.   This is heaven.  I know it is heaven because I have never seen anything like it in my whole life.  Everything is different. 

I know in that moment that each person in the church with me went on a journey to get here.   A hard journey.  And, each person's journey was different but it led them to this place.  This place where we can all stand together and sing.

The Catholic, the Methodist, the Baptist, the Lutheran, the Mormon, each and every denomination was present.  We no longer found a need to separate ourselves.

The Christian, the Buddhist, the Muslim, the Jew, the Hindu, each and every religion was present.

We all were one in that moment.

The murderer, the liar, the thief, the abortionist, the homosexual, the abuser, the molester, the adulterer, the hater, the cheat, the sloth, the polygamist, the violent, the prideful.   They were all standing in the pews next to me.  Each of us had our own sin yet we could all stand together because of our God.

No matter what any doctrine has taught me this is what I believe to be true.   This is the dream that God has placed into my heart.  God is love.  God is forgiveness.  God loves us all.

My heart longs for this place of togetherness.  When we can finally all stand together and stop judging each other.   A place where we can love each other no matter our differences and we can glorify the One who loves us the most.

For now, I will stand in my church and at my bible study surrounded by fellow Christians.  In these places I will worship, study, and glorify God because this is where I find my home, my strength, and my joy.  Yet, secretly, I long for this place where everyone is welcomed and cherished.  A place where no one is condemned for their beliefs, their sins or their journey.  A place we can stand together and put everything else aside.  A place where we can stop trying to convert and change each other and just love each other.

My dream for today since we are not in heaven yet is that we put aside every label, every judgement, every condemnation and we do the one thing that our God has asked us to do:  To love Him above everything else and then to love our neighbor as our self.    I think if we do that we may just find our own little heaven on earth.

A Magical Weekend

The days and months that followed Amaya's brain tumor diagnosis were heart wrenching.   We knew what she was facing but, it just seemed that every time we started to feel OK about her treatment we received more bad news.   It was inoperable.   It was not responding to chemo.  It grew at an astonishing rate.   It was a time when we were always holding our breath and onto each other.

On very short notice Amaya and her family packed up their lives and moved to Denver for the summer.   Over a course of 6 weeks, she received radiation treatments everyday to shrink her growing brain tumor.   After her treatments, she returned home and went back to her normal life.   She started school and hasn't missed a beat.   Then, it was just a waiting game.  We had to wait several months before Amaya would return to Denver to see the results of the radiation.  During this time, we would all search her eyes for any signs of what was to come.    We analyzed her every behavior and and never stopped thinking about that tumor and what it was doing inside her head.

The day came.   It was time to take a look at "Boogernotlicous".    I held my breath all that day.   I sat and stared at my cell phone, knowing she was in the MRI machine.   I played our favorite song by the Imagination Dragons and sang it at the top of my lungs and tears streamed down my face.  Waiting.  Just waiting.

I just knew we had to be in Denver with her after she met with her Dr.'s and we got the results of the radiation.  We had to be there by her side no matter what.  We all needed to be together.   I loaded all the kids in the car and we drove to the airport still waiting to hear the news.   I remember sitting on the floor in the airport playing with the kids when the phone call came in from Megan.

I was afraid to answer but, I picked up the phone.    I heard Megan say, "it's shrinking, the tumor is shrinking".  I took a deep breath.   Waves of relief washed over me as a big smile came over my face.   I jumped up and down and screamed.   Yep, everyone around us looked but, I didn't care.   I did my crazy Aunt Kris dance for Amaya and took a picture of it.   It was an amazing moment.

Here are the pictures taken of Amaya's tumore.  The middle picture was taken the day we found out about the tumor.   The first picture is what it looked like after 1 month of chemotherapy treatments and the last picture was after radiation.  What a reason to be thankful!

We landed in Denver, ready to celebrate!  And, we did.   We rented a house in Nederland, Colorado and spent the whole weekend together just knowing that tumor had shrunk and being so thankful.

This place we stayed was spectacular.   It was magical.  In fact, I don't even think I can explain in words how beautiful this place was or how special it was to be all together during this time.   My pictures will have to speak those words for me.