Sunday, September 11, 2011

one long weekend

You'd think with a title like that something good will follow.  Well, that is not the case.  My husband is out of town to meet up with friends and watch a college football game back in Tennessee.  This means that I have three children and all their activities to coordinate.  It means relying on help from neighbors which I hate.  I like to be self-sufficient.

But my weekend was long not because of the endless tasks needing to be accomplished (which I did by the way!).  It was long because of the seemingly endless sadness.  I think it's a conspiracy.

Saturday, after the soccer game and crew practice, but before the birthday party, I was catching up on some blog reading and watching tweets as they popped up.  One from Kristen at Motherese caught my eye.  It was a link to a post on Listen To Your Mother.  A post for Anna See.  A beautiful post, exquisite really, about the journey of grief and the idea that no one is alone and yet there are times when we are.  I've walked the path of grief and I know this to be true. 

I've found myself to be quite emotional over the past few weeks and finally made the connection.  I am a sensitive soul.  I feel what others feel and can sense it even if they don't speak it.  All the chatter and stories about 9/11 were affecting me.  Are affecting me.  I personally knew no one affected on that terrible day but it doesn't matter for me.  Even without television in my home, just the few catches of conversations on the radio, the town sign about the remembrance on Sunday, the brief glimpses while catching up on the news on the internet - all of it was bringing back those feelings.  Feelings of uncertainty.  Feelings of insecurity.  Feelings of fear.  Feeling that something had changed forever.

Saturday when I got home from the birthday party, my teen came out to tell me that Aunt Amy called - his aunt, my husband's sister.  She called to let us know that my husband's uncle passed away that morning, suddenly from a heart attack.  This is the second uncle in less than a year.

And this evening, just as I was sitting down with my three lovely boys for dinner, my phone rang.  It was a friend and former co-worker.  In tears.  She called to let me know that another friend and former co-worker passed away yesterday morning.  He was 38 years old and went out for a run.  A cyclist found him collapsed on the side of the road, the paramedics came, but he didn't make it.  A friend, a co-worker, a husband and father to two beautiful young children.  To think about these beautiful children, children we talked about throughout the day.  Children whose pictures I saw regularly on Facebook.  Children who no longer have a dad.  It breaks my heart.

And what I am going to take from all of this is perspective.  After dinner I went into my son's room on my way to give him a bath and saw the bright blue marker all over the cream-colored carpet and it didn't matter.  It's just carpet. 
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