I could honestly say that when my sister and I get together nothing but trouble is going to happen. It's not that we have too many childhood stories of mischief to share, truth be told we spent the majority of our lives living in different homes, raised by very different parents, and experienced very different childhoods where the stories only rarely overlapped one another. At the same time we are sisters after all, and sisters well, sisters are just born with a bond.

As different as our lives have been we have always been able to find common ground. Even after some pretty big fights that lasted perhaps a little too long, we have always been able to make peace and come out of it laughing. I sometimes think that the ability to find laughter in pain, is what has gotten us this far. So when my Birds were born it was only natural that they too loved her just as much (if not more) than I do. The bond that I seem to have with my sister only seems stronger between them. Which is weird when you think about how little time they have been able to share together. In fact we haven't lived in the same town since my children we're born...I think maybe even longer.

Yet if you were to spend any given moment with us you would think that my sister Hedder lives right next door. It's not easy knowing that we're going to be so far apart again in just a few more months. It's even harder knowing that she is at a point in her life where huge growth and change is going to start happening and there is a very good chance I won't be around for most of it. Sure I'll make a point to be there when I can and I know she will too, but that's just not the same now is it?

However there is always some relief in knowing that when I do see her it will be as if we had never been apart and that just as when we were little kids growing up two very different ways we'll still always have a good laugh just around the corner.

This has been on my computer screen for the last few days. It has really been the only thing I have seen. It can be overwhelming the amount of work that goes into saying good-bye to a loved one. It's even harder I think when that someone was a person you respected and whose family you truly do not want to let down. And I only had one thing to do..so I can only imagine what everyone else must be feeling.
Now let me make it clear to anyone who might remotely be related to me and is reading this post that I am in no way complaining about being asked to make something for the family to remember this time. In fact I was honored. Yet, when I sat down and found out that everyone put their faith in me, I got scared. I feared so much that I would let everyone down. That it wouldn't be good enough, that I wouldn't be able to give them what I know they had in the their hearts. I was afraid. But for them, for her, I was going to do it. There are a lot of things that are going to happen this week that I have to tell you all, I would truly only do for this family.

1:) I will once again be reciting the Rosary......this has not happened in many, many *coughs* many years.

2:) I will be attending Mass....to know how long its been since I have been a part of Mass refer to post 1.

3:) I am thinking but have not yet decided if I will take part in the Eucharist. I lean towards not doing so since I have not a:) done so in many years, b:) gone to confession, and c:) am still battling my place in faith....which technically means I shouldn't/can't participate.

4:) I'm going to wear heels....this one doesn't seem so important next to rest but still I thought I would include it if for no other reason than for you all to relate to my pain.

The truth is for every second that I sat in front of this computer looking at the same images, and writing the same things over again I was filled with happiness. Happiness that I have been allowed to be part of this family, apart of Mrs. S's (try saying that out loud) life, if only for a moment. I'm happy that in this moment of sorrow I was not only able to help but had family there to fully believe I was capable of doing so.
To all of you who read this and I will see soon I want to say to you, I love you.

Do you ever just feel like a broken down tree? A feeling that you have weathered all the storms there could possibly be and still stood strong. That you have stood while so many of your brethren have fallin?
Oh man, today I felt like this tree. Like everything I tried to do fought against me, tired, worn down, and even a little broken but still I let my roots hold tight. It is so easy for me to sink into a world of "could have, should have, woulda been, if only." and it takes all of my strength to not fall. Everything I had planned today, scheduled day did not go as planned. From meetings with family, to school conferences, picking up my dad at the hospital, getting dinner, making it to Staples, editing, editing, editing, all with a small little voice in the back of my head whispering "don't fuck up. They're depending on you. Oops you missed that. Fix this."  I'm ready for a hug, and in five more weeks I'll get it.

I do not, can not, never have, maybe I don't wanna believe i'm beautiful. I could stand before you and deliver a thousand different reason why I think I believed that I could never be beautiful and all the reasons I believe/d that I'm not. But I'm not sure any of those reasons would matter. At some point in time they would all involve the blame of someone/something other than me. In fact for me I never understood the desire or the need some of us women have to feel beautiful...that was until someone made me feel beautiful for the first time.
I met my husband by chance on a very cold February night. It was one night and then I moved on about my life thinking that this person who I truly thought was wonderful would never be seen by my eyes again and more than likely would not remember my name when he woke up in the morning. So I went back home that Sunday. Went back about my life, my college, my work, my entire existence. A day went by, then two,then three and the boy I had met in the small coffee shop had simply become a memory of a once upon a time for me. Until I got an email that ended with just five words. "I think you're amazingly beautiful." I had, had boyfriends, I had been hit on (often) but never before that moment had anyone ever said to me "You are beautiful." Sexy, Hot, Fine, and Gorgeous, but never beautiful. It should have sunk into me with those five words and all those days of his deep love how beautiful I was to him but truth be told it never did. Then

she was born. I had never in my life seen anything/anyone so beautiful.

and then she was born and I had never seen anything/anyone in my life so beautiful.
Then today while my children played around the park and other children flocked together like birds and slowly made themselves into their own civilization a woman said to me
"My goodness your children are beautiful."
and I replied
"Thank you, I wish I could take the credit."
and she replied
"Well of course you can. You're their mother aren't you. Where else would they get it?"
and that was that. I smiled and for a moment had no idea how someone is suppose to respond to that. Truth is I didn't. I just smiled and moments later when the kid's games were done, we left. On the drive home we drank hot chocolates and my Birds sang to their music and I thought to myself, perhaps beauty is not something we can be but rather something that just is.

It's so common when someone passes on that we hear words like "truly missed" and "Gone to soon" pass over the mouths of loved ones and as if they are reading from a book someone will whisper next "The world just won't be the same". Too often as a natural need to find peace we take a person and turn them into something they weren't and place them up so high on a pedestal that no one could ever really reach.
Truth is we lie.
This weekend Mrs. S passed on. Grandma Schille was all of those things we tell ourselves a person can never be, and yet she was. Or at least she was all of those things to me. Grandma Schille was by far the most welcoming person I met when I became a member of the Sgt's family, not that anyone was unwelcoming, but Mrs. S, she could fill you with the feeling of warm apple pies, and soft blankets. You got the feeling that just by being near her you were better off in the world than you had been before.
But she didn't leave this earth too soon. In fact this earth kept her much longer than I think was fair. 100 years on this earth is enough if you ask me. But even when the time is right and the notice is not all that much of a surprise there is still something inside of you that just wants to cry.
Mrs. S was loved and she so dearly loved in return.
I could tell you the facts of her life. 13 kids, 40 something grandkids, almost 50 greatgrandkinds and I think just recently she even became a great great grandma....but then I've never been able to keep all the people in this family straight so don't quote me on that. Out lived her husband, out lived her memories and her stories.
I could tell you how she loved to laugh and smile even after she had lost all ability to really communicate. How she knew a good joke when she heard it. That she loved a cold beer on a hot day, a cold day, a mild weather day.
I could tell you how she gave the best hugs, even when she became weak and felt almost breakable to the touch her hugs were still something to be admired. How her eyes always met yours to say hello and how she ALWAYS said hello. Long after her mind had given in to age and she couldn't remember who you were she would still offer you up a hug and a hello. I could tell you how even at the age of 98 she was willing to play with her great grandkids and never once complained about ANYTHING. How even recently when the Birds would visit her and she had no idea who we were she would still want them close to her.
Oh man I could tell you so many things that made this woman great, maybe not perfect, definitely not a saint, but great. Truly great.
And even though I could tell you all those things and I know you would so very much be willing to listen, I don't want to. I only want you to know that when she closed her eyes on Friday night and went to sleep with maybe dreams of love and family filling her head, she didn't wake up here with us, but rather she woke up to find herself in the one place where love truly is all around and for that I am truly happy.

I suppose that it may be just a little foolish of me to hand over my over priced camera to a five year old and just trust that she won't break it but at the same time if I didn't do that I wouldn't get photos like this one.
I'm not entirely sure what she was trying to take a picture of or if indeed she really did intend to photograph herself in the mirror with a soft focus. I have come to accept that nothing that Little Bird does is by chance. That somewhere in that head of hers she has a whole plan for this world just sitting and waiting until she reaches a moment where she wants to put that plan into motion.
Maybe she already has and this photograph is just part of it.

You know that saying "What do you get someone who has everything?" well my question is "What can you teach someone who seems to know everything?" Big Bird has been ahead of the game her whole life. She is wickedly smart and even more wickedly honest. These are things that I love so much about her but they are also the two hardest things to work with. When she started taking guitar lessons I didn't think she'd stick with it. She's always been more of the math and science type of girl. Sure she liked to color but Big Bird has never been able to color "freely" coloring outside lines is not something she can fully comprehend. To her she thinks "Why would anyone want to color outside the lines?" instead of thinking to herself "Wow this color would look so nice over here instead."  And to me music is nothing but coloring outside the lines. Taking it from the heart instead of the head. But as she always does Big Bird surprised me and fell in love with the guitar. Though as most things I think she may take it a little to seriously and I find myself having to tell her to relax, just have fun, you're learning, it takes time, I also find myself once again saying "Damn it, is there nothing she can't do."

To really understand what I mean I am going to have to tell you about the time she left my husband and I speechless for a good full day. Or rather the first time because it certainly wasn't the last time. At our very first duty station there was a BX that had a very large satellite on top of it and neither my husband nor I really paid much attention to it because it really wasn't something you would pay attention too. That is until the day that we were walking hand in hand with Big Bird playing airplane and counting to three before lifting her up off the ground, her feet to fly in the air and then come back down with soft words of "Again, Again." to follow.  Then out of the blue instead of "Again, again." Big Bird said very plainly and matter of fact. "Mama that's a satellite receiver. It gets information from a big satellite that is up in space. What do you think they are receiving right now?"
She was not yet three. I told her I didn't know, I had never thought about it...which come to think about it is often my response to her questions as it seems more and more as she gets older her questions have only gotten harder and more obscure. And I have even less of an answer for her now than I did then. So my question is...What do you teach your child when they seem to already be smarter than you?

Tomorrow I think I may take a mental health day. I may get coffee, a bagel, and my camera, drive up to the middle of nowhere with Monster Dog and see what happens. It's not that today was busy or overwhelming. It's not that things haven't been going well. It's more that the reality that life is changing is sinking in. More of the reality that the things we change can not be unchanged. And for the most part it is the reality that I would rather spend the day in bed under the covers all by myself than to bother to get dress, get in my car and make the effort to do something. And I hate realizing that....because the moment you understand that it is not a lack of finding things to do that is stopping you but rather the lack of even trying to find them, is the moment you have no more excuses to stop looking.

This weekend I was sort of wickedly busy doing things on my to do list. You know that ridiculous list that we all make inside our heads and we tell ourselves that we have to get them done by a certain day or the world is going to end....no you don't have that list? Hmmm well I totally have that list. In fact it was so busy that the Birds got a little left out of the picture for the most part. Okay that's a lie they were completely and utterly left out of the picture to the point where I may or may not have forgotten I had children for a few hours.

And so when Sunday rolled around and I found myself knee deep in sawdust and covered in paint I stopped, turned around, and said lets go get cupcakes and haircuts. There's a small chance I asked for a strong drink and a good sandwich first but the point is that we ended up at Starbucks for cupcakes, and hot chocolate, and an hour later haircuts...for them...not me......I don't take my Birds to hair cuts with me....because I would end up bald.

Surprisingly they got along very well at Starbucks. I mean they are never "Bad" in public but this day they were really really.....really wonderful. I don't know if it was that they were just starved for Mama time, that they didn't  think about being stinkers to eachother or if maybe there was just something in the air, I just know that they were wonderful. I really loved the day.

and they really loved their haircuts...even if Little Bird didn't like the idea of me taking a picture of her in the "girly" hair salon.