Reflections of a Wife, Mom & Weightloss Surgery Patient!

What you do and don't do to manage your life does not only affect you. It affects everyone around you!- Author Elizabeth George

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Mother's Day Weekend 2013

Friday, May  10th in 1998 was just another day for me & my family. Nothing special or extraordinary, another day to be crossed off on the calendar. In 1999 just shortly after the world grieved the death of Princess Diana, my world fell apart as I grieved the death of our families Princess; my mom.

I never really thought of my mom as a princess until I began scanning pictures of my mom on  May 10th, the anniversary of her death, to try & focus on some positive memories rather than the intense pain I felt welling up inside my heart. Pain this intense is often very physical for me as well as emotional. In the beginning, I often thought I was having a heart attack it hurt so much!! So as I scanned the photo's, I ran across this picture:


As I laid on the bed snuggling with the boys after Korbbie got home from school, I showed them the pictures of my mom. At first Korbin reminded me of how much Konnor looked like my mom in this picture (above).
 
Then Korb said, " I think Mamaw Cann looks like a princess". My mom's love for people and random acts of kindness definitely made her the Princess Di of Downriver, so I would accept that!!

It is hard to believe that 14 years has slipped through my fingers like granules of sand. It has gone to fast! It is hard to believe that Rod & I have been married 10 years this August, that Korbin will be 9 in November, that Konnor will be going to Preschool this fall and that I am a stay-at-home mom. All things my mom has missed.

Rod called from work one day last week, and asked me if I was free to go out on a date that Friday. It was sweet that he asked the way he use to when we first began dating 12 years ago and that he was determined to help me not to cry for three days ( from the 10th thru mother's day on the 12th) which has been the norm for many years. He said he had found a funny movie and wanted to know if I was available??? I called our babysitter & arranged to pick her up. Because of how the day had gone, with my Mamaw Collins being in the hospital all week and due to going to the hospital and going to sports/practices the house had been let go. On top of it all, the traffic was a nightmare. I am lucky because Rach knows I am generally late picking her up and she does not get alarmed if I am a few minutes ( or hours) late. We went to the movie first, and shared a tub of ooey-gooey-buttery popcorn and laughed for almost two hours. Just what I needed!!

I kicked my shoes off in the darkness of theater and propped my legs up on top of Rod's as he made a funny face then grabbed my hand to tell me he was teasing. Just as I began to relax a bit, one of the lead actresses filled the screen in a purple 70's style dress and I felt as if the wind had just been knocked out of me!!


The actress looked almost identical as the picture I had scanned of my mom earlier in the day wearing this dress, except she was age appropriate to the age my mom would have been if she were alive today;  58. The reality of someone appearing so similar to what I imagined my mom would like if she would have lived & wearing a dress similar to the one I had seen my mom wear in this photo earlier in the day, took my breathe away!! Its a good thing it was dark in the theatre because I would have scared Rod with how pale I knew I had become as the tears streamed down my face. "I HATE THIS," I screamed inside my mind!!

"I can not even watch a simple movie without seeing her! When I want to see her, I can't! But when I do not want to see her my mind &memories are flooded with her images!" I was angry with myself for feeling like this and annoyed that I was going to ruin our date night Rod has worked to hard to arrange in addition to them being few & far between during sports seasons. I was thankful that at just that particular moment something funny happened in the movie and the entire theatre erupted into laughter.

After a fabulous steak dinner at Outback, our date night had come to an end, and Rod went to take Rach back to her dad's in Brownstown, 20 minutes away. I was thankful for the 20 minutes alone to get my thoughts together and equally as thankful that Rach managed the impossible & got Kon to sleep. That was a well needed and welcomed break; fighting with him over bedtime. As I went to changed from my flirty shirt into my comfy sweats ( the joy's of marriage!) I found this picture laying innocently on my bed.

 
 
 
Almost as if my mom had come into my bedroom to kiss me good night as she has done a thousand times before and that I had taken for granted all of those times. Tonight, I would not take even the thought for granted...
 
I missed my moms hugs & kisses, even as a 35 year old woman.
 
Saturday, was an action packed day which began at 2am with Konnor wobbling down the hallway saying his tummy hurt, then suddenly the hard wood floor covered with the remainder of his
 undigested dinner. The smell was pungent and the look was fowl even with unfocused eyes of an overtired mommy. Rod sprung to life to help clean up before the smell over took the adjacent rooms which would lead to further cleaning if the smell continued to permeate the air.
 
Finally at something after 3, everything had been cleaned without further incident and Daddy was headed to the couch with his pillow & blanket while Kon was cuddled up next to me with his "uh-ah" and a prayer that I would not wake up covered in something gross. The morning came all too early with a plop on my bed by a bright eyed 8 year old whose request for breakfast with thankfully something simple: Donuts.
 
Rod pulled on a ball cap and his tennis shoes without socks, which completely grosses me out and crabbed his eyes to head to one of the few donut stores we use. Despite the fact that Korb has a peanut allergy and donuts are a biggie on the NO NO list, before we knew he has this allergy we had always gone to this particular donut store and never had a problem ( THANK YOU,JESUS!) so the dr who initially tested Korbin told us if it is not broken, do not fix it. Since we are regulars; once every 6 or 8 week regulars, the Saturday morning girls typically know our requests about washing hands and grabbing the wax paper from a new box, and grabbing a donut box & donuts from the back to name a few we feel as comfortable as we can anytime we take the chance to eat in anyone's kitchen that is not mine.
 
Not even to the stop sign at the end of our street, Rod heard the most horrific sound coming from underneath our car to find out that the muffler had fallen off the car!! Thankfully there is a muffler repair shop about 5 blocks away and they were open on Saturday. After Rod returned home he got into his work car and ran to the donut store then he returned home and took the other car to the muffler repair shop. At this point, it was midmorning and our dream of a stress free day was long gone. With both soccer & baseball games that day, is was already busy enough. And by midafternoon, the wind had picked up and the rain threatened the sky but I was content believing it would hold off until after 8 or 9. BOY, WAS I WRONG!!
 
Minutes into the first inning of the 6:30 baseball game, Korbin and his teammates and their spectators were drenched. Thankfully, the young umpire had the wisdom  to call the game in the 4th inning, even with the score being 0-0, no one care except getting packed up &dry quickly. Then my amazing guys, after getting cleaned up & dried off, were off to do some mothers day shopping. My wonderful husband works so hard to make the day nice for me, knowing how painful it is. I can honestly say, he has never disappointment me!!
 
Over the years, I have worked hard on separating my emotion of grieving on mothers day and celebrating the blessing God has given to me by allowing me to be a mother myself. As I get older, I get better at doing it. Especially with the 10th and Mothers Day are on separate days.
 
I got to take my annual mothers day nap and we also took our annual mothers day trip for ice cream. I look forward to these "annual" events and the new surprise Rod & the boys think/dream up for me! Rod works hard to try & impress upon the boys to honor and respect me and I adore that about him because it makes my job easy to help them understand how to treat a girl/lady when their dad puts it into practice. I am not putting Rod upon a pedestal, there are lots of area's he ( and each of us, I dare say) have to work on.
 
I am not now, nor have I ever been trying to act pretentious when I say in public how wonderful my husband is and in private we have our disagreements, which I typically only let a select few know about, but it is in attempt to look past his faults and encourage him in the manor that he understands/ responds too. If you do not know your spouses love language then I encourage you to read the book, the  5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman. It has really helped me understand in a different manor how to show my love & respect to my husband. 
 
My husband & I are far from having the perfect marriage but we try hard each day to love each other & try  to treat each other well. Sad to say, we both often fail. The nice thing about our relationship is that we do not have on rose colored glasses about how relationship or love. We know it is not always fun, pretty or happy. There are days when our commitment to our marriage & our family has far exceeded our "love" for each other that day. On those days & times, it has been to have those people in our lives who have encouraged us to stay strong rather than those who throw up their hands and tell us to "end it all & get it over with".
 
God has really challenged my heart who I confide in with my "ugly" moments. "Anyone can handle the pretty stuff," and article I recently read was saying " But only certain people can handle the ugly moments. Everyone has them, and if someone says that don't, then they are lying. Either to you, themselves or both". I honestly, try not to hide my ugly moments, which sometimes puts people off. But I have found that so much growth comes from those ugly moments, and if someone can learn from my pain rather than experience it for themselves, wouldn't that make more sense?? Not everyone needs to break their arm or leg to know that it hurts and take along time to heal, right?!?!?!
 
Rod handles my pretty moments, ugly moments and all those moments in between. Despite our ups & downs, and a million other emotions Rod has never left me. So many people have claimed that they would be around forever, but when push came to shove, for one reason or another they have left. Rod has never left. Ever. Even when he could lay the blame of this, that or the other thing at my feet & walk away, he never has. It takes a strong person to do that. I hope at the end of the day, I am equally as strong for him as he is for me, even during his "ugly" moments.
 
Mother's Day week-end, May 10th and those days in between are always so insightful for me! They are so painful, yet they help me to realize what blessings I have & how short life really is. God gives us pain for a reason but often takes us several of lives season to see why!
 
I hope you had a amazing Mother's Day Week-End!!
 
~Kristy~
 
 




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