grief, loss, acceptance and love.

i spent two weeks on vacation this summer with my two little men. me. a single mama, thought it would be a good idea to embark on an ambitious itinerary that involved multiple states, plane flights, stays at friends and families houses, long car rides, and a hotel stay. did i mention i have 4 & 6 year old boys? yep. crazy town. on top of that, it was an emotionally charged trip in so many ways. one of the legs of the trip was to see my friends megan's family.  

a little over two years ago, i lost my childhood friend to cancer. we grew up the best of buddies and although, as we grew older, our lives took us in different directions and locations, we stayed close. it's funny how friends that have been a part of your life for so long transition, without you even realizing into family. that was my megs. a common love of theater is what brought us together as kids, and even though we both changed and grew in so many different ways, we loved one another the way sisters would and loved each other through the best and the worst of times. 

at the same time my friend was losing her battle with melanoma, i had lost my marriage. it was an unbearable time of life for me. the loss of it all was, at times, suffocating. i remember the calls from her husband and mom the day we lost her like a movie that you have watched so many times, you can recite it word-for-word. just thinking of that night causes me to catch my breath. it plays, at times, in my head on a loop....as if it will somehow all feel real at some point. she is gone. 

the trip was an opportunity for me to fulfill my promise to my friend that our children would know each other as they grew, but also a quest for me to find some closure and peace in her passing..... it had all happened so suddenly and in the midst of my own grief and processing of my own marriage failing. although I flew to be there for the funeral, I never had been back in their home. i went to the funeral and then tucked away that grief in a corner of my mind for a day when I was ready. when I could give it the attention and respect that it deserved. 

it has been said that the difference between what you want or need and what you fear is sometimes the width of an eyelash. i wanted to go back to her home. i wanted to spend time with her wonderful legacy of a family she had left....but it was scary. it was real. 

at first it was hard. everything seemed just as she had left it. it was as if she was going to walk in the door at any moment and the whole thing was just one awful bad dream. but it was was so real. she was gone. she wasn't coming back. i sought out ways to help. i wanted to support my friend by being there for her husband and kids. despite my own intense grief, i tried to be present for each moment. it was hard being there, occupying my dead best friends life. experiencing things that she should be there experiencing. i was surprised by the guilt I felt. that I was alive and she was not to be able to experience all of these moments. there were so many wonderful memories that i will treasure forever: experiences like going to the pool together, introducing the kids to movies her and i had watched together as kids, water fights, lip syncing with her sweet daughter, building forts, painting nails, painting rocks to bring to her gravesite and her sweet little girl picking out matching outfits for us to wear.

i left that trip with a sense of calm. these unbelievably amazing little kiddos are such a perfect reflection of her and although megs is gone, she is living on through them in so many ways. the people that love them and her are keeping her alive through stories and pictures and memory-making moments, like the few i was able to share with them. i know that even though megan isn't able to be psysically able to be there, she has an amazing front row seat to all the action from heaven. i look forward to many more memory-making moments ahead.

in a two week vacation with the littles, i learned a lot. i grew as a person. i accepted realities and have moved through them. i bit off a lot when i decided to take on a trip of this magnitude solo....but i pushed past my fear and i did it! was it perfect? nope. were there some bumps in the road? certainly. but we did it. and *that* is a huge accomplishment....a major turning point, in my book of life. 

leaving a legacy

when i came back from her funeral, my lilies had just started to bloom. they were extremely late bloomers this year. i like to think it was on purpose. 

we have been blogging for a little over two years now. in that time, we have shared our experiences as we have lost friends to cancer. each friend taught us something and left a permanent imprint on our lives. my first sweet friend was lost in august of 2011. if you haven't read about leslie, she was honored in "the dreaded phone call." she left behind her amazing husband and two grown kids and managed to live to see her first grand baby. our second friend was lost in january of 2012. her story inspired "the art of being remembered." megan left behind her husband and two small children. this month, we lost our third beautiful friend to cancer. words cannot express the sadness that has come with the loss of each person but we have gained so much from each of their lives. each one of them has left an impression on us that will never be forgotten and a legacy that they are passing on to those left behind.

when i think of my friend, lara, i cannot help but be grateful for the time i knew her. we moved into our neighborhood very near to the time when her cancer was diagnosed. our now rising 1st graders grew up together. i have watched her fight through her disease. through it all, she left a beautiful legacy, a heritage for those who knew her and for her sweet daughter. when i think of lara, these are the lovely things i will remember.

she left a legacy of family. she loved her family. in a society where spouses are quick to diminish one another in the company of others, she stood out. she publicly praised and honored her husband. she was so thankful for him, for his love, for his care, for his friendship. she built up her husband and he adored her. she modeled a loving marriage for her daughter. that is a gift her sweet girl will carry with her forever. lara took time to invest in and bond with her sister, her best friend. she took time to relish in the relationships with her parents. most of all, she loved her little girl. even on days when she was not feeling well, she invested in the life of her daughter. she was there, smiling as her girl stepped off the school bus. she loved on her, created memories with her, and exemplified what a mother can be. lara recognized that her time was limited but i don't believe that is why she cherished her daughter, her husband, her sister, and her parents. that's just who she was.

she left a legacy of friendship. lara was a true friend and she inspired others around her to become better friends to others. she could make you laugh even in the midst of a horrible day. when i stepped on a school bus to yell at some screaming children (yep, i'm *that* mom), she publicly had my back and cheered me on. when our kids were in preschool and my son insisted on staying behind to clean the sinks in the bathroom because that's what's expected at home (once again...i'm *that* mom too), she praised me to others. she had just enough snark to make things interesting and to keep people laughing. she inspired a neighborhood full of women to become "supporting sisters" and secretly leave her gifts once a week. over the course of two years, there were 35 neighbors and close to 10 women from the preschool who brought her gifts. it takes an amazing friend to inspire that kind of love from others. 

she left a legacy of fortitude. i think this is true of almost anyone fighting cancer. they are the bravest, strongest, most resilient people i have ever known. she outlived and outfought the doctor's time frames. she went through countless medications and countless treatments with such grace and such courage. she fought for time, time with her husband, time with her daughter, time with her family and friends. i am so thankful for her strength. because she fought, we were all given more time with her, more memories. because of her strength and many answered prayers, her daughter has years of memories to take with her. 

she left a legacy of faith. even when things were hard, lara went to church and she brought her daughter. her little girl knew about heaven and when her mommy went there, she understood some about that amazing place. lara knew how important faith would be in her little girl's life and she planted those seeds in her daughter that will grow as years go by. what a gift that is.

when all the dust settles and all the emotions align themselves in my mind, one thing keeps resurfacing...gratitude. i am so grateful. i am grateful to have known lara and leslie. heather is grateful to have known megan. we are grateful for the time we had with each of them. we are grateful that they each left such amazing legacies for their children. their kids have a heritage of faith, of love, of strength and of laughter. we are grateful for what their lives and their deaths have taught us. we are grateful that all of their pain is over. we are inspired to leave a lasting legacy of our own. we are grateful.

my life in quilts

my grandmother used to quilt. she didn't really become serious about the art until my brother and i left for college. at that point, the time she used to spend with us she turned into time spent creating things for us as well as writing to us. my college years are punctuated by letters from my grandmother which came religiously, one every week for four years and by quilts, one for each of the stages of my life.

i traveled in a group in college and my grandmother made quilts for each one of us. we called them quillows as they were quilts that could be folded into pillows. she made ten of them in the course of three months so we would have something to sleep on during our long road trips.

she made me a picnic blanket quilt out of my grandpas old shirts. i think she was planning on many a romantic date for me and my potential suitors. she prayed for me everyday and knew i was going to meet my mr. right. word of her fervent prayers spread and my closest girlfriends started putting in prayer requests for my grandmother to pray for them to meet husbands of their own. (my friends are all happily married, by the way.)

when i finished college and was working and living on my own, she made me a lap quilt to keep me warm on nights alone in my apartment. i think she figured that if i was alone, at least i could be surrounded by something lovely.

her wedding gift to me was a quilt for me and my husband to share. she embroidered our names in one quilt square and then sewed, "love, grandma." it is still on our bed today.

when my first son was born, her baby shower gift was a little baby quilt for my first little boy. i had no idea how much my son would love that quilt but to this day, he sleeps with two blankets, one that was crocheted by my a girlfriend and the quilt that was sewn by my grandmother. he's now eight and still sleeps with it every night.

when my baby girl was born, i got another quilt. she was thrilled to have a great-granddaughter. after four great-grandsons, a great-granddaughter was something precious. it was the only time my grandmother got to use pink fabric. she has 8 great-grandsons...only one great-granddaughter.

when my third baby was born, i got the last quilt from my grandmother. he was born on the day my uncle, my grandma's only son, was found dead in his bed. it was also right around this time that my grandpa, who was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis and had been given between three and five years to live, started to have his health decline. they had been married since 1943 and somehow, the two tragedies took all of the living out of her.

now she has been diagnosed with dementia. she doesn't remember me well and my kids are all strangers to her. she calls me, "the one with all the kids" because she can't remember my name. the last time i spoke with her, she said, "well, my husband sure liked you." i told her, "well, grandma, i sure loved grandpa too." she remembered that we knew each other but our relationship escaped her...except the part that we loved each other.

so now as i wash and fold each of my quilts, i feel surrounded by the love in them...the love that went into making them and the love that goes into the use of them. my kids will never remember my grandmother as i do but they'll have pieces of her in the patchwork of those quilts, her words of wisdom passed on through me, her recipes for fried chicken and texas chili and the prayers she prayed for my kids before they were even a possibility.

as i look at those quilts i am left wondering, what can i pass on to those who will never know me? what kind of tangible legacy can i pass on? if my legacy is only half as sweet as the one left by my grandmother, i will be happy. what love legacies are you creating?