My standards and expectations for me are so different from my standards and expectations for others.  Is that normal?  I've been told on more than one occasion that I don't seem to look at the world like the "normal" person does.  I'm not sure what to make of that... it's not a compliment, it's not a slam... I'm really not even sure what the difference is.  If I'm not seeing things like everyone else is, how much am I misunderstanding that's happening around me?  Deep thoughts.  
Back to it.  Today, my deep thought was how much I despise personal weakness.  I expect and find little to no fault with other's weaknesses, but I despise it in myself.  I don't want to share the things that make me stumble.  I don't want to fall apart of someone else.  I don't even want to lean.  I'm fairly certain those traits existed pre-loss.  I know for a fact that they're amplified post-loss.  
I don't want to show that there's something I can't handle for so many reasons.  1- I know most situations could be worse.  2- I don't want to give the enemy an opening.  3- I don't want an audience to the demise.  4- I don't want to look invested in a failure.  
I don't want to fall apart on someone else.  Everyone is fighting their own battles.  I tend to believe that my problems aren't necessarily worthy of someone else's time or mental energy.  Let's face it, I've stood in places where real problems existed.  My insecurity, fear, or inconvenience is not a "real" problem.  I don't ever believe that someone could actually be interested in the goo that passes through my head on a normal day.  Maybe that's what counselors are for.  I'm not really feeling that either.  Plus, I don't want to fall apart. Falling apart implies that something isn't healed yet, when the reality is that some things just don't.  Showing all this to someone else involves others in the piece of history that I may not want to taint them with.  It also displays that there might be some weakness I still have.  I'm not afraid to cry, but I don't think it accomplishes much.  What's done is done.  Tears didn't help then and they won't help much now. (On that note, I now hate anything in my life that leads to tears.  Movies, people, situations I could've avoided.  Hate hate.  Set on fire, hate.  Hate myself for allowing it to get there, hate.)
I don't want to lean.  This isn't new.  It's not even necessarily true.  I love leaning... but I have leaned before.  My leaning now is so selective.  I am so stinking gun-shy of leaning that it's embarrassing.  I seriously won't ask for something unless I'm almost positive the answer is going to be yes.  I don't want it to appear that I was in need.  I hate the idea that there are items in my life that I need help with.  I hate that I'm closed off in some regards. I hate that juggling has to take place.  I hate feeling like I'm standing in the field alone at times.  My parents are crazy rocks.  They pitch in and run kids and make meals and check schedules.  It's not stinking fair.  I guess the good thing is that it's not right, but it's okay.  It's all working out.  It's all getting done.  It's all taken care of.  Help is in place.  My children don't seem to see the cracks.  It's not the envisioned picture though.  No where was this the plan.  Leaning sucks.  The fear though... that might be worse.  
So, we're three years out.   Three.  Dreams are still haunted.  Life is moving on.  Legacies are still intact.  Headstones are finally being dealt with.  That damn headstone.  The only task that wasn't knocked out in the first 48 hours... the only one I could put off.  It's time now.  Gross.  You know, talking to your kids about cemetery plots and headstones isn't discussed in the baby books.  Dark humor with Mommy!! 
Three years.  Smells are fading.  Voices are fading.  Hallucinations are gone.  A lot of defiance has crept in.  Cognitive effort has to be made to think about reactions now.  Anger shows up every now and then at what he's missing.  Knowledge is rooted in God having a plan and there being no accidents.  A boyfriend who presents a calm voice of reason and a position of honoring is something unexpected.  Children who seem to be flourishing in their environment, don't use their loss as a crutch, remain real and kind and free... It's so much more than I could hope for.  
So, I sit at the three year mark asking myself what I want.  I want to feel loved.  I want stability.  I want to be surrounded by people that see the good and seek to grow it.  I want big-picture vision.  I want to be in sync with another and know that we're working for the same things.  I know that respect for pasts and vision for future is essential.  I'm terrified of falling... not as terrified as I am of not trying though.  I feel rushed to find answers.  I feel like it's imperative that I know what grounds me though and that I don't look to anyone to fulfill that.  I'd love to lean on someone, but I also know how incredibly hard it was to realize I couldn't lean on Aaron and I don't want to be there again.  Sounds kinda lonely when I look at it in print.  

Birthdays & me.  Does anyone else find the birthDAY to be a lot of pressure?  In my family, we celebrate birthdays for a week.  Nothing big; just little perks all through a week.  I feel like people think we're crazy, but it's perfect for me.  Celebrating just a birthDAY freaks me out.  Not because I'm getting older {yet}, but more the spotlight of it, the pressure of squeezing what I can out of that one day, and the memory of a pretty traumatic one.  A couple years ago, I decided to celebrate my birthday with a massage party {don't be dirty :)!}.  We had a family friend who is a masseuse to come over and give massages.  What I didn't factor in was the tremendous amount of pressure that I was actively functioning under and that this massage was going to break down every barrier I had built.  What I didn't foresee was the torrential floodgates that were going to fly open in the moments and days afterwards.  I fell to pieces.  It didn't help that my husband's health was deteriorating at a rate I couldn't even fathom.  I remember breaking when they went to sing me happy birthday and he left the chair for the first time in days to try to come out and sing to me.  This memory dominates my birthday.  I thought this year would be different.  God has ushered someone new into my life.  I have truly felt like God opened doors and anointed timing and prepared the place I'm at right now.  In spite of all that, I still slipped right into the melancholy and have now spent a solid thirty hours feeling like my life exists on eggshells.  I'm not sure if I'm reading into things or if a division has actually begun.  I should probably shut down completely to just keep from doing further damage.  The positive?  I guess I'm seeing that my safety net is, infact, imaginary.  What a vulnerable place to be.  I guess it's healthy.  I think it's a good thing.  I'm not sure I like it.  I feel very much like standing out here in the open is the scariest thing I've attempted in awhile and I'd very much like to hide, but I don't think I would be happy with that decision long-term. Instead, I'm trying to suppress the crazy so that I don't trip over myself.  

This morning, I was thinking about all the quirky weirdness that is me and talking to myself like a loon in the kitchen {as I do most mornings--don't tell} and started to muse about what things I wanted to accomplish with my kids this summer.  I don't know exactly what it is that makes me feel like I have to pull out all the stops to make these childhoods count.  Is it the living through loss?  The endless guilt-tripping posts on Pinterest?  The knowledge that my baby girl is TEN and baby boy SIX?  I don't know, but I DO know that we always make a "Summer Fun" list and it's time to pen it.  I was questioning my gal about it on the drive to school today and she said that making the list stresses her out, but she loves checking things off it.  Uh, what?!  This is supposed to be a fun activity and it stresses her?  Sigh.  You think you know a kid.  
My summer list?  I think I might try becoming a grown up this summer.  You know, waking up by 7:30 each day.  Showering before the last possible moment.  Sticking to a schedule of sorts.  Leaving the house before noon.  It's not that I think I've damaged my kids in some way by being an overgrown college student for them, but I'm a bit fearful that they need someone to model these responsible behaviors for them and I haven't.  It's not all bad.  I'd like to think that my children will learn from me that mistakes are often fixable, that rolling with the punches is a life skill, that embracing each moment has great value, that sometimes schedules need to be tossed out the window, that laughter and relaxation are keys to health.  
The beginning of this stream of thought was that the 2014-2015 school year has been a year of laziness for me.  Sloth like, napping, TV, PJs 'til noon laziness.  My son went to kindergarten this year and many people asked me what I was going to do with "all that time."  My answer?  "Nap."  I did too.  For two straight months, I dropped my kids at school, came home and slept 'til noon.  I am a girl who hates naps and I slept countless days away.  Yes, I know that is a sign of depression.  No, I don't think I'm depressed.  I talked to my good friend G about it and she said I was in a season of rest and to take it.  That these seasons don't come along all the time, but that I was due for a recharge.  I certainly took it.  Genius me then got a dog and my naps were ruined, but it's all good because I'm coming out of it.  Now I shop from my couch all morning and make plans that I'll likely not get to.  I have a basement that needs sorted and three bedrooms upstairs that need purged.  These are the "adult jobs" that I need to find some motivation for so that my children will see that their mother isn't a bum.  Ideally, I'll get to these tasks while they're at school so that I don't waste their precious childhood hours with me making them help me clean closets (but there's some value in that too :)).  
I guess I just remember my grandparents working on something all the time around the house-- being productive (they owned a funeral home so they didn't go to a job to work; being home was work).  
My parents are always doing something-- being productive.  
I used to be productive.  Aaron and I had tasks we'd check off the list.  I've basically lost that.  I go to work, I get the house clean, I make meals, but I am far less productive than I ever thought I'd be.  I just want to make sure that I'm teaching my kids how to contribute.  I'm fine with a "wasted" day (sometimes those are the most productive ones for our spirits), but I need to find a bit of my fire and demonstrate a couple more traits of a grown up.  Maybe I should make some secret goals for myself.... Like, next year, when my gal asks me what I did while she was at school, I should have more to say than just, "I showered."  {shaking head}  Sigh.  There's value in that too, right?  :) 

Finding purpose.  Finding focus.  Finding a path.  Defining who you are now.  How has what you've walked through changed you?  What do you do with it?
We are all the sum of our experiences and {hopefully} the things that touch our lives will work to give us perspective and empathy.  Maybe help us to be better people and learn to show love faster.  
I know in my case, I'm over two years out from my biggest tragedy and I don't know that I can say a lot has changed.  Yes, I've made enormous changes as far as what you can see from the outside, but I'm still lost.  Rudderless.  Void of direction.  You know how growing up a common discussion was where you might be in five years?  I can't tell you that anymore.  The whole process of planning has been destroyed for me by the experience of having my rug pulled out from under me.  All those plans I had left... walked out in a moment that haunts me daily.  I have this unrelenting urge to run and to live and to see and to embrace as much as I can.  To make the moments count.  But, I'm not sure that my actions line up with that urge.  I spend entirely too many days just going through the motions still.  I write to-do lists, but I just don't have the energy to put effort into tasks that don't mean much.  Is that laziness or simply the byproduct of knowing that the task really isn't going to feed my soul?  {We're talking tasks like sorting through boxes from the move so that I can find stuff-- this is an adult task.  Seriously, just get it done.}  I'm sure I sound like a loon when I tell people things like, "I don't like money to be the deciding factor in my decisions."  {This is an adult thought.  Come on.  It's reality.  Grow up, S.  Doesn't matter.  I don't like it.  Money isn't important anymore; just a necessary player in the game of life.}
I had this nightmare a couple nights ago that won't leave me.  It wasn't scary in the classic nightmare sense, but it chilled me to the bone.  In it, Aaron was there {as he is many of my dreams-- that's a post unto itself}. In the dream, he was walking away from me.  It was like he was alive and decided that separate lives would be better for both of us.  No anger, just a separation.  I was desperate to get to him and change his mind.  Convince him otherwise.  That same "togetherness" was between us.  I knew his soul in the dream and I knew he knew mine.  The hurt, the pain... and knowing that if I could just get to him and look in his eyes, it would all be back to normal.  I was haunted all day.  To the point that I was, for the first time since childhood, afraid to go back to sleep for fear that I'd be back in that place.  I remember telling my sweet friend after the worst days of my life that I wasn't ready for our story to be over.  This dream felt so much like it was.  I just can't handle that.  One of the most touching cards I received after Aaron's departure was from an acquaintance that must have seen Aaron and I out on occasion.  She wrote of the "connectedness" that she saw between the two of us.  I know his soul.  I still feel it, but, in spite of that, I'm so afraid that I'll regret not moving forward with my life and walking on.  I believe that I'll know what to do when it's time though.  But now what and how much time can I burn in the middle?  Desperate for Heaven. 

If there's one lesson that's been driven home over and over again, it is this: tragedy does not discriminate.  When Aaron received his diagnosis, of course we were devastated, but realized that if it wasn't him, it'd be someone else.  There is no discrimination.  This past week, my heart has been heavy for a friend of mine.  Her two daughters are my children's ages.  They live close.  Our eldest are in several of the same activities. We're the same age. What I love about her and her daughters is that they are so honest and upfront.  You know where you stand with them.  You know what they think.  I appreciate that.  Long story short, her husband passed away very unexpectedly last week.  Just didn't wake up.  Obviously, my heart broke for them... all of them.  I can't/couldn't get them out of my head.  They have been in every waking thought I've had.  Wondering where they are, what they're doing, how they're holding up.  If a certain thought has hit them yet.  If they've been able to sleep.  The list goes on and on.  Tragedy doesn't discriminate.  Thoughts keep running through my head, "A day ago...," "A week ago...," "A month ago...," "Three years ago..."  When I think about how quickly things can change, I'm stopped in my tracks.  I know one thing (for me at least), experiencing tragedy sure makes me lay the petty thoughts aside so much faster.  I'm not as hung up on the things that won't matter a day from now, a week from now, a month from now, three years from now.  I am thankful for that.  I also experience a lot of frustration at those who do get so wrapped up in the petty of life now.  I heard my friend say something as we waited in line at the visitation that I've said myself, "You don't realize how many people have been through this too until you do it.  It's like a club that I didn't want to join, but I find myself surrounded by others in."  No discrimination.  Enjoy your time.  Take care of yourself.  Do your best.  Make decisions that you can live with long-term.  Breathe through the bad.  Help others.  Stop judging.  Practice love.  Find God.  
Something that they told me in the hospital in those final days with Aaron that I hated them for then, but I almost get now was, "He'll always be with you."  I wanted to slap them.  I truly did.  I could visualize the claw marks from my vicious attack.  I didn't {of course}, but my mental life is much more colorful than my real one.  It kinda burns me to say they were right.  That may not be true for everyone, but it sure is for me.  I don't have illusions that Aaron is here with me.  I'm happy to report that he's safe and sound with Christ.  I do feel him though.  I hear his wisdom.  I see his smiles and frustrations.  I feel his touch.  I guess that's another way that death can't win.  If someone is in Christ, they never truly die.  I'm still keeping my angry eyes about the situation though.  Nothing feels right in my world with my compass gone.

The best I can do is bury my emotions.  I don't know that it's healthy.  I don't know that it's for the best.  My heart is just not in this.  I can exist, I can participate, I can laugh... I just can't overthink anything.  Too much is missing.  I get that most people don't get the love that I have {had}; I do, but those are just words.  I had it and it's gone.  What am I supposed to do with that?  How does one move forward from the loss of a love like that?  I still feel like a shattered fragment of what I once was if I allow myself to think about him not being here with me.  My soul hurts.  It's too much pain.  It's too much absence.  It's not fair.  He should be here.  His children should know him.  I should get to share this life with him.  He is {was} the definition of good-- across the board, no exceptions, good.  Broken.  Buried feelings, buried thoughts, bury it all.

And then it hits me that I am left with half of the family that I had 3 years ago today.  3 years ago today I was expecting my 3rd child and likely running my husband to and from work so that he could get a day in.  Not ideal, but still four people that counted on me.  Today, I sit with two.  Two wonderful, fun, vibrant, loving, hilarious, creative, faithful, trusting, honest, joyful, beautiful, perfectly healthy children.  Who count on me and love me.  I am so thankful and so broken all at once.  My son and I speak of the loss all the time.  He can't seem to get enough of discussing it.  The ins, outs, upside downs... they're all talked about.  He follows it up with, "Please don't cry, Momma."  He's not emotional about it often.  It just is fact.  I guess I'm happy that he's not in tears all the time, but how can I make his daddy as real to him as he is to me?  How can I make him understand how much his daddy loved him and prayed for him and wanted him.  How much Aaron wanted to be his daddy.  My baby girl too.  I can't imagine the pain she must feel and she's so completely quiet about it.  I just think over and over how this is going to be an event that is a constant part of their story.  It can't be the broken arm that you forgot you had because it heals.  I guess, deep down, I don't want it to be.  This broken moment stemmed from listening to David Crowder Band's "How He Loves".  God loves us.  LOVES us.  Sent a Son to die for us.  I believe that.  I believe this separation we're experiencing right now from my other half and that baby is temporary.  It's just a very real moment of my Father, up close and personal, seemingly taking something before He should.  Isn't that just like a small child, blaming the parent for doing something "horrible" when the child has no vision of the big picture?  
"So here I am, what's left of me, where Glory meets my suffering.  I'm alive, even though a part of me has died.  Take my heart and bring it back to life.  I fall into your arms open wide.  The hurt and the Healer collide." Mercy Me

I'm not good at this.  There are so many things that I'm supposed to be good at now.  I'm not.  I think about my Aaron all the time.  I can't begin to explain the strange feeling that I have.  I know that I know that he's fine.  I know that I'll see him again.  And, I guess somewhere, somehow I know that he's not with me now... but I don't actually believe that he's gone.  Does that make sense?  I don't know how else to explain it.  He's too real to not be here.  That's the closest I can come. 
I continued the move today by sorting books.  I came across a number that were about "Daddy loves me."  I sat with such confusion over how to handle those.  My kids need to know that Daddy loves them.  I feel like that's my duty to keep in front of them.  I have a duty and it seems some people in my children's circle don't feel like they share.  That's another battle.  He is so real and tangible to me that I feel like I must pass this along to our children.  I have to keep him here.  
I still relive those last days, moments, months... I can't escape them.  It is all I can do to keep them out of my mind so that I don't have to feel that pain again.  Things hurt badly enough, but I have to keep those memories of the unimaginable loss at bay so that I don't completely lose it.  I'm not positive that's the right decision, but it's all I can handle.  Part of me is completely cool with keeping this portion of me locked away.  I have a husband in Heaven who loves me with all that he is.  He is wonderful, faithful, funny, kind, loving, a hard worker, resourceful, thoughtful, aggravating, obsessive, inventive, smart, etc.  He loved(S) me.  We share one flesh.  I'm getting that now.  Like really getting it.  I remember our honeymoon flight, realizing that oneness we shared that hadn't existed before.  I suddenly depended on him and was with him for life in all of this.  I remember those moments at his bedside after a diagnosis, knowing this was me too.  And I feel it now.  I don't want to wish away this for that, but I'm all for a rapture.  My son asks me regularly to not let anything happen to me.  It tears me up.  God, protect me. Protect us.  I plead the blood of Jesus over all of us, our household, our nation.  Help, Lord. 

And then it was September.  I've written post after post in my mind this summer.  Happy things, sad things, hopeful things, mad things.  (I'm like Dr. Stinkin' Seuss).  We've built a house, we've taken trips, we've made memories, upheld traditions, tried to keep things healthy.  This morning, I was thinking about how having a spouse in Heaven has changed me.  Heaven used to feel like some far-off something.  Not anymore.  Not only do I long for Heaven in a way that I didn't before, I also feel such an assurance of its existence that I didn't have.  I truly do feel like part of me is already residing there and like the veil is so much closer than it ever was before.  My dear friend has told me on a couple of occasions that Aaron and I continue to join in prayer.  I like that thought.  Whether I can check in with my husband every day or not, I know him.  I know how he would feel about things, I know what his reactions would be, I know what he would say, how he would sit... I know him.  I don't pray to him, prayers are for God, but I do believe that my Aaron would be checking in on us as much as possible.  
I continue to think that it's really important that I don't lose myself in this earthly loss.  That those things that made me me and us us, stay the same.  It would so easy to go flying off the deep end and try to be someone new just to get away from who I have been-- the me that is only half now-- but that would be counter-productive.  You can only run from yourself for so long.  Plus (and I may have said this before), I don't want to lose entire months of my life.  I want my kids to know who I am, who their dad is, see stability.  That's my prize.  That's what I have to keep my eyes on.  When we lost Caleb, Aaron stepped up.  He was dad, mom, husband, breadwinner, everything.  I was a zombie.  For months.  I couldn't afford for that to happen again.  I've certainly had opportunities to check out for a bit at a time, but I think I have stayed present for my kids.  I haven't been perfect.  I've flown off the handle, I've cried at silly things, I've taken trips they didn't want me to take, and, I'm sure, much more.  But I've been present.  At the very least, I haven't been the train-wreck I could've been.  Most every decision about what I do has started with, "will I be happy with this decision in a year?"  I think (hope) that keeps me steadier than I might otherwise be.
It seems like my theme this fall to a number of people I've talked to has been this: know who you are.  Define who you are, what you stand for, what you will do, what you won't do and then refuse to budge.  So many people I love right now are being easily tossed and turned by what's going on around them.  They seem to have lost self.  They can't seem to get their hands on the steering wheel to steer because life has become like quicksand.  I keep encouraging-- know who you are.  Even in those days where you don't feel like it, ACT like who you are.  Pretend that life is a play and just act your part for now until it becomes natural again.  Just as I felt a spirit of premature death was running rampant last fall, I see a spirit attacking some of those I love with insecurity, doubt, and depression.  Depression has no home with me when I'm assured of who I am and what I'm doing.  It hurts me to see people struggling with this.  Especially when they don't have to.  My husband's Bible cover has a golf message (can you believe that?!).  "Stay the Course."  What a great message for my Christian friends.  Stay the course.  Don't get angry, don't get frustrated, don't look around for opportunities to get offended, stay the course.  For my friends without a relationship with Christ-- Find the course.  I hear them talk about their problems and I think, "There's an easy answer for that."  Seriously.  I have worth in Christ.  I never have to doubt if I'm loved.  Even with all the gross that's been around me lately, I know I'm loved.  I'm confused as can be.  I don't know why God allowed things to happen.  I'm not okay with what did and the how, but I know He's God.  I know He is sovereign.  I know He can see the whole picture while I see just my speck.  And, I know I'll see my husband and child again.  That doesn't mean I don't doubt.  It just means that, at the end of the day, I can get on my knees and acknowledge who He is.  For that, I am thankful.

Today's the day.  My baby would be 2.  My faith baby.  My "let's get on with life" baby.  My "let's take a step and trust God" baby.  Our New Beginning.  
There is so much to say about Caleb.  I can't say it.  I'm not in a frame of mind for it today.  Today I'm just hurt and sad and blessed... Seeing all the Acts of Random Kindness my friends and family are doing and how touched people are by the selflessness, that's awesome.  Being without my Caleb is horrible.  Being without my Aaron too is too much.