This and That

Wow, I had not realized how long it had been since last posting. More importantly I wonder what on earth I could have been doing to distract me. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm~

Anyway, one of my cousins came out last week to spend time with us and we had a wonderful time. One day we spent in San Francisco and the remainder of the time was pretty much just spent together enjoying one another's company. He was a great support to all of us and very understanding of our moment-to-moment breakdowns we'd occasional experience.

My father is doing remarkably well and trying to keep his life structured and busy with things to do, but he's not denying himself those moments when tears come.

I believe I am finally allowing myself to feel the affects of my mom not being here. I finally felt it was safe to do so since my family seems to be doing well. Last Wednesday I was hoping to have a moment to myself to allow my tears to flow without Amira around, but unfortunately this was not the case. My father had been watching her throughout the day while I was at work and called me and asked me to get her when I finished work, as he had to do something. I had been hoping during the moment I got off work and the time I got to his house I could have had a moment to myself to let go, but it did not work this way. I went to get Amira and took her with me to the only place I could think to go and let down. I went to the cemetery. All the way there I just prayed for God to help me get through this moment and to help me with Amira as I didn't know what to do or say, I just knew I needed to be there. When we got to the cemetery Amira and I got out of the car and sat on a little curb close to where my mom rests. I never told Amira where she was or anything like that as I didn't want to disturb her thoughts. As we sat on the curb in silence I tilted my head down and just let the tears begin to fall freely. When the stream of tears began to slow I heard Amira ask me "where are we?” Then I heard the words come from my mouth but had no idea where they came from, "we are at a peaceful place that allows you to think and feel peaceful". She looked around at the beautiful garden scenery with all the trees, flowers, and grass and agreed it was nice.

During this moment of being here and speaking out I felt something very unnerving. I felt to a degree the veil of my existence had been lifted if just for a moment. For at the very moment the tears were uncontrollably releasing I heard myself say to my mom, "wow mom, now you see me for who I really am..........I can no longer hide myself from you. For although all these years I've put a mask of bravery and strength on in front of your physical form, I am no longer able to do that in front of your spiritual form". Although feeling somewhat ashamed of this sudden knowledge, there was also a sense of freedom associated with it. I no longer felt I had to hide who I really was to her. Hopefully she's the one person that will now understand me completely. The one that will realize I'm not always strong and the one that will know I don't always want to be alone dealing with my feelings. Of course I know God is the ultimate one that knows all of these things, however, there is something oddly comforting in knowing this about someone you've loved who has moved on......probably because we've actually seen them before, thouched them, smelt them.......all the senses that tells us they are real. Whatever "real" is......ok, ok enough philosophy.

We were only there in all actuality a very short time, so once loaded back into the car and driving off to my dad's, Amira announces she found a couple of really nice little rocks at the "peaceful place" and decided to take them to Grandpa's to show him.

Towards the end of the week, I discovered my brother who had been clean and sober for the last three years started using drugs again. This was so disheartening. I wanted to believe so badly that it was not true as he had done such a great turn around with his life, and his family was healing so beautifully, but the facts could not be ignored.

The feelings of resentment towards him arouse once again, along with the feelings of sorrow towards his family all re-awakened, and the feelings of protection towards my father once again in high alert. The feelings that still run through my veins over this is very disturbing and I know I must gain control over them, but I feel most distraught over the fact that we must now confront this head on rather than wait. I suppose there's a part of me that's angry over the fact that I just started to feel the numbness of my mom's loss melting away, thus allowing me to deal with them and now they have to once again be stuffed aside because of my brother. The only thing to do at this point is take it to prayer, which seems to always reveal the right way to deal with any situation, and have a meeting with my brother and his wife next week.

That poor family has been through so much that I truly hate to see them go backwards. I think going backwards is a comfortable way of dealing with a difficult situation because it's what's familiar and they know if works as a masks since they don't know what else to do. However, I hope they are open to suggestions of other solutions that will help them through these difficult times without negative side affects. As truly I would hate to see my brother lose his family, home or career as a result of going back to an old habit that nearly costs him all those things not long ago.