Ch Ch Ch Ch Changes

I have always felt odd about leaving this like it was. It looks like that crazy old abandoned house at the end of a dead end street. You know the one, it looks like someone could possibly be there still, at first. But after time you realize it's empty. I always have felt like just leaving this with some stupid post about football made it look like I had just run out. Run out of words, or ideas or feelings.

Really some of that is true. My mom died later that night. Six months and a day after my brother. Yet another late night phone call, only this time I wasn't immediately consumed by grief, just disbelief. How do you deal with losing two people who mean so much in such a short time? The answer is, I have no clue. I am still trying to figure it out.

But I prepare for my sister's wedding, a wedding we started planning just a year ago. A year that feels like 20 lifetimes. I watch my oldest son prepare for Senior Prom and graduation. I take him to visit his home next year, a home that will be four hours from me. I watch my middle son prepare, with great excitement,for his Freshman year of High School, and beg my youngest for kisses goodbye in the morning. Kisses he used to dole out happily, now I am hard pressed to get from an almost 10 year old.

I do these things, and I know life does indeed go on, circumstances change, and people around us change. No matter how bleak the night before was, the sun will come up again. Sometimes it's covered by clouds, but it's always there.

Spring in Albany always means tulips. It's a Dutch city, and tulips are everywhere. There was really no doubt in my sister's mind what her wedding flower would be. Tulips. My mom always loved to see the tulips, they meant spring was finally here. Now that I'm a mom, I completely understand the love of warm outside playing weather. Even though it was the farthest thing from my sister's mind when she made the decision, it's a way to have my mom there.

So, I haven't run out of ideas, or words or even material. I still have a husband who drives me nuts, a neice to talk down off the ledge over SAT scores and lack of a prom date. Three boys who are becoming men, and 2 sisters and a brother, a nephew, and 2 new in laws joining our group before labor day. My life hasn't been abandoned, just changed.