Lately...

I'm having a really rough few days. Today, my husband text me while I was on a field trip with work. In a movie theatre, watching "Wreck it Ralph", I get a text saying my husband will have to work Christmas this year. Usually, there is a young kid who doesn't mind and has worked for my husband in the past when he's had to work Christmas. This year, he has a girlfriend. He is spending Christmas with them. Normally, it wouldn't be a big deal. Normally, I'd just move on. It's just a day really. We can celebrate before or after the 25th. Today wasn't "normally" though. I shed a few tears. In the theatre. During a cartoon. I quickly pulled myself together, but haven't been able to get it out of my head. This will be my first Christmas Day without my husband, and without Anthony Jr, Nathan, and Malia.

The first holiday season was hard. Really hard. I was still pretty depressed getting through it. I was still crying every day, and sitting in God's presence as much as I could just to be able to breath. This season approaching....very, very, very rapidly.....is seeming to be just as hard. Some say it's gets easier as time goes on. And while I'm not a puddle in the corner having a hard time catching my breath every day, I am still missing my children. A whole lot. And as each day goes by, I realize that I'm only going further and further away from the day they were born, the day I kissed their sweet faces, smelled their heads and necks, held them tightly to my chest. I feel like each holiday without them will only get harder. It will only prove that time keeps moving forward, and they are not here. I can't pick them up, sniff the napes of their necks, kiss their warm fleshy cheeks. And now, without my husband to hold me up, Christmas is up to me for my daughter, for my family parties. I know I can't do it. I know I may duck out of Christmas this year. I may check out completely and lay in my bed snuggling my daughter and watching Elmo all day long, eating cookies, and pretending it's just another day.

I know it's just a new part of life I am going to have to figure out, and I know I don't have to do it alone. I have my faithful Father in heaven and I know He's never going to let me go. He's going to help me breath in and out and get through each new day. Sometimes, though, I really just don't know how to do it, even with His help. Lately, I'm at my desk and find myself on the verge of tears, or in the middle of the store, and ready to just about lose it, or laying on my couch watching a comedy with my husband and just can't hold back the tears. Lately, I am missing them so much that the scar on my heart is starting to bleed again.