Remembering Mom

On June 13th this year, it had been exactly one year since my mom passed away. As I mentioned in a previous post, "special days" only hurt a little more than "regular days", but they most definitely prompt others for extra thoughts and prayers, which we do appreciate. This post is loaded with pictures. It's just nice to look back through pictures and see the love that my mom had for us and especially for my kids. It's hard to look at the dates on the picture folders and know that when I went to open "Summer 2010" there would be no more pictures of her. I absolutely can not believe how fast time has went by since she has been gone. There is a variety of pictures in this post. Some from my camera, some from hers, and even one from Alayna's. There are some where she is bald, some where she has hair, some where she looks happy and healthy, some where she appears to be forcing the smile and not feeling well. I know that Lucas and Logan will have very limited memories of her, but there is a picture of each one of them with her in their room and they know that she is "nana". Alayna was blessed with more time with her, however, I sometimes forget that Alayna never knew my mom "pre-cancer". She was diagnosed before Daniel or I had kids and from that point on was never exactly the way she was before. Alayna speaks of her often and just last week selected "Someone I Love, Died" to read at bedtime. We have not read that book since last year and this year, it struck Alayna for what I believe was the first time. I was reading it to her and it says, "some people feel angry, but that's okay, some people feel sad, it's okay to feel however you want" (well, something like that). I was forcing myself through the book, trying not to cry when she suddenly said, "Oh mommy, I'm about to get tears" and we both broke down. Then we laughed and said "but that's okay that we feel like crying right now". Alayna has also made me laugh recently by associating the death of our goldfish "Dorothy" (from Lucas and Logan's birthday party) with the death of "nana". She said, "Nana died." I said, "Yes, she did." She said, "We flushed her down the toilet." Of course, we didn't but she got a good laugh out of it. Everyday is different for all of us. Sometimes we cry, sometimes we laugh.

July 4, 2008

January 2009

Summer 2009, at the zoo

Fall 2009

Lucas and Logan's 1st Birthday (March 2009)

Taken with Alayna's camera! :)

March 2010- Our trip to San Francisco

Fishing in Florida

Blue Sky Winery

With Lucas (I think!) Ha!