Life

First and foremost - I want to say a HUGE HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my brother! He is exactly 3 years, 3 months and 3 days older than me! I hope he has a wonderful birthday and I sure wish I could celebrate with him! I hope his day is everything he wants it to be!

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So today I have A LOT on my mind. I find life to be so...I don't even know the word I am looking for to be honest. I found out Sunday morning that my grandma has leukemia. That means cancer of the blood. She has stopped producing her red blood cells. My mom got the call around 10 or so on Saturday night. My mom asked the doctor what her options are and he said chemo. My grandma wouldn't be able to deal with chemo. She's old and frail and chemo is a horribly hard thing to go through. My mom asked what would happen if she didn't do chemo and she was informed she'd just have a few months to live. It's so surreal. I never thought my grandma would die. Well no, I take that back. I knew she would. I know we all will. I know she's getting older and I knew her time would come. I knew she wouldn't live long enough to see Emily graduate high school and I knew she may not even be around for her 5th birthday. I just never thought she may not be around for her first birthday. She's 86 and she has had a wonderful life. Sure, she has had some hard times, but she has met her grandchildren, great-grandchildren and even great-great grandchildren. That is something most of us wish for in our lifetime. She has been blessed to be able to do so. I just can't help but feel selfish and just want her around forever. I don't know how I'll handle her passing. More importantly, I don't know how my mom will. My mom and her are EXTREMELY close and ever since my mom found out she has been crying and not sleeping. I can't even begin to imagine how hard it must be to lose a parent. I have been blessed not to have that happen yet and my heart breaks for everyone that has had to endure that.

Today my friend Debra informed me that her father passed away last night. It has been a long time coming, but I don't know if anyone could be "okay" when it happens. Sure, you know it's coming and sure, you try and prepare yourself, but are you ever REALLY prepared? My heart goes out to her and her family and they will be held close in prayer.

So that's the other question. How exactly do you take the time to "prepare" yourself for a death? I tell myself I need to get ready for when my grandma dies but exactly HOW do you get ready for that? Is it even possible to do that? Sure, your head knows what's going to happen and sure, you conciously know that your loved one may not be around much longer...but how does your heart prepare for that? All I know is when my grandma goes I will be devestated. I am pretty close to her. I lived with her for a good portion of my life. There are so many memories I have of her from family vacations to holidays to her Sunday shopping spree at Walmart. There are all the times we'd bitch about her not being able to hear us so we have to repeat ourselves 598325093285035928 times. We'd bitch if she got too nosey with our lives. We'd bitch when we'd go out to a restaurant and she'd totally embarass all of us. But in a way...were we really bitching? I can look at all that and laugh because that's what we will hang on to. We will all sit around after she is gone and laugh about it. We will miss it. We will miss her.

Then I look at my precious daughter and think that some day she will have to go through this. She will lose her grandparents and eventually her parents. How will she deal with it? I know she'll be okay and she'll be old enough but I just NEVER want her to be sad or hurt for anything. I know it's something she'll go through in her life - heartache and all that - but as a mommy...you just don't want your child to ever experience that. You want them to be happy 100% of the time.

So there is just so much on my mind today and I apologize for the long blog but I just needed to write.

On a happier note - we had a good weekend. We went to our friend's 30th birthday on Saturday and then out to the Walnut Creek Art and Wine Festival yesterday, followed by just Erik and I going out to dinner and dessert. His sister was a God-send and watched Emily for us so that we could have some "us" time - something that is EXTREMELY hard to come by!

So I will close by adding two pictures of Emily taken at Mitchell's 30th. They are from my camera phone so they aren't the best. I think they are just absolutely ADOREABLE though! :)

I wonder...is anyone reading this blog?