MOURNING YEARS GONE BY

As I sat in church yesterday, a young family got up to perform a special musical number. The father was on the piano and the mother stood with the children. As I was watching them I was so touched by the sweetness and completeness of this little family. I looked at the three oldest. 9, 7, 5. I was suddenly overcome with feelings of grief. Grieving the years that have passed. Those innocent and precious children were the age my children were when their father passed. So young, so sweet. So wonderful to see this family - we were once a sweet little family as well. The tears started and wouldn't stop. I started getting strange glances from my children. The tears just kept coming and coming. Long after the musical number was over, I was still crying. I felt like I was holding back... allowing the tears but blocking the sobbing that so wanted to come out. I contemplated making a run for the bathroom but felt like I was already making a spectacle of myself and thought that may just exaggerate that. So, I sat and let the tears continue to fall.

I can't say for sure what brought it on - but I can say that the topic of "mourning the years gone by" has been heavy on my heart lately. In moments of frustration the kids have retaliated at me with 'facts from the past' concerning my bad parenting behavior. It has left me reflecting on years I don't care to think about again. Years that I can't re-do. Years that have been wasted. Or so it seems.

The question is really... what would / could I have done differently. My 'bad parenting' is a reflection of trying to be a parent to children who were reacting with anger to their father's death, while trying to grieve the loss of my husband. My patience was short. I was trying to process through my own grief and that left little brain capacity for disobedient children. I was quick to yell, to lose my patience. I was incapable of of doing it.... well. I became this crazy mother that was nothing like I had once been. I look back and wonder what could have changed things. How could I have maintained the happiness and love in that little family and just continued on? Perhaps there is another widow out there that has considered this more or been more successful that could share some tips. For me... I need to forgive myself. I need to let go of the thoughts that they have been years wasted and I need to make the most of the years I now have.

REFLECTIONS.... QUESTIONS...

It is late.

Autumn is in the air tonight. I celebrated with a fire in the fire place. I find peace in this spot. Sitting in front of the last few embers and hearing the crackling. The embers remind me of my promise. I want to look forward with faith. I want to take the embers and leave the ashes.

My emotions are strong this evening. Reflection of almost six years. My decisions and the consequences of them. Was I wrong? Was I selfish? Have I made decisions that have harmed my children? What could I have done better? Why have I not been stronger? Wiser?

Six years is a long time. Have I respected that time by making the most out of it?

I am not who I would have been. My children are not who they would have been. Perhaps there is a purpose in that? Were we meant to be the people we have now become or the people we were on the path to becoming before?

My boys do not know the things their father knew. They want to. I see in them that internal desire to have his knowledge and wisdom. To be a source of help to others, to be able to fix one of the hundred things that have and do go wrong around the house. But, who is there to teach them? So, days and years pass.... many of those broken things go un-repaired. That is not the kind of home we once had. I see their yearning for yesterdays now gone.

Which part is mine? Which part is God's? I spend so much of my life surviving... sometimes I feel as though my kids have lost their father and their mother.

I reflect on years of wanting the insanity to stop. Wanting to just breathe. Those moments came (as moments only) - but life still has a void. A void that was not filled when the insanity stopped. I wanted to be still - but by being still, did my children miss out on learning and opportunities for a full life?

We live life 'my' way now. I miss the life that was 'our' way. But, I have strove to make the present a good place to be. I stretch myself physically and financially sometimes to give my kids other things. Things they may never have experienced in 'our' life... buy in 'my' life they exist. Perhaps it is my way of attempting to compensate... to fill their lives to cover the void. I don't think that is all a bad thing, is it? It is not like the void was going to go away... why not fill it with new adventures?

What will my final reflection be? Have I chosen wisely?

LATCHKEY KIDS

I have latchkey kids. Studies show that breeds behavioral problems, low self-esteem and depression. On the upside, it can also result in independence and self-reliance.

Today my daughter didn’t ride the bus home. I guess something about being a teenager, meant she needed to really start acting like one. Unfortunately, this was not information I was aware of when the bus came and left without depositing her, as I am not home to witness such things. I found out when she called and informed me that she was at a friend’s house. She and her girlfriend had decided to walk home from school and had stopped at another friend’s house to use the bathroom and phone home. At least they phoned home. My reaction to the situation was to tell her to go home. We talked about it later and I told her the answer will always be to go home. I don’t like them out and about when I am at work. I feel this complete lack of control, and an exaggerated sense of concern. My daughter felt that being away from her brothers was actually safer for her, as they are always close to burning the house down.

She didn’t take my petition for her to always come home well. I tried to explain my position to which she responded that it was not her fault her dad died, so why is she punished for it? To which I replied, it is not my fault he died, but I am punished in terms of having to be away at work rather than home with you. It is life. It is what happened.

How do I keep the negative latchkey effects from affecting my children? Am I wrong to make them sit home in a house with no parents for hours after school, rather than let them be with their friends? I don’t know the answer…

IS IT BAD TO BE GLAD?

Is it? Is it bad to be glad? I am sure it sounds strange that I could even think to be glad for the path God has placed before me. There is much of a burden to carry, but I see the wisdom in this path.

I have had the opportunity to become someone I never would have. There is good and bad in that. I see my weaknesses very plainly. But the good is very good. And I am grateful for that opportunity for growth. I have been pushed to my limits like I never would have otherwise. And when I have been (am) on the brink... I seem to have strength beyond my own.

It is like a muscle I suppose. It may hurt when you do the last rep.. but by doing it you become stronger. I am grateful for that strength this journey has given me.

HOW DID IT GET THIS WAY?

Tantrums... Crazy tantrums from the kids with no real cause. How do you deal with it? They don't want you. They want their dad.

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The whispering voice of your spouse... telling you what to do, when you don't think you can do it and you don't know what to do.

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Seeing the sadness in your children's faces. And feeling your own. How can you be what you need to be and work through all you need to work through - the two don't seem to exist simultaneously.

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Being late and feeling as though you have become this incompetent parent. Your kids are late for school and missing half the things they need. How did it get this way?

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Feeling out of sorts at work. You have fallen off your game a little and somehow need to play that part as if your world didn't just crash around you.

CHARITY - THE PURE LOVE OF CHRIST

We are nearing the end of the school year, and when summer comes my oldest will be back home with us.

I am glad. I miss him. I want our family to be back together.

I have thought so much about my decision to send him to live with his aunt and uncle a year ago. I don't regret it. He is in such a better place now than he was. They have been so great to have made the tremendous sacrifices they have to help us.

Making the decision for him to go, ranks up there as one of the greatest times of personal trial for me. It was those moments of wrestling with questions like, "if the Lord doesn't give us more than we can handle... I must be a failure - because I am not able to handle him. To the point that I have to have him leave my home."

I would try to console myself with the reminder that I was acting under inspiration. But, I felt like a complete failure. I was not able to be the parent my child needed me to be. I felt guilt, so guilty for my short comings as a mother and for allowing his actions to hurt the other children.

If I was spiritually where I should be, shouldn't I be able to handle any trial that comes my way?

Part of the lesson we have to learn in life is that we are imperfect. We will not always be able to be everything we need to be.

Through this I know my Savior loves me. His love is perfect enough to accept someone like me... imperfect in so many ways.

It makes me wonder if I show that same love to others. I need it from my Savior, but do I in turn show it to others? Complete acceptance for who they are, despite what their short-comings may be.

FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!

As I have mentioned before, I have had a relationship (in my book) with three different guys since Chris passed. Only one of those guys did not have children. Nor did he have much experience with children.

My kids loved him though and he was pretty great with them. Although, I don't think he ever took a 'Babysitters Course' and that combined with a few experiences and his lack of past experience.. made him questionable when it came to leaving the children in his care. :) At least at first. He had a lot to learn.

One particular experience happened one summer afternoon. I was inside working on some things on my computer and he walked in the house and said he smelled gasoline. I knew my oldest was outside playing with a friend so I instantly panicked. I asked my friend if he would go see what the boys were doing. He agreed and went to check. He saw my son in the garage and asked him why it smelled like gasoline. My son explained that they had hit the can of gasoline and it accidentally spilled. My friend accepted the story and returned inside. When he walked into the room I was in, I looked up and asked if everything was OK. He said yes, and then casually proceeded to tell me what my son said was the cause for the odor. I stopped typing, looked up at him and froze. You believed him? You took his word for it? You didn't snoop around to find the real story or at least identify the location of the spill? I quickly hopped up and ran outside. Upon exiting the back door I saw four to five feet high flames in my back yard. I grabbed the hose... started screaming at my son... something along the lines of "what were you thinking?" In a panic, my son was responding that he "didn't mean for it to be this big". The chaos continued for another minute or so... the two of us screaming at each other, before I was able to put the flames out.

By this time my friend had come out to see what all the screaming was. I looked at him and said, "And that is why you never believe teenage boys".

He was learning... life was not so simple when you were dating a widow with three children. A widow, I might add, that was losing control!

WHO I NEED TO BE CONCERNED WITH

It has been five years since my husband passed. I suppose that is a fact we have covered. What is next in life? I was 29 when he passed, had three children who were all school-age, and had lived a very fulfilling life. Those eleven years were full of life and living and 'getting somewhere'. Now. Now I feel as though I do less thriving than I do surviving. I go to work at a job that does not carry with it a possibility for much a future or the ability to really use and develop my talents on a regular basis. Don't get me wrong. I have a good job... it is just not a source of personal fulfillment. I come home and am faced with the challenges of raising teens and pre-teens. Is there something more? In ten years, what will I say I have accomplished? I get frustrated with myself sometimes, as I think I should not question this or worry as the only success I need in these ten years are good, solid, strong children.

I don't get 'down' too often in regards to this - but sometimes there are incidents that happen that bring me down. As is the case now.

Someone whom I respect made an attack on my integrity and my character. He was wrong. Whether a fabrication or misinterpretation, I don't know. But it left me wondering what else I have to cling to. When I come home at the end of the day and my bucket feels as though it has been emptied... and there is no one to fill it... it leaves me questioning myself. Every action, statement, personality trait to see if I could figure out why this attack had been made.

I spent the evening trying to distract myself with mindless tasks that needed to be completed. I worked until very late, then I climbed into Chris' pajamas and went to bed. Overall feeling very low. I crawled into bed exhausted both physically and mentally. I turned the radio on in hopes of gleaning some distraction from my thoughts. Immediately the song Live Like You Were Dying was playing. This song takes me back to when Chris was sick, as it was released just months after his diagnosis and the words were very relevant to our lives. Instantly I could feel him there with me and the tears flowed. I think I apologized for being such a dork. For allowing something like this to bother me and affect me to the level that I needed to bother him. That he needed to come and comfort me. Certainly there are REAL issues in life - and someone attacking my integrity and character does not equate me being a person of poor integrity and character. But, sometimes that is hard to feel in the moment. So, I layed there and absorbed his presence and his strength.

The next morning I was faced with a daunting 'to-do' list but was still feeling burdened with the events of the previous day. I talked to a friend who pointed out that Satan will attack those things, such as our integrity, that are important to us. She was right, and if I want to keep evil influences out of my house - I needed to let this go. I got on my knees and prayed. I asked for the evil to leave my home. Then I sat down to read my scriptures, hoping the Lord would be bound to bring me peace from those words. I opened up my Book of Mormon to the book of Alma, 4th chapter and I read. I finished the chapter, feeling better, but needing more. I kept reading. I made it half way through Chapter five before I found the message that was there... just for me... This is what I read:

And now behold, I ask of you.....
Have ye spiritually been born of God?
Have ye received his image in your countenances?
Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?
Do ye exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you?
Do you look forward with an eye of faith, and view this mortal body raised in immortality, and this corruption raised in in-corruption, to stand before God to be judged according to the deeds which have been done in the mortal body?

I say unto you, can you imagine to yourselves that ye hear the voice of the Lord, saying unto you, in that day: Come unto me ye blessed, for behold, your works have been works of righteousness upon the face of the earth...

The tears flowed again, but this time there was gratitude in those tears. For a loving Heavenly Father who reached out... who reminded me WHO I need to be concerned with. Which is Him, my Savior Jesus Christ. If my works are pleasing to Him, despite what others may say, I can press onward with steadfast faith and leave the evil one behind.

IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN MY FIRST CLUE

This post is not intended for those with a weak stomach...

I have met some strong and independent women in my life that I am certain would make better widows than I do. I suppose that could be part of the reason this lot was given to me... I had a lot to learn from it.

My first clue that surviving widowhood would not come easy to me should have have been when my husband was in the hospital. I struggled making it three weeks. The day before my husband went in for surgery I decided to clean out the fridge. I knew I would not be home cooking very much for the next couple weeks - so it seemed to make sense to me to throw out anything that would not still be good in two weeks. Among the things I threw in the garbage that day was some raw perch. My husband had caught and prepared the fish, but he was seriously lacking in appetite - so he had not eaten it. I tossed the raw fish in the garbage.

My husband and I had to be at the hospital by 6am Monday morning. We arrived and he was prepped and the surgery began shortly after. I sat in the hospital room all day. Waiting... just waiting for the doctor to come out with any updates. They were occasional and slow. But every report was positive - things were going well. There were larger and more numerous tumors than what they had anticipated, so the surgery was slow going, but they were making progress. I think it was around 4:30 or 5:30 Tuesday morning when they came out to tell me the surgery was complete. Chris was sleeping and would be for some time - so it was advised that if I wanted to go home, now would be the best time. I went into see him and spent a short while with him, just watching him sleep - then I headed home to change my clothes and get ready for the day.

I arrived home around 7:30 or 8:00 and the furthest thing from my mind was putting the garbage out on the curb. As I have shared before, that wasn't even typically one of my chores. I took a shower and returned to the hospital.

It was September, but the temperature was still warm and the weather was beautiful that week, which served to be a blessing with all the driving I was doing. Saturday evening I was home taking care of a few things and went to take the week's garbage out. It was dark, but as I lifted the lid to place my garbage inside, I noticed something was dripping off the lid. I returned to the house to turn on the outside light and get a flash light, as I could not imagine why there was something in the garbage can that would be dripping. The sight I saw, I will describe... but stop reading now unless you have a tough stomach. There were thousands of maggots... literally overspilling the sides of the garbage can and falling to the pavement. Upon moving the garbage can, I discovered a mound of maggots a couple inches thick laying on the ground. I had no idea what to do. So, I called my husband's fishing friend. I explained my situation and let him know I did not need his physical help - I just needed to know how you go about getting rid of them. I had tried bug sprays, but this did not seem to do anything. I tried pouring water on them in hopes of drowning them, this made them scatter and they started climbing the brick exterior of my home. I didn't know what else to do.

He said he would be right over. I again assured him I would handle it... I just didn't know what to do. He said he would be right over. We worked together trying to destroy the thousands of maggots. It appears 'frying' them with a blowtorch is very effective.

Lesson Manual: How to Be a Widow
1. Realize that raw fish will quickly turn to thousands of maggots if left outside in hot weather for more than one week. If this most inconvenient situation should happen - a blowtorch would be the easiest solution for ridding your patio of maggots.

ONE OF MY BIGGEST FEARS

Eighteen years ago an article was published in Fortune Magazine that talked about the crisis children were in. It stated "no one seems to care"

To summarize: Of the 65 million Americans under 18, many live in poverty, 22% live in single-parent homes, and almost 3% live with no parent at all. Violence among the young is rampant. Playground fights that used to end in bloody noses now end in some fatalities. Schools that once considered talking in class a capital offense are routinely checking children for weapons, questioning them about drugs. A good public education, safe streets, and family dinners—with both father and mother present—seem like quaint memories of a far distant past. The parents of nearly 2,750 children separate or divorce each day. Every day over 500 children ages 10 to 14 begin using illegal drugs, and over 1,000 start drinking alcohol. Nearly half of all middle-schoolers abuse drugs or alcohol or become involved in immorality.

If that was eighteen years ago, I can only imagine what the stats are now in 2010. One of my biggest fears upon becoming a widow was the fact that my children were now a statistic. They were now among the children living in a single-parent home. I did not want time to pass and people to look at my children and sadly say "what a shame... his father died when he was young... how sad his father must be for what he has become". I was terrified that the life my children were now entering - that would have them home without a parent, and when they did have a parent I was tired, would cause them to choose poor paths in life. Paths that would cause them unmeasurable sadness and heartache.

I have attempted to be keenly aware of the impact this has had on my children and have spent much time on my knees praying to know what I could do to keep them from becoming even more of a statistic. I suppose this in one of the areas in which I have felt failure. I never used to really raise my voice to the kids or yell. I am certain they don't remember that those days once existed. Now, I am on a constant guilt trip for my inability to control my actions better. I suppose it is the combination of being tired and scared. I just don't want my kids to end up on a path that is far from the path they would have had if their father had been here. I want them to be able to develop a strong testimony of Jesus Christ - and have that as their rock, their foundation. But making that happen when the world has so much more time with them than I do becomes my great challenge. For even when I have 'time' with them, that time is spent cleaning the house, making the meals, paying the bills, servicing the car, doing the yard work and all the other things that just living life requires. Is there enough time to be a mom? Is there enough time to teach them what they need to know so they can be strong and immovable?

I have learned that for me I cannot afford to NOT live the gospel of Jesus Christ to the fullest. Joseph B. Wirthlin stated, “The storms of the evil one can be stopped at the very entrance of our homes”. So, that is what I hope and pray for everyday.

FAILURE IS A MUCH BETTER TEACHER THAN SUCCESS

I have a pretty good sense of self. Anyone who knows me well will agree with that statement. I think it was pretty easy to gain and maintain while married to someone who loved me, being a stay-at-home mom and being able to plan my days to be filled with activities that were enriching to the children and to me. I lived a life that was full of success.

Widowhood has been a different journey in terms of maintaining this positive feeling. I feel as though I have failed repeatedly... and that then while I am down someone is kicking me and I just keep sinking. Somehow as a widow the doors have been open to way too many people for them to tell me exactly all the mistakes I am making. I guess people figure that since I don't have my husband to keep me in line, I am not capable of making good decisions. So, they give their two cents as to what THEY think I should do and how that would keep me from failing repeatedly. This was especially the case in the first couple years. Lots of opinions of how I should be living my life.

I watched the movie Annapolis not too long ago. At one point in the movie they are welcoming the new plebes to Annapolis. The speaker says, "Many of you have only known success your whole life. This year you will know failure. Because failure is a much better teacher than success." As I contemplated that powerful statement, I knew the truthfulness of it. In my life, I have grown to be a better mother, a better person as I have experienced failure these past few years. My failures have made me stronger.

Part of this journey is forgiving and not harboring any resentment for those who have only had good intentions in giving me their 'wise advice'. I don't think anyone shared without the best of intentions. I hope (and still believe) that the big decisions I made, I made correctly. I involved my Father in Heaven, counseled with Him and did not get too far off path.

Yes, failures have been the best teachers. I hope that I can be a good student.