It's the little things

5 months ago today my life changed forever ....  the day I discovered life without my dad. I’m pretty sure I think of him on an hourly basis at a minimum. I never knew how different my life could become or how hard it would be to go on but it is. That’s just the facts. I am trying my best to keep myself busy with all kinds of trivial things such as making 6 Halloween costumes, substitute teaching, cleaning up a farm, planning 2 fun birthday parties for the kids, jumping head first into home improvement projects, scrapbooking, cleaning my basement, and making 4 quilts for the kids. Yes I am doing all this stuff simultaneously, just a few things to keep me busy and to keep me being creative. This is hard and stressful but I don’t know what else to do. Everything is different for me now: my relationship with everyone I know feels different. The way I see myself is different I used to see myself as a strong and easy-going person. Now I think I am anything but strong and any slight change in anything throws me into a tail spin of stress and anxiety, certainly not the definition of easy-going. Trying to remember to breath deeply and watching for all those little signs of my dad. He really is everywhere … the other day when we were leaving for school, upstairs Reese’s singing bear broke into song in the middle of the song “I hope you dance” all by itself ... it's never done that before and I've never heard it start in the middle of the song either . Another day the rocking horse in our dining room rocked forever all by itself, even got a little faster for awhile before it stopped. I got in the van today and the song Aaron and I played at our wedding “Keeper of the Stars” was on the radio.  We had a dumb fight last night and this kind of put things back into perspective for me. Ethan loving school and doing so much better and wanting to go …. It’s my dad being there right along side him not that we aren’t working hard with him and he’s not doing anything but I know he’s getting a little guidance from his grandpa.  There’s little things like that all the time …. Then a while back while I was cleaning I discovered a true gift. On Thanksgiving I had each person here for dinner write what they were thankful for. I took everyone’s photo and I was going to make a little book, of course I never got around to it. I looked through the stack of thankfulness and there was my dad’s card, in his handwriting. I don’t think I read it when he wrote it.

I'm thankful for my Grandkids, kids, friends, good crops, life, still can dance.    - Spike 

It’s like mail from heaven. A special gift that shows me he was happy and enjoyed his life and knew what was really important. Life goes on …. even when it's really hard and I’m glad I have those little things to help me through it.