Mother's Day

 If you have had a loss of someone close to you, you understand to a point.

Holidays now are excruciating.

There's a piece, or pieces of you that are missing.

Mother's and Father's Day, are just awful.  But so is Christmas, and Thanksgiving...  Not being able to buy Christmas pajamas and tell stories about Santa, or watching them taste mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie for the first time...

But Mother's Day?  I won't get the crayon cards and the extra hugs and kisses.

We woke up Sunday, and I didn't really want to get out of bed.  Patrick understood and snuggled longer.  Eventually he won and got me up with promises of breakfast :) He makes the BEST over easy eggs! (Dad you are still the BEST at scrambled ;) )

I went to the front door to get the sunday paper, and saw a few surprised left on the step for me.  My father-in-law left me vases full of fresh cut daffodils, and a couple of my neighbor friends left me flowers and cards.  Throughout the week, I had also received several cards from my bumpie girlfriends, I told you how amazing they are!

We ate breakfast and decided to go for a walk.

During our walk, we heard a familiar bird call.  We looked up and saw this guy:

 The McGraws all know who we all immediately think of when we see the male cardinal.

But most of you probably don't.   We all think of Grandpa McGraw, Leonard.  (You may remember that Dylan's middle name is Leonard and it is after this wonderful man)  Grandpa was a big bird lover and had a particular love for the cardinal pairs.  You can't be in this family without thinking of Grandpa and Grandma every time you see cardinals.

The day never really got easier, as I'm sure you can imagine.  So I went to one of my goto's on a hard day.

My mother-in-law had a great idea when we were arranging Dylan's funeral services.  She had suggested making little cards for people to write memories, thoughts, or prayers for us.

So people filled them out and then put them in Dylan's blue piggy bank.  At first, we were taking a couple out each day to help us get through.  And now we save them for tough days.

I reached into the piggy bank and grabbed ahold of one card. I pulled out the card and read:

                                                                           and I felt my heart fill up with so much love.


I hope that you all had a blessed Mother's day and that you all remembered what the most important thing is... that your children are here with you, you don't need the roses and the jewelry to feel loved.

(I actually had a female co-worker bitch and moan about her husband and kids not doing anything for her and it took EVERY ounce of my being NOT to Slap her across the face and tell her that her Mother's day is was having her perfectly healthy children alive with her)