I wanted to share something with you I received from my brother over the weekend. 5 simple yet complex sentences. Simple words yet when combined are of the hardest to say or write but mean so much.

There are four of us, I am the oldest in a very traditional family values family. Of my siblings he is most resembles me but yet holds the world on his shoulders as the first son to carry on the family name. We are only 6 years apart but in teenage years that's a lifetime. It's only recently, as he married and had children, have we realized we aren't as different as we thought.

This weekend he sent me the following note:

"Thanks again for being the go to person for all of this. I know you have spent countless hours getting everything resolved, and taking care of dad. I honestly don’t know how you find the time or patience. The last few months (and probably next few as well) I have felt like I just been in a haze, and it has been hard enough just to deal with things at home, without all of the legal and family issues you have taken from the rest of us.

I can’t begin to explain what your personal strength and leadership has meant to me (and I’m sure dad as well)."

It's uncanny that his message of gratitude and admittance of grief comes within days of my ability to begin seeing myself once again. His message speaks volumes to the statement 'each of us grieve differently and in our own time.'

After reading my last post many of you admitted to being in what I like to call "managerial cruise control" and are wondering how I was able to come out of it. What 'moment' changed me or whispered reassurance to me that everything would be okay again? Those questions are as hard to answer as getting Great Grandma to write down the exact recipe to her decadent, request for every family event, homemade chocolate cake.

In her day they didn't rely on exact measurements so much as they trusted their instincts and senses. Cooking was a affirmation of life in the sense that no matter what, everything would turn out as it turned out - good or bad.

There was no 100% fool proof way to ensure everything turned out perfectly every time you baked. The only way to be sure you were on the right path was to constantly dip your finger into the mixture and taste. If it tasted wrong you reached for something to fix it and just sprinkled 'pinches' in until it was right.

Like flour, anger is a main ingredient to my healing. I'd be lying to you if I told you I didn't hold a lot of anger in the first few months. When our pastor asked if any of us were pissed off at God I never answered him. Then again I didn't need to, my stare would have lit his hair on fire if it could have.

My anger ranged from being angry with myself because I didn't ask enough questions about Mom's health or take over caring for my Grandmother when she asked me even after she said it was too stressful for her. I was upset at my Mom for not taking better care of herself and pissed at God because he took her instead of someone who had lived longer. Oh was I enraged that God had left me to tell my Grandmother her daughter was gone and hear her wish out loud it was her who had died not Mom. Not only did I have to endure this once but every time she asked where Mom was or how she was doing. Oh yes was I pissed but I know now it would have been wrong to deny or suppress my anger.

The second main ingredient to any good recipe is water. If I was going to make it through my anger I needed to make it a point of spending a few minutes not thinking, washing away my thoughts for just a few moments each day. I wait until everyone is in bed or out of the house, sit in the middle of the floor, close my eyes and surrender my mind. I sit in complete silence, outside and inside my mind.

Some days it takes longer than others, especially in the beginning. My mind would race between thoughts, worries and craziness but eventually the emptiness came. It was and is peaceful; it's my few minutes not to worry about if I am doing the right thing or concern myself with what everyone thinks.

In these moments I finally acknowledged what I already knew deep down; death is as much a part of life as birth. In life no one gets out alive. We will not live forever no matter how many precautions each of us take in our time here. Anyone or anything can take it away in a flash and it sucks no matter how you look at it.

The willingness to remember and embrace 'living things die' was my binding agent, it was the egg. It explained so many things about myself. It is the reason why I enjoy cut flowers like many others but prefer the gift of a whole plant so I can enjoy growth and blooms for years to come.

It's the reason I always correct people when they tell me how old they are much to their dismay. Most will tell you their age by their birth day; they forget that they are actually in their next year of life. To me it makes no sense to short change your life; as if those extra months, days or hours you've already lived do not matter or not worth celebrating no matter how hard they were. To me the fact that you are breathing today is a celebration of life.

Honestly, the trickiest part of life's recipe are the rest of the ingredients. Not only do your choice of ingredients choose the type of cake, the amount you add of each determines how the cake truly tastes in the end. Simple but complex.

So for me there are many ingredients or experiences helping me to see through the confusion. It's in being tired, tired of being sad. It's in the way my daughter announced during the funeral services for her Great Grandmother she only has one Grandmother left and knew this Grandma would be okay because she takes lots of medicine to help her stay healthy.

It's in realizing I need to once again let my kids get back to attending play dates for not only their well being and growth but mine. I need to trust myself just as I trust the sun rises in the east and sets in the west no matter what the day was like. It's in my longing to enjoy the warmth of my children's' smiles just as the afternoon sun warms my face.

It's in the way we celebrated hubby's birthday this weekend. I woke up before all, frosted his cake and adorned it with some candles. When the kids woke up I made sure they stayed in their PJ's and didn't eat breakfast. Once hubby blew out the candles I announced we were having cake for breakfast ... just in case we don't make it through the day. Sure hubby's eyebrows raised but he realized what I have come to embrace ... live today in the moment.

Daily moments or the ingredients are my key. Sure I'll get some of them wrong or miss a few from time to time but I'm not sure anyone ever gets life's recipe right the first time. It's a matter of dipping your finger in from time to time, tasting the mixture and making the decision to add a pinch of this or that it if it doesn't taste right.

It's in the decision to celebrate in the moment, not wait until you are sure of the result. It's the reason why we eat cake first from now on in this house.

First off let me thank all who have sent messages wondering where I have been. It's been a very, very hard year and holiday season. As many of you know this June I lost my mother at the young age of 57. With her passing I have been caring for both my Father and Grandmother.
At 4am Christmas morning I received the call that my Grandmother had passed peacefully in her sleep. At the age of 92 she lived a long fulfilled life and we are thankful. Her passing has flooded my emotions with sorrow over not only the loss of her but also her daughter, my Mom.
As I begin the process of closing out my Grandmother's estate this New Years I have decided to dismiss the New Year's resolutions. Instead I have decided to wish for a less turbulent year in 2009 for not only my family but yours. I look forward to catching up on each and every one of your blogs inbetween getting my life back in order.

I hope each of you have a Happy New Year and can't wait to hear all about it.

Dear Bloggy Friends,

It's been seven days since my last blog. I have no clear explanation for the absence but I can tell you it's been one heck (because you're not supposed to swear in confession) of a time since my last blog.

See it all started last week Wednesday after my last blog. I was supposed to go grocery shopping but found myself with only $10 in our account & even less in the grocery getter's tank. When you live 15 miles from the nearest semblance of a grocery store and no one (and I mean no one will deliver take out way out here) neither one of these circumstances is going to work. So I put on my 'big girl pants' and headed into the kitchen to just whip something up as hubby so nicely put it. Right.

10 minutes later we were all poised at our usual spots around the table for dinner. I opened the lid to the casserole with the biggest something, something (not swearing here) grin on my face and declared "It's chicken pot pie night!" As you can already imagine I got the 'Ewe!' crinkled up nose look from both kids. The next phrase out of my mouth went something like this - "you'll eat it and you'll love it so help me ...."

Thursday night I high tailed it to the grocery store only to find myself sharing company with what had to be every single male in a 30 mile radius. And yes, there was even the classic single pick up in the frozen food section going on.

One hour, $6 in gas, $45 in coupons and 5 paper bags equalling $220 worth of food later I returned home only to realize I really didn't get as much as one should have for the money & time. Right about then self doubt sets in. I begin to wonder if I could have done better with coupons, food choices and just plain getting my picky kids to eat what I make.

The weekend wasn't much better. I made a list of all the half (so not swearing here) jobs laying around the house. You know, the tasks you start but are interrupted or sidetracked so there they lay. I finished everything on my list but when I look around I see so much more that should have been done and ask ~ What the $%&*! happened? I mean what happened to my womanly/motherly multitasking abilities? In this moment I realize it was a blessing not to be selected as Home Room Parent in either one of the kids classes this year.

Monday rolled around. The lawyer I hired to help me with some legal issues with my Grandmother informed me he has done all he can and I need to call the county government office to help me unless I wanted to continue paying him $250 an hour. I kindly thanked him for his help and mentioned I was pretty sure Grandma didn't have a money tree growing outside her cramped little nursing home room window so "Thanks but no Thanks well take the free help recently donated by the county lawyer."

Tuesday and this morning has been spent on the phone with numerous county caseworkers who are working on 'intake' of the case, assigning the case and researching the steps required in this specific instance. All I can say is I am making sure my Dad fills out all possible power of attorney and will documents in short order. There is no way in heck (because I am not supposed to swear in confession) I am going through this process again. No way, no how.

As penance for my blogging absence I was tagged for a meme so I will happily complete the task but ask for a one day grace period. I need to attend a "Family Council Session" with all my Grandmother's doctors, therapists and care givers this afternoon. Life is just not supposed to work this way.

Thanks for listening.

Blank screen. Stare. Nothing. Blank screen. Stare. ~ Sigh.

As many of you know I have been working on donating quite a bit or my Mom's things since she passed away. I have come to her library collection and decided to donate them to my Grandmother's Senior Living Apparentments' library. The complex was so wonderful to my Grandmother and was equally wonderful to my Mom while Grams was a resident.

Two years ago the kids school had a ice cream social to thank all the parents who donated time during the year. In addition to the ice cream and social time, each family picked out a new book purchased by the school district for the library and signed it as a remembrance of their donated time. It was a wonderfully touching idea.

Today I am creating remembrance labels for the books I am getting ready to donate but can't seem to come up with a phrase other than the traditional "In remembrance of".

Must be all the rain drowning out my creativity.
If anyone has any ideas ~ I'm listening.

Disclaimer: For those of you new to my site, my Mom passed away June 23rd, 2008. She left behind a husband at 62, her Mom at 92, 4 children, 4 Grandchildren and many friends. I am slowly dealing with the situation but have found myself in the role of sole caregiver for and power of attorney for both my Father and Grandmother. It's a mess and so am I.

How much stuff do you have?
How much stuff do you need?

For many of us those two simple questions are of the hardest to answer or confess. As you may have already guessed this week I began cleaning out my Mothers' things. As I loaded the 25th paper grocery bag of clothes into our truck for the donation center I began to wonder how much of this my Mom actually needed. For example, I opened a large drawer packed with socks - 40 perfectly paired white and another 40 pair of dress socks.

Perhaps this level of preparation came from her upbringing. She was adopted. She spent time in foster care before my Grandmother & Grandfather feel in love with her. I'm sure her years with very little to call her own feed the fear of not having what others have. I can remember days as a child being told so many other children do not have what I had. In my adolescence I never understood. How could I really? I had two parents who gave me everything I ever needed and then some from day one.

Today, on my Mother's 58th birthday, I understand the fear she faced. A fear that never really went away. As I continue to clean at my father's request I vow not to forget my mother's fear by donating all I can to those in need.

Disclaimer: For those of you new to my site, my Mom passed away June 23rd, 2008. She left behind a husband at 62, her Mom at 92, 4 children, 4 Grandchildren and many friends. I am slowly dealing with the situation but have found myself in the role of sole caregiver for and power of attorney for both my Father and Grandmother. It's a mess and so am I.

Take a moment to think about everything you do for your family. Typically we undervalue our worth any time we are asked by saying "I'm just a Mom" so I ask you to think about all those roles you have in any given day ~ again.
For many the list looks something like this: Wife, Mother, Caregiver, Chef, Financial Officer, Maid, Household Manager, decorator, taxi, educational advisor etc.

Now think about how much it would cost to hire someone to do those jobs if you were gone? Would you or your husband be able to handle each of those roles alone in addition to working 40+ hours a week if the other should pass away before retirement?

Now take a moment to think about life insurance.
Do you have a policy?
Is it a individual policy or a joint policy?
If it's an individual policy, how much are you worth according to the policy?
Does your individual policy come close to how much it would cost to hire someone to do all the jobs you listed earlier?
If it's a joint policy do you realize both parties would have to pass before it can be collected on? How would that help you in you time of need if you were the survivor?

As you can already guess, Mom was grossly under-insured and the situation has left my Father upside down with funeral costs one year before retirement.

I know this is a difficult conversation to have with your husband (wife) but it's a conversation you can not afford not to have ... today.

I just wanted to stop in today Thank You. Your messages of condolences are of great comfort to me. This past week has been overwhelmingly challenging for me between the funeral preparations, spending nearly every moment with my father in his time of grief, watching over my siblings and taking over sole responsibility of my Grandmother (something my Mom was handling as an only child). I look forward to spending time blogging with all of you soon but until then keep in touch and my special request to each of you would be to spend time with your Mother this holiday weekend.

I wanted to let each of you know why I haven't been here this week; it has been a devastating week. At the age of 57, my mother passed away early Monday morning. I am taking it minute by minute, day by day but do not have the strength to tell you her story at this time.

Thank you to everyone who expressed their concern that I was not writing. I miss all of you and hope next week brings some time to talk with you.

Little Man,

I am sorry you've had to deal with so much death recently, especially at the tender age of 5. It breaks my heart to see you so upset about your pet fish dieing day after day. I know it's hard for you to watch your sister happily playing with her pet. She's never known the sadness of loosing a pet.
I heard you've been sharing the death toll with your friends and teacher. I am sure your teacher wonders how I've managed to keep you alive if I can't even take care of goldfish. Truth be told I am amazed children's services hasn't dropped by yet.
Honey, I've tried everything from magic pet store potions to water changes but I fear nothing can stop the tank of death at this point. You know I love you and would never let anything hurt you - right?
Today when you found Goldie Locks floating lifeless at the bottom of the tank I looked into your alligator tears and knew we needed a 'do over.' So despite everything I have taught you about trying to work through problems, fixing them the way they should be fixed and not giving up I have decided to declare a 'do over.'
'Do over' you ask? Do overs are tricky. No, no it's not giving up ... you can deffinately have more fish. The way I look at it a 'do over' it isn't necessarily 'giving up' just trying again with a clean slate. So what do you say we toss everything in the tank, clean it up good with chlorine and take another trip into the pet store tonight for all new everything. You can pick out new fish, new decor and we'll have fun naming you new pets on the way home. What do you think?

It's funny how suddenly out of nowhere your kids get interested in holidays; you are never as prepared for it as you think - I am no exception. Sunday morning we were watching a special report on Memorial Day. Afterwords my daughter asked if we could go visit Great Grandma and if she could make her something special. Choking back tears I told her we needed to have something that didn't get wrecked in the rain so she decided we needed to get some flowers. After her careful decision making at the local nursery, we will be planting some small geraniums at both Great Grandma & Great Grandpa's grave sites Monday. This is our first visit as a family and I am still blinking back tears while I am posting. I am so proud of her not only because she understands the deeper meaning in remembrance but also because she is who she is at such a young age.