Hi Friends and Family.

I have not been writing on my blog for over a week, because my heart has been heavy. Some have heard the news from our family, some have not. I feel it appropriate to share now what most of us have already heard.

On Thursday March 6, my parents went in for my mom's regular MRI. She'd been undergoing other treatments that had given her more time than we thought we'd have since last fall we were told she had roughly six months left. In November she had a 2nd brain surgery, which is what gave us six months more with her. Estimates of time are often just estimates, and people can die sooner, or live MUCH longer than doctors presume they will. It is often that we hear of someone beating the odds they were given. Sometimes it's will power, sometimes it's medicine working better than hoped, other times it's attitude. All of the time it's a miracle. So, here we are 5 months later. My mom is still here and we are loving every minute that we have with her.

March 6th rolls around, and she visits her doctor again. This time the brain scan showed an advancing tumor. My parents and doctors together decided that she would spend her last weeks, to possibly months, at home. The treatments are not working, and whatever they could do wouldn't really prolong things for her anymore. I kind of always knew this day would come. I made the awful mistake of googling her cancer when I was told the name of it a year ago. That was not a fun experience. I was at work, and had to rush to the bathroom after reading the statistics because I thought I would vomit.

I say this more easily now because I've had time to breathe, time to let it sink in. I'm not sure it ever really will, though. How do we ever let this sink in when we love someone so much? I don't think you can ever just say, "Thy will be done, Lord", and just go on your merry way without a care. I can accept God's will, but I don't love it. His will isn't always easy, in fact it's often extremely difficult. If it were easy, there would be no faith involved.

I spent the weekend, after my stepdad told us the news that she would return home to hospice care, in a fog. I somehow was blessed with an afternoon of peace, enough so to buy a new car because our car was falling apart, and we desperately needed to get this done. I know there were angels with me that day because I was supposed to be falling apart with sadness, yet I was excited and optimistic about purchasing a new car (which I ABSOLUTELY LOVE DRIVING). If there is an angel of anti-anxiety, a prozac angel, that is the one that was with me that day. Somehow I held it together through Friday at work, Saturday at the dealership, and Saturday night watching a movie with Justin.

I woke up at 5 am Sunday morning when Justin woke up to pee, and it felt like someone was sitting on my chest. I could not get comfortable and felt extremely off.  I had yet to cry, and I really didn't want to. I was afraid that if I let the flood gates open, all hell would come out with it. Like a Pandora's box of emotions. Justin came back to bed, and I told him I felt awful and couldn't sleep and explained the tightness in my chest, and the pit in my stomach. He told me I needed to cry, and that I'd been holding it in, but I needed to get it out. I told him I didn't want to. I really meant it. I wanted to be tougher than this, I wanted to not let it hurt me. But it was hurting me in a new way I'd never experienced before. My chest really felt constricted and it felt like my soul hurt. I don't know how to explain it other than that. My heart was breaking, in a way I'd never experienced. The worst way.

And then I took his advice. I just let it all out. We were there at 5 am in the dark on Sunday morning and I was just bawling. Tears were running down my cheeks into my hair and ears, soaking my pillow and the sheets below. I was angry at God for letting the treatments not work, I was worried for my family because all of our hearts were breaking and I didn't want us all to hurt, and I was scared of the future. A future without my mother. I was overwhelmed by all of it, and I just wanted to rewind to a better time in life, when my mom was healthy, and everything was ok.

Justin was amazing through it all. Encouraging me to cry to get rid of the chest pains, was genius. Then suddenly, he did what he always does when things are impossibly hard. He lets me cry it out, reassures me that I will be ok, and that I'm strong...and then he cracks me up. He started reciting poems off the top of his head that were similar to Shel Silverstein, and they were so good that he wrote some down and we've been trying to write more since then.

He is my saving grace. For whatever reason, he just knows what to do with me when I'm struggling, and not sure what to do for myself. I don't know what I ever did without him.

For whatever reason, my mother has to leave us before we ever wanted her to. I'm so grateful that we get notice, that she isn't just here one day and gone the next. I've had time to say everything I want to say, and just be with her during her hardest days. I got to braid her hair after brain surgery to keep it away from the stapled incision. I got to lay with her in the dark as she pondered aloud what this cancer would bring to our family. I've become closer to my siblings than I might have otherwise. I've gained knowledge of hardship, and what it does to your heart, to your outlook on life, love, God, faith, the world, and trials. I've seen more people be touched by my mother, than I ever thought she could reach, and I thought she had reached A LOT already. I've had my view on faith permanently altered, and formed a closer bond with God, but I'm still mad at Him.

I've seen people I hardly know reach out to me with the most appropriate words that I needed to hear on some of my hardest days. I've seen miracles, and prayers answered in the way I didn't want.

The most important thing I've seen though, is my mother, through it all, never relent in her love for her family, and God. She is perfect in every way, and I am eternally grateful that I am her daughter. I consider myself the luckiest girl in the world because of that fact.

Even though our hearts are breaking, we are all so lucky to have her now. I guess now, we just love her with all we've got and see what the future holds.

I feel like this donkey.

Today is a Saturday. And I've never been more excited about that in MONTHS. My weeks lately are a little crazy. I am training two people in my department, and usually we only train one at a time. Let's just say our "all-caught-up-ness" turned into "seven-days-behind-ness" in a matter of roughly 3 days. The good thing is... training doesn't last forever. It's just crazy... people looking from the outside in on my department think we're just peacefully getting our jobs done. BUT. If you were actually the people IN my department it would look something like this:

(no we're not on drugs... but I know we wish we were with how much we have to do lately just to stay afloat. This is just how our jobs feel at the moment.)



It's pretty crazy, just as we get done with something... and clean our desks off of the 500 kabillion contracts/folders/post-its... 5 minutes later it looks like a tornado hit. We're hanging in there, but this week has not been my favorite.

Aside from all that chaos, I then leave work and spend an hour on the phone with my mom discussing wedding stuff, 30 minutes with Justin doing the same thing, or an hour on the phone with a car insurance company trying to get them to claim liability for the accident one of their "policy holders" caused. I've been trying to get them to claim liability since early July. But... what can I expect? The people who hit me had falsified insurance cards, and an expired driver's license (lucky woman didn't even get a ticket, and I got a damaged car and a month of frustration so far). After a month of yelling at the insurance people to figure something out since their policy holder won't answer the phone/emails/letters they sent, Justin finds out the guy DOES exist... he's just been home in Chile for a month and a half... and the people that hit me are related to him and use his policy (*cough* illegal *cough*). Hopefully this gets resolved this week.

WHAT.

A.

MESS.

Then... after that's done, I either take care of wedding stuff by myself (or with Justin) until I decide I need to go to bed.

Just when I thought it was safe to finally take 5 minutes to myself for the first time this week.... I get texts from my boss on a Saturday morning about stuff I can't fix on a Saturday.

It's officially time to crank up the loud music, ignore my cell phone and play around. (Or go check out florists since I am getting married a month out and still don't have flowers ordered or anything... AND THEN PLAY TIME IS HAPPENING!)

This song will be the first one I turn up really loud. Found it on Spotify this week... and put it on repeat.  Then I created a station based on it. Because it made me feel energy which I desperately needed!



What about you? What do you do to deal with chaos?