Life – Part 2

There have been several “life changes” for me and my children since my last posting .  .  .

My oldest just finished his first year as a freshman at the University of Kentucky and I am happy to say that his grades were such that he gets to go back in the fall!  My second son continues to live with my parents in Southern Illinois and completed a very successful junior year in high school.  His football team made it to the state semi-finals, his grades were excellent and he just returned from a one week trip to the Dominican Republic with his high school Spanish class.  I moved to Dallas, Texas with the two younger children.  Hunter just finished his sixth grade year in all honor’s classes, takes piano, plays bass in the school orchestra and has discovered the sport of lacrosse.  Katherine also excelled academically, plays piano, continues with tumbling and trampoline and just finished competing in the national competition.  I started working again in public accounting last January and am so blessed to be affiliated with my current employer.  We have an adorable little house, live in a very friendly neighborhood, attend a wonderful church, have made many great friends and we have an incredibly supportive family.

From the outside looking in, we are all doing remarkably well.  We have moved on and moved forward and we are doing our best to embrace our “new normal.”

Nevertheless and despite all the successes, there is still a lot of heartache and sadness that prevails – and often times very unexpectedly and without a predictable trigger.

I’m not prepared to know how to handle these situations.  There is no “how-to” manual providing guidance on how to counsel my children when they have a “mental / emotional hiccup.”    And each child’s struggle manifests itself in different ways.  There is no “one size” fits all method when it comes to helping them deal with their respective issues.  This is hard . . . harder than I ever imagined it would be.  As a mother, I want to ease their pain; I want to fix it for them; and sometimes I just want to erase all the “bad” from their minds.  Sometimes I want to pretend for us all that it has always just been the 5 of us and by doing so I don’t have to acknowledge that our family unit was tragically broken.  Yes, denial is sometimes the only way to get through the day. 

My prayer each and every day is that we make it through with minimal stress and minimal sadness.  Most of the time we do but invariably we have another “hiccup” and when that happens, I pray that I have the wisdom and guidance to get us through . . .