Life goes on...

...whether you blog about it or not.

It's been 2 months, which completely boggles my mind. Time flies so fast. It's amazing.

Lately I have just been showered with so much gratitude for the love of my family. My dear Grandmother passed away recently, and bringing my own heart full of memories to the surface has been both very painful as well as very cathartic. I think I take my family forgranted. My family has always been supportive of my hopes and dreams over the years, even as those dreams have shifted, changed and sometimes even flat-out mutated in a seemingly illogical way. Grandma always just smiled and told me how glad she was that I had the chance to make those dreams come true at college. She labored a true labor of love for her family. One could fill books and pages of short little stories that display Grandma's spirit of love. Stories of raspberries and peaches, stories of books and school and sewing. But they all point the same direction. She was willing to give up herself for the love of others--her whole life long. What an amazing example I have to live up to.

I had a really spiritual epiphany at the funeral. The viewing had been closed to all except the family and we were all saying our last goodbyes. I wasn't going to go up because I was holding Kayla, and I've always been a little leery of the practice of viewings anyway, but Scott, my dear and wonderful Scott, took Kayla out of my arms and gestured that I go up. I went and gazed at Grandma laying there, and thought of all of the things she experienced in over nine decades of life. It was a very powerful and humbling emotion to imagine the things she'd learned in her years. In that moment my heart opened up. I returned to stand next to Scott, and with the image of Grandma's face lined with the wrinkles from years of experience still in my mind, I turned to see Kayla's smooth face and sweet smile with her bright eyes, full of the light of God and ready to take the things that life would send her way. It was in that moment that I understood the meaning of life in a completely new way. I turned and looked back at Grandma, lifeless, yet somehow pleasant, then back to Kayla with all of the vigor and hope that only children can muster, and I realized that life's process of learning is one that is not replicable. This is God's plan. From the womb to the grave our learning is hands on, and we only learn what we let ourselves learn. It was so beautiful. Grandmother to great-granddaughter, we are all just the small children of God, ready to learn. From what experiences we know not, nor can we control, but we are divinely appointed to it. God's way and God's plan are beautiful.

It feels good to be able to breathe again. I'm finally caught up on homework from the last few weeks and I feel peace again. Still much to do, but it is managable.

Just takin' life one day at a time with a smile.

~R~