I Miss Mimi

Months pass, days go by, the sadness remains. You learn that things will never really go back to normal and that you just have to adjust to a "new normal" now. You go on with the everyday business of life, you press on, and tell most people you are doing "fine." Some days are better than others. Some days you cry, some days you weep, some days you have no emotion at all, and other days you just try not to let your kids find you crying in the laundry room. Yes, they see me cry, and yes we talk about Mimi often and how much we love and miss her. We talk about how she is with Jesus and that we will see her again in Heaven someday, and that she is not suffering anymore. We look at pictures of her and read books about Heaven. We have our "butterflies" scattered about the house to remind us of her. The girls often bring up her name or ask a question, and I encourage them to do so. They have their own special photo albums we made with pictures of them with Mimi. Even Caleb will pull his off the shelf to look at his "Mimi Book." We miss her so much, and always will. No one can understand how much of a part of our lives she was. Our grief class tells us that "grieving is the price you pay for loving someone so much." So, I guess my grieving process is not quite over yet.

So, yes, we are still crying. But some days you want to cry alone, and some times you don't want your children to see your sorrow. There are times I am driving in the car and hear a certain song on the radio, and just turn my head as far as I can to pretend to look out the window just so they can not see the streams of tears running down my face. Some days I manage to "hide" my tears and some days I manage to "retain" my tears. Then, it never fails, on one of those days I am holding myself together, appearing to be fine, and looking strong, it is just like clockwork that that will be the day one of my daughters will ask about her. Or Avery will look at me out of nowhere with her sweet blue eyes and say, "Mommy..........I miss Mimi." And with a huge lump in my throat that I try to swallow back down, I muster up enough breath to whisper back, "Sweetie, I miss Mimi too."