Arriving at Happy.

The first thing on my mind this morning when I woke was my list of To Do’s preparing for tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day. I ate some breakfast, woke the kids, cleaned the kitchen and scrubbed the stove after leaving it a mess during a lazy ‘vacation day’ with the kids yesterday. I prepared the green bean casserole, cleaned more dishes and retreated to my room with some ice water and my list to get the rest of my day planned out. 

Then I pulled up Facebook on my phone to see who else might be preparing for Thanksgiving and came across my sister in law’s post remembering her brother, my late husband, who passed away 5 years ago early this morning. ‘Wow’, I thought, ‘Five years’.

The first three years were difficult. Last year I determined I would make an active choice to be happy when faced with moments of sadness. But this year has been different, easier. We’ve transitioned into a new normal. I could not have imagined that I would start this day not thinking of him, but planning the holiday instead. Yesterday and today have typically been the two most difficult days of my year and yet here I am feeling good, pausing, reflecting, smiling and happily preparing for Thanksgiving Day. 

I still think of him every day. I still dream about him fairly often, I still miss him, I still love him, I even still get mad at him. But perhaps within this fifth year, I’ve become accustomed to living without him. That statement almost sounds like a betrayal. I imagine the me from three years ago is glaring at the present day me right now and scoffing at how I could be humming through this day, the date of his death.  I’ve spent hours planning and making a Thanksgiving feast, not because I have to and he’s not here to do it, but because now I want to and I enjoy it.

We hang an ornament with his face beaming at us on each Christmas tree in our house (yes we have three trees). Before this year I hung them out of sight to avoid his face whereas now I find myself smiling softly at the sight of his dimples. I fondly glance at the mistletoe he kissed me under as I walk past it when the sight of it used to crush me with the knowledge I wouldn’t receive any more kisses from him. We have not forgotten him, but the holidays are happy again. 

Life has somehow moved forward, even without him here and I think I’ve finally, for the most part, caught up with it. I can accept that I am both mom and dad, good cop and bad cop, the bread winner and the home maker and I am good with that now instead of feeling overwhelmed and abandoned. The bed doesn’t feel empty anymore. I don’t wake up and sigh with disappointment that a new day has dawned and I am still here. I find myself opening my curtains to let in the sunshine. I can sing songs we sang together without weeping (most of the time). I can watch videos of him with my kids and laugh and smile. Life, is happy again.

The road here wasn’t short or easy and it’s definitely not over. Each morning I smile and say hello to the new day instead of waking and sighing because I’m still here. Each morning I begin again. Each morning I try again. And again, and again. And even though arriving here five years later has been a long, bumpy, painful journey, I am here and I’ve arrived at yet another new beginning. Life isn’t perfect and it’s not pain free. But, I’m alive again. And I’m happy again. 

Four Years Later, Our Family of Three.

Today, I am a widow of four years and my children have grown four years older without their father. We are no longer broken, but some days we are still learning how to live without him. 

I still have some sleepless, lonely nights. My daughter sometimes come to me in tears because she misses how her daddy adored her. My son still keeps a photo of he and his daddy on his dresser and after months of introspective silence, will talk with me about him for hours.

In those moments, my children listen with rapt attention to my stories of our fun dates and silly fights and the life lessons he and I learned together and they retell their favorite, funniest and saddest moments of their dad that fill their memories. Kellan can't remember the day after Donnie passed, it's a complete blur to him. Emmi can recall almost every detail. I try not to remember the day before or the night we lost him and yet I can't help but think about where I was, what I was doing and how I had no idea what was coming. 

Losing your love, your loved one, or your dear friend can be sudden, world shaking and hurt as if you've lost a limb. It takes time to regrow the nerves that were severed, to realize there will be phantom pain, to understand you must work hard to move forward or even re-map your entire life plan. It's a painstaking process that is full of missteps and hesitations, tentatively placing your foot forward and finding yourself falling over and over again until you are finally able to pick yourself up without assistance and start moving forward with a hard fought confidence in each careful step.

I still dream about Donnie sometimes, even as recent as last night, but my dreams aren't as dark as they used to be. ~ In my dream we were planning a wedding vow renewal on a vast lawn under the stars, with lanterns hanging from trees and laughter floating on crisp fall air. ~ Life feels different now versus the last few years; still unknown, but brighter, hopeful and full of new beginnings. 

Today we will decorate our house for Christmas, tomorrow I will start cooking for Thanksgiving and our family of three that used to be four, will see a new year begin in just a few more weeks. We will miss him at each milestone and in the quiet nights. Every birthday, Thanksgiving and Christmas we will experience somber moments. But we will also laugh together, love each other and live each day with the intention of joy. And we will have new stories to tell in the years to come; our family of three. 

Why I Am a Christmas Crackhead

I'm a Christmas nut. It's true. I'm your worst nightmare when it comes to trying to avoid the Christmas holidays until they are right upon you jingling at your door. Why? Because I let you know far too often and way too early how many days it is until Christmas. I'm known to remind those I care about as early as June that Christmas is only 6 months away. 

I've been witnessed singing Christmas carols in 100+ degree temperatures. I watch Christmas movies year-round. I fantasize about how to decorate my house for Christmas months in advance. I have a Christmas tree for every room in my house and the decorations to go along with them. I can tell you what you should get on the 9th day of Christmas for your true love. 

I even have an app folder on my phone titled 'Christmas' that stays there year round so I can play Christmas games, decorate a Christmas tree virtually, cut up a snowflake and check how many days, hours, minutes and seconds it is until Christmas at any given moment the Christmas notion strikes me. And it does. Often.

Some people say I'm sick. Twisted. Insane. And I drive my friend Karen crazy. (Wait, if I'm driving you crazy, maybe that means I'm not really the crazy one Karen, you are! Heehehee!) I can't help it though. It beats like The Little Drummer Boy's drum inside my heart. Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Fa-la. Fa-la. Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-laaaa! Hey. You were singing with me just now, weren't you? WEREN'T YOU??? Come on, admit it.

I haven't always been this way. I mean, I've always loved Christmas of course. But it's been a progression since I married Donnie, so really I could blame a lot of it on him. Because before I warped into the Christmas freak, he flew the freak flag first. He decorated every square inch of his living space with Christmas whats-its when I met him. The man went all out. Garlands and bows, ribbons and ornaments, mistletoe and kisses. Hmmmm, I'm gonna miss that one. He was so festive that it was contagious. And over the years, I became infested with festivity. 

Several years ago on Christmas night, we were playing 'Santa', wrapping the big gifts and stuffing stockings, making pies and preparing portions of our holiday meal when the funniest thing happened. We had been checking the 'Santa Radar' all evening for the kids to know where Santa was so we could get them to bed on time. All night long the kids would ask, "Where's Santa now?!" to which we would check and answer "Zimbabwe!",  "Finland!" or wherever else Santa was trekking off to next.

We had already tucked the kids in bed at least an hour prior and Donnie was standing at the stove stirring a huge pot of something Cajun and delicious when he turned to me suddenly with his spoon poised in his hand and eager excitement edging in his voice as he asked me, "WHERE'S SANTA NOW?!?" I stopped my stuffing of the stockings to turn and look at him and asked him incredulously, 'Really??' and we both busted out laughing! He had literally forgotten for a moment that Santa wasn't real! It still makes me laugh. 

So yeah, it's gotta be mostly his fault. But I am what I am: a corrupted Christmas crackhead. And I know, I KNOW I have fallen to the commercialism of Christmas. There are plenty of Christians who boycott how sold out some people are to Santa and the wares of the holiday season. And I'll confess, I was one of those people who said I would never let my kids believe in Santa Claus. 

I knew Santa wasn't real when I was a kid. I knew Kris Kringle was just a bunch of bunk. And yes, my brothers and I were 'those kids' who spoiled Christmas for the young believers because my parents respected us enough to tell us the truth. Yeah, it was us that made the other kids cry because we told them it was OUR dad in the Santa suit and Santa was NOT real. And yes, we did feel superior to other children because we had adult knowledge of the facts of life about Christmas. 

But my husband wasn't having it. He wanted his kids to experience Christmas the way he had: nervous anticipation balled up in the pit of his stomach, aching for the swift moment Santa would swoop in as soon as he submitted to slumber so he could tear open his presents on Christmas morning and bask in giddy euphoria of the thought that Santa somehow brought him exactly what he wanted. So I did it. I gave in. And man am I glad I did. Christmas has been so exciting every year looking at it through my kids' eyes. 

OF COURSE Christmas is not all about Santa with us. Please. It's not all about the decor' and the eggnog, watching The Christmas Story movie or It's A Wonderful Life. It's not all about reading The Night Before Christmas or The Elf on the Shelf. If you've known us, then you know Christ has always been our priority and my kids clearly know the TRUE truth behind why we celebrate Christmas. We have read Luke 2 from the Bible to the kids every year and had discussions and celebrations to make sure that clarity remains. But come on y'all, they're kids. And it's Christmas. And we're just having some merriment and fun. Well, a lot of it actually. 

Besides, Kellan knows. He figured it out 2 years ago and asked Donnie and I a few weeks after Christmas whether Santa was real or not. We told him the truth, revealing our deception and I gulped guiltily as I wondered if my son would be damaged goods now that he knew we had duped him. But he just smiled knowingly and shrugged and said he knew it. I could tell he felt wiser and more grown up at the knowledge he had gained and it satisfied me that he could now enjoy the heady feeling of superiority over other children like I had. (Haha!)

I think this will probably be Emelia's last year to believe. But I'm holding it out as long as I can. Because I'm not looking forward to how the suspense of the holiday will lose a little of its luster once she realizes Santa isn't real. She'll know it's me busting my butt to get her gifts and the magic of Christmas Eve will diminish a bit for her and for me too once she becomes one of the superior knowledged children. But at least for one more Christmas she'll have trouble falling asleep and be straining her ears for jingle bells and reindeer hooves. And me? I'll be nibbling on Santa's cookies so she'll think he ate her sweet little offering.

By the way, however you want to look at it, as I'm writing this there are only 68 days OR 1,642 hours OR 98,534 minutes OR 5,912,040 seconds left until Christmas arrives. It's time to get ready people! HO HO HO!!!

Here's some helpful links for your Christmas preparation that a pro like me has been known to use during the holiday season!

Christmas countdown website

Santa Radar Tracking

FREE Personalized Santa Video/Christmas Letter for Kids

Cajun Culture Shock

I thought I knew Louisiana well. I was born in Baton Rouge. We visited my mom's family in Louisiana nearly every year when I was growing up. I played on the Louisiana grasses with my cousins Jonathan and Joanna, picked beans at my Aunt Julia's house and popped their pods apart to fill up a large pale green Tupperware bowl on her porch swing. And I might have dropped a cat from my cousins' Twyla and Lauren's neighbor's raised porch just to see if it would land on its feet. It didn't. I picked blueberries in the trees near my aunt Darlene's house and ate fresh watermelon and homemade ice cream on her lawn between sessions of playing marco polo in the pool with my cousins.

I gazed dreamily at my Grandmother's prided roses and inhaled their heavy scent that infused with the evergreens growing on my Grandaddy's Christmas tree farm and it would overwhelm my senses. I listened as my Grandaddy played his violin while my mom or one of her sisters played the piano and everybody sang hymns together. I slept in pallets on my Grandparents' living room floor with my cousins and my brothers and giggled together in the hush that followed their nightly prayer time as a family, kneeling at the chairs, the couch or the piano bench and marveled at how straightforward my Grandmother was when she spoke to God.

I walked across cattle guards in my bare feet and wandered the acres of my great-grandmother's pecan tree studded farm. I was stranded with my cousin Jennifer in a hay loft in the barn, climbed a giant tractor and sat in it's cockpit just to listen to the radio and feel the AC on a hot summer day and picked grocery sized paper bags full of pecans from the ground to bring back home with us to North Carolina. I stared at the dead rattlesnake floating in a large mason jar on one of her living room side tables as she told us for the 100th time the story of how that thing bit her leg and she killed the snake, took off her bandanna, tied it around her leg and then proceeded to drive herself to the emergency room. 

And I also watched as my great-grandmother mowed her acres of grass all by herself at 80-something years old, wearing one of her bonnets reminiscent of the ones I'd seen worn by the girls on Little House on the Prairie. I drank water from a soup ladle hanging at her kitchen sink that everyone else also drank from when they were thirsty between meals and nobody ever got sick from it. I sat at her long kitchen table to feast on every kind of farm-fresh breakfast food imaginable, all made from scratch by her hands.

I ate even more delicious homemade baked goods at my Aunt Ruby's house, gathered eggs from her hens and played on the swing-set in her yard where I learned the words to the Oscar Meyer wiener song for the first time. And I watched in pre-teen disgust as my Uncle Wilton showed us how to feed slop to a bunch of mud-wallering, snorting, stinking pigs. I made bottle rockets out of empty glass coke bottles and firecrackers and played with matches without adult supervision in my Aunt JudyAnn and Uncle David's long gravel driveway with my brothers and my cousins Eric, Jolene and Curtis. But I wouldn't eat the crawfish.

I went to the World's Fair in Louisiana as a teenager in 1984 wearing my multi-colored twisty beads and saw Andy Gibb in concert dancing and singing in his leather parachute pants to 'Shadow Dancing'. After I grew up I kept going back to Louisiana as often as I could to visit my cousin Eric and my other family members and explored New Orleans and its surrounding cities and the wealth of culture it held.

Louisiana has always been a magical place for me, being my birth state and holding so many treasured memories from my childhood and mid-twenties. Donnie and I always found it funny that I spent so much time traveling in and out of Louisiana over the years and we also discovered we were at the World's Fair at the same time and never met. Okay, I know Louisiana is big enough that we wouldn't meet and we probably weren't actually there on the same day, but it just made the world feel a little smaller and him a little closer, even though it took me 28 years to find him and him 30 years to find me.

But when Donnie introduced me to his part of Louisiana for the first time, it was as if I had stepped into a whole other world. We had traveled with our friends Lisa and Ken for Mardi Gras week. We went to a family parade and all the floats passed by screaming Donnie's name and throwing bags of beads and other assorted offerings at his feet. The four of us hung as many beads as possible around our necks, stuffed our shirts and filled our arms with them to bring back with us. 

He took me to his Aunt Dolly's house where his cousins, neices and nephews and MawMaw were visiting. There were about 10 or 12 of us standing and sitting around her small kitchen table carrying on 6 conversations at the same time. They were speaking in such thick Cajun accents I could barely understand them. And on top of that, they said their words so quickly, I couldn't get a chance to repeat them in my head to try to make out what they were saying. And on top of that, they were using Creole words that I didn't understand the meaning of and Cajun phrasing that sounded like backwards talking to me. 

For example, in my common English I would ask someone, 'How old are you?' or 'Did you see that fast car?' In their Cajun dialect they would say 'How old YOU are?' or 'Mais, you saw dat car go fast fast yeah?' Now imagine those sentences again with the words spoken so quickly they are nearly slurring together with a thick accent connecting them. Now. On top of that... the 6 conversations they were having were inter-connecting. They could jump in and out of and around each conversation at any given moment without stopping and continue right along where they left off in their last conversation. 

My. Head. Was. Spinning! I couldn't keep up! They were speaking another language and I wasn't getting it! Donnie would always laugh about how when he looked over at me, my eyes were bugging out, darting back and forth at everyone talking and my mouth was hanging open in shock! Oh it was so funny. Of course I mostly have it down now, although ask my sis-n-law Kristen and she'll tell you I still can't understand her very well over the phone. I always ask her, 'Can you say that again???' and 'What did you say???'.

Donnie and I would sometimes have misunderstandings over our language barrier. One time we were going to the store and as we pulled into the parking lot he asked me "Are you going to get down?" and I was like "Um, what? You want me to dance right here in the parking lot?". I thought he was asking me to get down and boogie-oogie-oogie! The translation was actually "Are you going to go into the store?" Other common miscommunications we had were turning the AC or TV volume up or down. He always said "Speed it up!" or "Slow it down!"... I got confused every time!

When we were planning our wedding we nearly had a huge argument over nothing. He told me he wanted his sister and cousins to "serve" at the wedding. I thought he meant he wanted them to serve the food and drinks at the reception! I couldn't believe he would want that and I told him there was no way and why would he even want them to serve??? He asked me 'Wouldn't you want your brothers to serve?' and I told him 'Of course not!' We were so frustrated with one another. It was a couple days later when I finally realized what he had meant by "serving" was he wanted them to be our bridesmaids and groomsmen! Doh!

The first time I went home with him for a holiday was another shocker for me. I had always been brought up on meals that strictly included a meat, a starch and at least one colorful veggie, maybe even two. My traditional Thanksgiving holiday meal was a balance of Northern foods from my dad and Southern foods from my mom. We usually had turkey and ham, sweet potatoes topped with marshmallows and mashed potatoes with giblet gravy, cornbread stuffing and Yankee stuffing, green bean casserole and cranberry sauce. 

When I went to fill my plate at my first Cajun Thanksgiving I walked around my bro-n-law's mom's kitchen expecting the foods I grew up on, searching for and never finding anything green; there was no salad, no green beans, nothing. There was turkey, gumbo, white beans, white rice, dirty rice, jambalaya, potato salad, mashed potatoes and corn. Everything was varying shades of white, brown and yellow. I whispered to Donnie 'Hey, where's the vegetables?' He said 'Over there' and pointed to the white beans! Of course everything was delicious. Every bite I put in my mouth was absolutely delectable. But I was floored that our families ate so differently. 

It was kind of like the first time I realized there were people who couldn't or 'shouldn't' sing. I was 16 years old at FCA camp the summer going into my senior year of high school. We were standing in the assembly room, singing praise and worship and the girl beside me, who was a lot of fun, was singing wholeheartedly out of key with all that she had in her little body. I started cracking up and elbowed her and said 'Stop it! You're killing me! You're so funny! Cut it out!' I mean, I was rolling, almost in tears crying because it was SO bad and SO hilarious. She turned and looked at me with confusion, all doe eyed and innocent and said 'WHAT are you talking about???' That's when it dawned on me that there were people in this world who couldn't sing. 'Oh, um, nothing...' I said, and turned back towards the front and joined the singing again, very sheepishly. 

My initial experiences on the bayou felt similar, but I quickly grew accustomed to the differences in 'his Louisiana' and 'my Louisiana'. I grew past the culture shock and found a lot of common ground and embraced the lifestyle of the bayou. Everywhere we went everyone knew Donnie. It amazed me how well loved and well known he was. If we went to Walmart we would inadvertently end up spending a couple of hours there because we would meet someone on every aisle and have a 20 minute conversation. When we went to church there it was as if Elvis was in the building. We couldn't walk 2 feet without being stopped by somebody. It was overwhelming every time and in some ways I seriously felt like the wife of a celebrity. It was awesome.

At first every aspect of being on the bayou was new, different, exciting and sometimes challenging. But now, as soon as we drive into town for a visit and see the bayou running through the middle of it with the houseboats, fishing boats and crab boats and we see the boys and old men fishing alongside the bayou, it feels like home. Our ears itch to hear the Cajun accents and our taste buds scream for the Cajun foods. There's always a freshly made mouth watering gumbo or another yummy Cajun dish and a warm pair of arms to welcome us wherever we decide to stop first. 

The heritage is amazing, the food is phenomenal, the accents are thick, the people are loving and the time we have there is absolutely priceless. It's not the same without Donnie, but his Louisiana has become my Louisiana too. Now I have two families waiting for me to visit when I cross the state lines and that thought is so very heartwarming to me. 

But I still won't eat the crawfish.

Missing Mom.

I still have dreams about her. 

Just this week when I woke one morning for a moment it was so real that I really believed she was still with me. I almost called her. It's crazy how dreams mess with reality sometimes. 

I miss her. I miss her grace, I miss her voice. I just miss... her. 

I find myself thinking back over ordinary moments with her that have become extroadinary memories. Simplicities like going shopping with her, holding her hand from as far back as I can remember to even as an adult when we walked through the malls together, driving through the country to look at houses and trees just so we could eat a chocolate covered Dairy Queen ice cream cone and talk about nothing and everything. Hugging her every night and telling her I loved her.

Telling her she was going to be a grandmother.

I just... miss her. And my babies are totally missing out on her. 

...Happy Mother's Day Mom! I love you!!