Letting Go

This last year was my year to learn about really letting go. I lost my Mom to leukemia on April 8, 08 that date will be ingrained in my head probably till I die. I always thought it would be her bad heart that would take her. It was a tough few months for her but she did it with dignity. I love her so much and she is in my heart everyday. In nursing school they teach you that before someone dies they need to hear that it's OK to die. I told my Mom that it was OK and at the time I meant it because I saw that she was in pain (didn't want to take pain meds because she didn't want to get hooked on them) but after the fact I didn't want to let her go and wanted her back. Her big concern was that she didn't want us to be sad and she didn't want to let go of us either. She fought a hard fight but her body gave out.
I think about her everyday but today more so, every morning I put her old sweater on and I visualize her giving me a hug it's my own way of dealing with all of this. Today when I woke up to my phone ringing it was my youngest son Larry calling telling me he was on his way back to a place where there hasn't been peace for before time and said "you know I'm OK with it". You see he is also teaching me to let go, he knows how much I worry about him and wants me to be OK just by his words. Even while he was on leave here he was teaching me, I fought it hard but in the end I had to let go of the fact that he is a grown man able to make decisions for himself and able to take care of things in his own way. I wanted to hang on tight to him just like I did my Mom but, he had to make the long trip back to Afghanistan. Letting go is not easy......but we have no control it just happens.

How I Met my Best Friend

Today I am start my blog, which I have wanted to do for quite sometime. Our daughter Kirsten started one and I love reading and keeping up with her and the Starman family. I have also been reading other people's blogs and just love reading about their lives. I started thinking what would I have to write about all of our kids are grown and lead their own lives and my blog would be a boring middle aged woman so here it goes. Today I'm thinking about how I met my best friend;o) He kinda just appeared even though we had worked together or alongside each other many times. We met at the hospital, I was working night shift as an RN charge nurse. I enjoyed working night shift because I could be at work pick up Larry take him to school, sleep while he was at school and be up in time to spend his after school hours with him and then be back at work just an hour before he went to bed. He stayed with my mom and thank goodness she lived near us, otherwise I'm not sure what I would have done. OK, this is going to be a problem with my blogging already I get distracted with one story so back to how I met my best friend;o)
While working I kept noticing that Dr. McAuliffe kept coming in early and boy that really would tick me off because he'd wake the patients up and then write a crap load of orders. All I wanted to do is finish my shift and get home! This happened quite frequently and then he would sit right at the nursing station where the charge nurse sits (me) and try to talk to me. We would talk about being single parents, kid stuff, cars (I was in the process of getting a new one), travel and pretty much anything. He was so easy to talk to which was unheard of being a doctor and all. I got to where I kinda liked him coming in to do rounds.
I was leaving to do my two weeks for the National Guard and told him that I was going to be gone and he said "drop me a postcard". So while I was in Panama I did just that. When I got back to work there were some beautiful flowers waiting for me no signature but simply saying "welcome home" in this very distinguished handwriting. The very handwriting that I would early in the morning take orders off ,I knew whose writing that was! Wow how did he know that I was even coming back to work tonight?? What a nice surprise;o) This was just the beginning of the many nice things my best friend has done for me. After that, we talked everyday and ended up falling in love and 6 months yes 6 we married and joined our kids together in a nice small ceremony.....I love being married to my Best Friend Greg....