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It's been a while.  I haven't written a post in longer than I had planned, but life got in the way.  In a good way.  I've been drinking it in. 

I guess it all started with my friend's funeral.  It was as devastating as you would imagine.  Her 9 year old son was brave and strong for his family as he got up and read the second reading at the mass.  I thought my heart was going to explode.  But even more painful was watching him walk behind his mother's casket, clinging to his father.  I think that may be ingrained in my memory for life. 

After the funeral I sat and spun for a while.  Meaning, I was a little morose and down for a bit.  The "why?" and the "how?" kept coming to my mind.  But you can only sit and spin for so long.  I had to snap out of it.  And if there is anything positive to come from something so horrendous it is that it really does make you want to appreciate what you have when you have it and to the very fullest.  Enjoy every moment.  And that is what I have been busy doing. 

Well, I have been enjoying as much as I could as a nasty cold blew through our household.  Todd was terribly sick for a week and I have been fighting it for almost that long as well.  But still, I've been enjoying.  Since my trip to Oklahoma and the funeral I feel like I have finally been seeing my life for what it is.  How lucky I am.  How much I've got.  It is overwhelming.  I've been soaking it all in as much as I can. 

Life is so short. And for so long I've been afraid of death.  Of stopping.  Ceasing.  I feel guilty even writing that down, but it is true.  Sometimes I wake in the middle of the night in a cold sweat just thinking about not being here.  Or anywhere.  Just ceasing to be.  Like I never even existed.  As a Christian, I feel guilty for having such thoughts.  I am supposed to have faith.  But these thoughts creep in.  I watch shows about life after death and they are somewhat comforting, and then these little terrors seep back into my head. 

But that dream I had.  It was just too real.  And too coincidental.  It gave me such peace.  Peace I was hoping to get from my dad after he passed.  A visit.  A confirmation.  But it never came.  Instead I found it from a grade school girlfriend that I hadn't spoken with in years.  Life is funny like that sometimes, I guess. 

And anyway, here I am.  Trying to live it up.  And enjoy.  And appreciate.  And do my best.  Be my best.  Spend a little less time on my computer and all my time on what matters to me.  Whether it is making cookies with the kids, snuggling with the hubby, cooking dinner, reading all the books I've been meaning to read for so long, taking walks in the woods, taking a bath, I'm doing it all.  And I'm trying my best not to take it for granted.