The funeral.

 The funeral was hard, I took the kids, making it harder. Everything was beautiful,  seen many friends I would love to see again under better circumstances. Her family seems to be healing well, many of them spoke. Telling stories of the many fun and funny things Melissa had done.They were witty, just like her.

  Her daughter got up on the podium and spoke of how much she was going to miss her mother, and how she knew she would see her again. Not a dry eye in the house.

Her casket was Mary Kay pink.

 Last summer she talked about nothing else, but earning that damn pink Cadillac.  I am pretty sure, she was thinking a faster model, but she hardly has a need for that now.

My roller coaster seems to be evening out a bit. Mostly I just miss my friend. 

It is easy to get wrapped up in day to day things and not realize what we have anymore, until something like this comes along to rattle our cages and remind us how fragile, and precious life is.

Every day is a gift, you can give back or let it go but there may not be another. Carpe diem.

Kiss the ones you love let them know how much you treasure them. Squeeze them tight and tell them you love them.

The book.

 You may or may not have noticed that I randomly posted a picture of a book entitled "All mom's go to heaven" By Dean Hughes. There is a reason.

My timeline is so off for the last few days, but I will spare you the talking in circles it would take me to try to figure it out and just start with "one morning".

 So, one morning I woke up and mangaged to drag myself out of bed, I went straight to the coffee pot as usual. Poured, and happened to glance over to the part of the counter that turns into a crap heap, no matter how hard I try to keep it clean...

 And there it was this book All moms go to heaven. It was propped up with facing out, just as if some one had placed it there on a stand so as to make sure I seen it.--This is the part were I ask you to scroll down, and actually look at the picture on the cover.The picture looks like her. Only better in real life then in a tiny copyed from google picture.-- I had carried it with me for 2 months in my purse, Melissa read it already and had borrowed it from her mom,  and loaned it to me to read.
I had gotten so busy that I completely forgot  about it.

I don't believe in coincidences. So after yet another round of tears I took the coffee, & book back to bed, and stayed there until I had finished them both.

The upshot was that the book did pertain to me, and another of my friends. So I drove it over to her, and when she is done I might pass it to another friend ( but not before I take a copy of the cover, for myself.) Sort of do a 'traveling pants' kind of thing. Melissas gone, and she is still taking care of us. That is so her.

I have put my blog ( Ugh I hate that, can't we just call it an online journal or something?)  link on face book, don't know if anyone will care to come. Don't care really, I have decided that friends will think the sun shines on your ass no matter what you do, and people who aren't friends...well get the hell of my page! ;)

RIP MELISSA LOVE U GIRL

muddeling through

 I have been wandering as if through a fog inside my own mind for 3 of the longest days of my life. Every time I think I am alright, even for an hour, I see something that reminds me of her. And I start all over again. I think I am getting better though. I can almost go 2 hours now.

I told my kids that Melissa had passed away and was an angel in heaven watching us. They didn't seem to understand, they are young and their only experiences with death have been with older people.

 Yesterday the walls were closing in on me at home and I had to get away. I ended up at my cousins house, same place I usually go when I run off. Her very wonderful mother in law who loves my kids as though they were her own grandchildren, was there.

 She noticed that Charlotte (my middle girl) had gotten her hair cut, and commented on how cute it was. Charlotte from across the room came over to announce that "Melissa was dead." It was Melissa who had cut her hair, just weeks ago.

Last night she came into my room and said she had a bad dream. I asked her what it was about, and she told me it was about "Lissa" in a room that wasn't a bedroom, with flowers. And she was dead.  I asked her if the room looked like a church, and she looked at me like "how did I know that!" and said "YA!"

I think she understands now. :(  The funeral is Wednesday and I had been debating on whether or not to take the younger kids. Guess they are going.

 There have been so many things that could not be a coincidence. I could write about them all day, but I won't. I really do like to keep some things private, to myself. Like a secret memory just for me. I hope that doesn't sound entirely selfish, but I don't  care too much if it does.

Melissa was a rare kind of person. The kind of person that you could have coffee with one afternoon and feel as though you have known all of your life. She was so warm, fun and full of life. She was a big girl and had a tough life, but she would have done anything she could have to help anyone, and often did. Even at the expense of her own family. She believed firmly in teaching by example. 

 I hate it when someone dies and they instantly become an innocent having never done wrong, it dehumanizes them. Having put much thought into it I still can not really think of anything negative.

 She was stubborn, but she had a wonderful sense of fairness. One thing that I admired and love about her was that she could say the things that I never could. She could, to use her favorite saying: " tell 'um where the bear shits in the woods." 

Meaning that she could be assertive without being abiotch, say what she had to say but somehow it always came out in a nice way, even when it was something that you didn't want to hear.

She was fiercely protective of her kids, family, and friends. Which included damn near everyone she met. She was genuine, never fake. Never one way with one set or friends and one way with another. God I loved that about her.

Even as I sob and type and try to see through tear soaked eyes and glasses. I still can't believe she is gone. I am so grateful for every minute with her.

I would get home after working a 12 hour shift and she would tell me all about what my kids did that day. We would talk like we hadn't seen each other in years, much to the annoyment of my husband in the same room trying to hear is shows.  He loved her too though. Every one did.