Love is what keeps us going...

14 years ago this very week, we laid you to rest, and our lives were changed forever. The day we laid you to rest, still in shock you were really gone, was Tuesday January 16th, 2001. Weird that this year, this week, it was the day you died, tuesday the 13th.

You courageously stopped fighting your battle with breast cancer on Tuesday January 13, 2001, at a young age of 51 years old, just three months shy to the day of what would have been your 52nd birthday! I was just a baby, barely 18 years old and starting my second semester of college. You were just a baby yourself, 51 is so young!

 I should have been back to college already the weekend you passed, and on January 16th, the day of your burial services, would have been the first night of my Psychology Death and Dying class, which obviously I missed, and headed back to school later in the week. So weird, the way the universe works. Really? great timing for my death and dying class!! Thank goodness it was only one night a week; it was a rough one as any one could have imagined! I got by with the help of my friend Ryan who was in the class and also lived down the hall from me. I had many other support systems while away from my family, which I am very thankful. Who knew your passing would mark the beginning of our family's nightmares and losses for the next seven years... hitting us hard with too many too soon in just a short four years, and then taking your husband, my uncle, away from us in 2007. With every ending, there are many beginnings...your girls got married, started having children, other cousins were getting married, photos were being taken, moments treasured, people and relationships changing. We all deal with death in our own ways, no way being right or wrong. Regardless of how we dealt with all the loss around us individually, I think it brought us closer together as an extended family, even if it was just for a few short years.

January 13, 2007... six years after your passing, I got my first tattoo, in your honor. I have a way of doing things and putting a spin on it, so my family will approve I guess or I think anyways!! (like naming my dog Russell after my Sittoo! haha) I dragged my little brother to come with me for support. It was so freshly done, still covered with a bandage for the memorial service at the church for you. I remember it like it was yesterday... I was showing it off after church, at auntie's house where we had a brunch get together. My mom thought, "it's bigger than I thought, but I like it!" It was just perfect. A red ladybug with a halo over it and on my right shoulder, always looking out for me.

Lady bugs mean different things to many people, some consider them a nousance when their house is invested, others think of them as a blessing, and when you see them not in their usual seasons, maybe a lost loved one. I've told the story time and time again, we all have. My aunt in North Carolina saw a couple of lady bugs about a year after, or maybe it was a month after, her sister's passing and thought it was her and her dad, who she lost at nine years old. That's all it took, then a few of us up here in New England saw them slowly throughout our homes... random ones, by themselves. We were hooked, and you will find many different lady bug figurines, ceramics, towels, candles and whatnot in all of our homes. Whatever it may be that helps you get through your tough times, ours are ladybugs!

Ladybug showing up in ones life foretells a time of luck and protection.Seen often as a messenger of promise, the ladybug reconnects us with the joy of living. Fear and joy can not co-exist. We need to release our fears and return to love  - this is one of the messages that the ladybug brings to us. Ladybug teaches us how to restore our trust and faith in the great spirit.   When the ladybug appears, it is telling us to get out of our own way and allow the great spirit to enter into our lives. The ladybug is also one of the few beetles that are well liked by humans. Unlike other beetles, the ladybug brings a feeling of joy to us. Its small size signifies a delicate and loving nature. It portrays the energy of harmlessness and can show us how to stop self harm.

Fourteen years... fourteen years is a long time, a year is a long time, 30 seconds is a long time some days!! I was SUCH a baby, 18 years old, and looking back now, not sure what I was doing, who I was becoming...just trying to find my way, ANY way really, like a typical 18 year old in her first year of college, I'd like to think. what happened in the later years well I'm not too sure. I've always said, some people do drugs, some people further their education/degrees, some people look for love in all the wrong places. But as I also always say, what's done is done and we learn and grow from our past mistakes. I also wouldn't be the person I am today having not grown stronger from those experiences!

As I was driving to work this morning, the sky had such a quiet wintery cold feeling to it. However, the bright band of yellow brushed the sky where the sun was coming up over the lake on the mass pike! You couldn't see the sun, but by the bold yellow color lighting up that part of the sky, you knew the sun was there! I immediately thought of you and maybe you were with me in that very moment, somewhere i couldn't see you, but your presence was beaming over us in that beautiful yellow coloring above. It was a picture I wise I could have captured. 

There is never a day that goes by when I don't wish you, among all the others I have lost, were here. My high school graduation party at your house and Thanksgiving... a couple of the very last family celebrations you shared with us. Such a long long time ago!!! A lot has happened in fourteen years! A lot has happened in a year! Life is far too precious to not do what you love and love who you love. The only constant thing in life is change, and the only guarantee in life is death... So it may have taken me fourteen years to get here, but I'm here! I found someone who wants to spend the rest of their life with me no matter how short or long that may be; no matter how tough or easy that may be; no matter what through sickness and health, just like your husband did for you!  I'm happy I never gave up the fight! I never gave up this crazy fight we call life. It beats the alternative, right??. The scary unknown... The otherside... The heaven that everyone wants to go to but they are too afraid of dying!!!  I'm happy that no matter how bad it was, I kept on going!  You have to put up with the rain to see the rainbows!!  

If I have learned anything this past year, these past fourteen years... is that I am stronger than I ever given myself credit for, I am worthy of love, happiness and great things /people that come my way, and to keep it simple! We are not promised tomorrows so make todays count! 

          "Do you love her?" "Yes!" "Does she make you happy?" "Yes!!" "Then what else is there?"