I came across this quote the other day and they've been words I've had to live by lately. What I want to do is cry over everything that's over. Patrick being a newborn, seeing my dad light up every time Patrick walked through their front door, being young and catching "water skippers"(does anyone know their real name?) in the ditch behind our house, running/walking behind my parent's house with nothing but fields and trees, being involved in the Folk Dance Festival every summer, going to West Yellowstone as a family, joking about my parents being too "lovey" in public, and just having my biggest worry be about whether my frog was buried properly or not. Yes, I did make my dad bury graves in the middle of winter for various little animals...
I came by being nostalgic honestly. It's always been fun to hear my parents talk about the days when us kids were little and remembering things I'd forgotten. The past always seems much better in memory than it probably was actually living through it but I know we had fun. A lot of fun. I've been pretty blessed all my life and now I really do just need to smile because it happened. I need to smile because there are things happening right now. Jon and I have started our own little family and hopefully we'll be able to make a lot of memories that Patrick and our future kids will be able to remember back to with a little nostalgia someday. And right now, I get to see how much my mom adores Patrick and how he's changed my whole family's life for the better. I get to see Patrick chase around all of his cousins, on Jon's side, and it makes my heart melt with how much he loves kids and people. This Saturday, we're celebrating Patrick's birthday and I'll get to start the same traditions of having fancy cakes(if I learn to be talented like my mom was) and fun parties with lots of family and friends. We are so blessed. Life is hard, but we are still blessed. Even though some phases of life end, new phases start and I'm so lucky to be able to constantly look back on life with feelings of happiness.
Today I'm nostalgic, yesterday I was tired, the day before I was angry and the day before that I was probably happy. I hope as time goes on, the feelings of happiness will start to outweigh the other emotions for all of my family but for now, I just need to keep reminding myself to smile because it happened.
I think what you're going through is known as the grieving process. Let it happen and yes, smile because it happened. What a perfect quote!
ReplyDeleteWith a second baby almost here, I've been feeling nostalgic about my two year old growing up! But then today we had a fun morning at the lake and I thought, "Wow, I'm lucky to be a mom! I get to relive childhood and make awesome summer memories for my children. This is fun!"