Living Proof

It's just not happening. I can't do it. I'm cancelling Christmas. I mean, I'm still going to celebrate Jesus' birth, but in a much different way. I have to step out of the family tradition this year. I LOVE my family, but I'm afraid it'll be too heartbreaking to even see them, or have them see me cry. Christmas Eve was always spent with the entire family, usually at night with a ton of seafood and drinks. I don't ever remember having a bad Christmas. I've never even missed a Christmas before...until this year. I want to go, but I can't. I was going to make pans of food and gather with my sisters and their extended families, but I just can't do it. I just want grab a bite to eat with my partner, have a martini and go home. Maybe I'll cry, maybe I won't, but I know I'll miss my mom terribly. I can't even wrap my head around the fact that she's not going to be here this Christmas. Yes, I know, people die -- get over it, rig

I know, I know... " She had to go." "It was her time." "She's in God's care now." "She was suffering." I lost her long before she died. I had anticipatory grief knowing that her time was almost running out. She even heard me cry a few times. Many times, I told her, "Ma, if you go, I go." I had this feeling that I would just die from a broken heart. I was doing ok for a while, living my life, working, cooking, doing everyday errands, etc., until recently. I found myself in a huge puddle of my own tears. In fact, I ran out of tissues and the only box of tissues left was in her bedroom near her pillow. She would cry herself to sleep sometimes because she was so scared that she was given an expiration date. I brought the tissues with me and cried my eyes out. I cried out, "How do I live without you?" She was the only person I spoke to about things I would never with someone else. She would give me her opinions and sug

Anticipatory Grief If you think back to a time when you were going through the roughest stage in your life, can you remember what pulled you through it? Do you remember how long you suffered for? If you were to have asked me a little over four months ago if I would be "OK" if my mom was going to pass away the next day, I wouldn't even entertain the thought. Even while my mother was in excruciating pain, I had hope that she would have gotten better. There was something telling me that this was the final stage. See, Mom kept a secret from me. This whole time I had thought she had stage two cancer. She was on stage four with no other options from her oncologist. She kept this secret to save me from killing myself. The month before she died, I got to take her to the shore, spend time with her, gave her a Mother's Day BBQ outside by the ocean with our family, and it was just magical. What happened next just spun my whole world around. I was having anticipatory grief. Mo

What's most important to you in life? Is it a career? Is it love? Is it having a family? Is it something that is seemingly unattainable? Remember, nothing is impossible. The word "impossible" implies, IM-POSSIBLE -- you're possible, your circumstances are possible, endless possibilities. But the question remains: what do you want? What does your heart want? Growing up, I always wanted to be like my mom. I wanted to take care of my loved ones -- whatever loved ones -- whether adopted, or by birth, or just family in general. I wanted to be a caretaker in various ways. I wanted to cook, garden, clean, write, delve in music and art and just let my life be about creativity in a productive way. I wanted it to be able to help others, not just for my own gratification. I wanted to do things to show my love for the people in my life. Mom taught me about Jesus at a very young age. She was a born again Christian after she went through a horrific health scare in her early

Since the beginning of October, I have been so sick with bronchitis. I've been in and out of doctor's office doing breathing treatments, inhalers, antibiotics, and now, steroids -- it's been relentless. I even had to go on my one week vacation to the shore with my partner. We were both sick and on top of that, we both had pink eye. We stayed indoors, sometimes going outside to watch the ocean, but mainly gazing at the waves and white caps through our deck windows with a pile of tissues and cough medicine. Backtrack to the beginning of June. My mom and I were sitting in the living room discussing the beach house that we were going to rent out for our next vacation. We always paid for her to come with us. She's so much fun. But she was really declining at this point. I said to Mom, "You're definitely coming with us, right? Even if you feel sick, what better place to be than by the ocean!" She said, "Only if I can pay this time!" "NO!"

I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands -- you need to be able to throw something back, as the great Maya Angelou once said. I've never understood the "takers" in life. It must come with some sense of entitlement, either through how they were raised, or perhaps they feel they've done "this much" in life, so now everybody else owes them something. Whatever it is, it can be draining on the "givers" in their life. My dad always taught me to be extra generous. He would overtip, do big favors for people for free, like plow and fix the road we lived on for us and all of our neighbors without asking for a dime. He even provided shelter and food for the homeless, providing them with an opportunity to work with him at his excavation company so that they could get back on their feet again. My dad was the most generous person I ever knew. He would give you the shirt off his back and never think twice a

Have you ever been attacked for your faith in God? Did you ever have someone ask you a million and one challenging questions regarding why God "lets" bad things happen? I'm finding that many Christians don't know how to respond to this -- or perhaps they fail to respond in a clear way. Let's face it, we're people who have faith of God, not knowledge of God. We're taught to trust in God and that suffering is taking part in Christ's suffering. But still, questions get asked, "Why does God let children fall ill to cancer, or why does God let grown adults rape children?" These are really good questions -- touchy subjects too, but valid inquiries of the darkness of this fallen world. But that's just what it is: the world. The world is encompassed mostly by evil. "But there are good people in the world." Yes, but overall, the world is overpowered by evil. Believers are not "of this world" -- this world will soon pass

All I could do was cry out to God asking him why he had to take such an amazing person away from me. Clichés of, "He only takes the best," doesn't explain why some murderers, rapists & terrorists die too. It just kinda makes it feel worse. Sometimes I wonder if I'm being tested like Job was in the Bible. First you take away my dad, and now my mom, leaving me with some financial issues that need to be resolved. All of these "tests" -- or are they tests? Most Christians say, "Well, God would never test you." Sure He would. Satan tried to test Job by taking his family and his wealth. He was ok. The one thing that almost got him was when he took away his health. And even then, Job still remained faithful. Is it for me to stay in faith? I mean, ever since mom died, my faith has been stronger than ever. You would think I would lose all faith. But now that He sees how strong I am, or "could be" -- then maybe He's gonna do something wors