Being a mother and a daughter

Yesterday I flew my baby boy to San Jose, California to see his daddy.  All alone.  And since my older two are at their dads for the summer I suddenly felt empty and lonely.  This week I've had to question my life... who am I... what life am I giving my children? 
As I watched my little 8 year old board the plane ever so excited for his adventure, I was able to hold back the tears until he turned the corner, but as soon as he was gone they started to spill over.  There was no open sobbing, but a mother behind me saw me wipe at my eyes and sweetly asked, "Is it his first time?".  When I nodded she told me it gets easier with each flight and I thought how sad it was that she knew this and that her children experienced the same thing.  I felt like such a horrible mother as I noticed other people looking at me with concern, probably pitying the single mom and the boy from a broken home.  How much of this was in my own head, I don't know but the feelings of sadness and failure were still there, and the thought of my child in a huge plane way above the clouds with no mom or dad to hold his hand was scary.  I had images of the plane going down in a fiery ball of fury and I was near panic when I saw them begin to taxi onto the runway, and I followed along watching through the windows until it was out of sight.  He's gone for 8 days.  8 days is a long time, longer than he's ever been away from me. 
During the 3 hour drive home from the Salt Lake City airport with some of my best friends there with me, I started to wonder if this is how our Heavenly Mother felt when we left.  If she worried about the lives we would have with the "other parents" that she was trusting us with, hoping they made the best choices for their earthly children just as I was worrying about my child so far away with his dad.  I'm sure she watches us during our short time on earth and hopes for our safe return, just as I hope and pray that my son comes back to me safely.  We often think of our Heavenly Father and question his plan and his feelings for us, but lately I've wondered about his partner, the mother we left and will hopefully return to some day.  I must trust my children to make the best choices they can when they're away from me, to take care of themselves the way I've taught them and to remember their value and who they really are, whatever their circumstances may be, and I'm sure our Heavenly parents hope the same for us.
So here I am, wondering about life, about my future... worrying about my parents AND my children... and I feel once again that coming here was the best thing.  The best thing for my almost teenage daughter who I felt needed her father at this critical time in her life.  The best thing for my sons, who no longer have to live without the priesthood now that we have Jarom and Camilla's dad just minutes away and my father here in our home. The best thing for me as I find myself drawing close to my friends who even with my three year absence are here for me, loving me and forgiving me for not being the friend I should have been while I was gone.  And the best thing for my soul as I find peace in those around me and feel love from my Savior, my bishop and my old ward. I think I'm healing as I now see how unhealthy the life I had in California was for my family and I'm so very grateful that I made it back home to my parents, who I'm sure felt the same way about me while I was gone as I'm feeling about my son during his little vacation.  The judgement I thought I would feel, the critisism and scoldings about my facial piercing and the plastic surgery I had in California have not come, and I almost feel like the prodigal daughter welcomed home with open arms.  Funny how even at 31, when I've been on my own for nearly 15 years, I still need the comfort of my family, the strength of my father, and the security of knowing that my mother is near if I need a hand to hold or a shoulder to cry on.

Fairytale moments

I don't think I've EVER travelled as much in my life as I have the last month.  Between the move from Cali, our vacay to Four Corners and our recent trip to St. George, I'm tired of the car.  Why St. George though? My super tough daddy had surgery for lung cancer.  He found out he had it over a month ago and it's part of the reason I came home. 
The reality that my father is not immortal, as I'd always thought, was overwhelming.  I had to realize that the people who love me most were two states away and thats where I belonged.  The surgery went well but I was not prepared for the state my father would be in after the doctors had their way.  He was in intensive care for a day and when I first walked in I saw Superman with a forced oxygen mask on his face, tubes coming from his body, some of them draining blood from the surgery and others pumping medications into him like crazy.  His monitors showed a heartbeat that was way too slow and his breathing was shallow and sometimes he'd go too long between breaths.  I didn't realize he was on a machine at night for sleep apnea and I'd never seen him breathe like that.  I only stayed a few minutes and abandoned my sister with him before he woke up.  A few hours later I braved the creepy ICU again.  He was sleeping and I didn't dare wake him for fear I would either have to see him in pain or even worse, start crying in front of him, so I just sat and watched him until mom came in a few minutes later.  I will never ever forget the way she took his hand and placed a cold washcloth on his forehead or how he slowly opened his eyes completely unaware that I sat in a chair just a few feet away from him and softly said to her "I think I must have died and went to heaven. There's an angel in my room."  Over the last ten years I've watched my dad slowly change from a grumpy old fart into a husband who clearly adores his wife.  He's still got his grumpy fart moments but he's definitely softened.
Watching my mom stand over his hospital bed with the monitors that read his scary heartbeat, tubes filled with blood, and a morphine button at his side was a moment in time I'll always remember and that they'll never fully understand. 
Finding myself single after having planned a future with 4 different men, two who I married and two that ended before the I do's, I've learned that "The Fairy Tale" simply doesn't exist.  That everything I've been told about love and eternity and happily ever after is just a myth, or perhaps I was just one of those girls who had pissed God off enough that he didn't feel I deserved it.  Either way, watching them together in that moment made me realize that while life is not a fairytale, it can have it's fairytale moments and those moments can carry us through to the next fairytale moment.  I haven't found a prince willing to wait for the moments that make the tough times worth while but I suddenly believe he's out there and I can't wait to start our story.
As for my Superman dad, he's doing a little better.  He's still in the hospital, still having pain and still not wonderful but I have faith that he'll be ok in time. 
If I didn't believe that, I think my world would suddenly twist and contort from a fairytale into a nightmare.

Vacation

I made it to UT!  And we left for vacay the next day to see Four Corners, Mesa Verde, the Aztec Ruins and Silverton, CO.  Mom and Dad and dads long lost cousin, Jake Zimmerle went as well as my sister Joan, her husband Jeff and their five kids; my sister Stella, her husband Jon and their 6 kids.  And of course, Adam and I.  It was so fun and so tiring!  I'll be adding pictures soon.

Last night my old friend Laura came over to help clean out the closet of the room I'll be staying in.  My parents own a company and on top of that... they NEVER throw anything out.  The combination makes for a ton of stuff in their home so adding me plus three kids seemed impossible.  Once we got started we realized we had much more room than we thought due to extra vertical space provided by the high vaulted ceilings.  Yay for extra room!  BUT by the time we were done we were laughing hard enough to pee ourselves. 

The reasons for the nearly peed upon blue jeans can be shown through some of these pictures.



a reciept for a soda mom purchased 9 years ago, 



Sadlie thought she found a Reese's... come to find out it was just an empty wrapper, Grandma.... you got same splainin to do!



Why does the oxygen tubing need to
 be tied to the suitcase?



Patterns from 25 years ago



Ok Red Onion Saloon? This is just WRONG!



As I was going throught things, finding this and that (especially the stuff I KNOW was made at least a decade before I was born) I couldn't help but be thankful for my mother and how hard she worked to take care of us.  I never fully appreciated it until I was an adult, and I'm sure I still don't but she is really amazing. And she's ALWAYS happy.  I tried several months ago to call and tell her these things but I know the words didn't come out right. 

So, last night with one of my best friends, Laura beside me, going through memories and telling them to Laura's daughter, laughing and thinking of my mother and dad, I realized that although I'm homesick for California and that I miss my friends and my recent ex fiance.... I'm exactly where I need to be.

 I'm homesick, lonely at times, moody, emotional and heartbroken over the life I had planned for myself only to have it go away.  And now I need nothing more than to be with my mother and father, the people who have been a constant for me my entire life.