By all appearances, I became a deadbeat blogger again.

My silence wasn't accidental. The past six weeks have been a clanging of extremes, and I haven't quite found that spot between mirthful and miserable that most people term normal…but I'm getting closer. It comes down to this: at the end of the day, I will always be an introvert…and I haven't decided how I feel about everything yet.

For most of my life, I thought introvert meant shy and extrovert meant outgoing. I hated admitting introversion because I thought it insinuated meekness…weakness. I learned a couple of years ago during a communications course that introverts simply process events and information internally as opposed to externally. I can definitely admit to that…and I consider myself neither meek nor weak.

I read a story a few weeks ago. The author compared life to a ride on a carousel. I don't really see the full parallel, but I haven't been able to shake the thought. Carousels seem so ever-pleasant, dreamy, tempered, predictable…but life isn't really like that, at least not all the time. Maybe I'm amused by the idea of a merry-go-round life.

I'm only amused and not wistful because nothing worthwhile should be that easy. We should have to work for the good, or we take it for granted. Never assume that happy times are standard-issue; instead, revel in them, and know that they are fleeting. Take mental snapshots and file them away because they will be there for you visit always. Loss gives you new eyes: they are the ironic takeaway from heartache. They appreciate.

I have lived the last six years with these eyes, and my heart is full—at this moment, painfully so. I started January with a relatively spontaneous getaway to Los Angeles where we celebrated our first anniversary in lavish fun. I ended January with a completely spontaneous trip to Orlando where we tried to make sense of the sudden death of Nick's father. His passing stole my air, and I haven't found my breath yet. Considering that I've only known him for six short years, I can only imagine how the rest of the family is feeling.

So much is going right in my life, yet so much will never be right again. A friend of mine from high school lost her father early February. I saw her note first, and my heart ached for her—his death, too, was unexpected. Then the funny interweave of life pounced on me.

My father called me later that day. The emotion in his voice was palpable. I could barely understand him at first…but eventually I understood that Bruce—my Bruce—had passed away. I was immediately upset, for he was a universally likeable man, and we need more of him in our world. My father kept saying, "He was my age…Laura, he was my age…"

It hit me somewhere between the conversations with both my father and my friend that the two situations were a little too similar to be chalked up to coincidence: we were all mourning the same man. I saw her last Thursday, and I could see everything she was feeling in her red-rimmed eyes. The family held a party for him yesterday, and I know that now begins the hollow period. It's that space of time when there's nothing left to do but let it sink in.

And I think we're all residing there right now, not quite looking for new real estate yet.

Time is slippery: it's difficult to grasp and impossible to hold still…and I just can't believe that six years have passed since that sad day. I can close my eyes and remember the feel of her soft skin and the strength of her hug. I remember the sound of her friendly voice and the welcoming scent of lavender that she spread throughout our home. I wish I could forget those last few days of her life…those memories seem to collide and dominate my thoughts around this time of year. They are the nightmare that I can never quite escape.

This year, my grief is heightened. My father-in-law passed away suddenly on January 20th. I am caught between the ache of losing such a kind person and the empathy of losing a parent. Life can really hurt sometimes, but it's the empathy that's twisting the knife. It's taking me back to the rawness, back to the breathlessness, back to the panic in the face of learning to live without someone.

I went to her grave as I do every year on the anniversary. It's the only day I visit because the experience is too overwhelming. Away from there, I can remember her healthy, laughing, carefree…there, I am slapped with the unyielding reality that she's gone. The morning she died was sunny and unfairly pleasant, but January 26th has been gray and barren every year since.

I didn't expect Nick to go with me this year…he has his own heartache to work through. Even so, I was grateful when he made plans to do so. He wiped the snow away from her stone as I knelt on a blanket upon the frozen earth and wept. Feeling guilty, I apologized to him—this was his time…his sadness was fresher—but I couldn't stop the tears. He knelt beside me and told me to that January 26th will always be my day…oh how I wish to God that it wasn't…that nothing of importance had ever happened on this day.

I hope I can be as much of a comfort to him as he's been to me.

I started the year marrying a man with the most beautiful heart I have ever seen.

I have learned a new life with him over the past six years. Oh, he can irritate me to tears…but he is also selfless. He moves Heaven and Earth to make me smile, even when I'm determined not to. He often comes through the door with shopping bags from one of his excursions saying, "How much does Nick love Laura!?" It's just how he thinks. He wants me to feel special…loved, always loved. I am fortunate that he was right there waiting for me when I least expected to find anyone there.

He helped me live out a fantasy in June when we went to Las Vegas to see Paul McCartney in concert. Even though we were two tourists having fun together, I know we went there because he knew that it would make me absurdly happy to see my favorite musician of all time perform live. (And it most certainly did!)

I grew close to my cousin again this year. We were best friends as children, but we grew apart. I think we're finally in the same phase of our lives at the same time, and it has been a salve to my heart to have that connection back. I was particularly glad to have her around when I found out that I needed a hysterectomy.

Every time it made me emotional, I scolded myself—almost cruelly. Snap out of it. It's not like I can have children anyway, so what's my problem? Stop being weak, Laura. Just STOP IT: somebody is going to see if you don't. Then I would put the mask back on and appear catatonic to life as it happened around me. She saw straight through my smokescreen and validated my darkest feelings…giving me a safe place to acknowledge them…making me acknowledge them.

I spent July recovering from surgery. My medical leave gave both my body and my mind time to heal. I started blogging more regularly again during that time because I finally recognized how I needed writing to help me connect the dots when answers aren't obvious. I feel more like myself than I have in years.

I will forget that I had to use my first sick day since 2006 because Nick gave me an awful cold after we returned from Florida in January. I will forget that the last installment of the Harry Potter movie franchise came to theaters. I will forget how I nearly died when I cut my thumb with that apple slicer. I will forget turning the spare bedroom into a closet. I will probably even forget that I turned 30 years old in 2011.

What I will always remember is the joy I had in finding parts of myself that I thought were lost. The year was golden, and I am happy to greet the next as a good friend who will surprise me, make me laugh, make me cry, and help me love.

The drive to work was treacherous this morning. The roads were deceptively clear, looking dry but randomly blanketed with black ice. We were listening to the news on the radio as we inched along, and we heard a terrible story. A dive team was searching the Rock River for a man who went into the water as the result of a car crash. He witnessed an accident on a bridge and left his vehicle to help a victim from theirs…when he slipped off the bridge and into the icy river. By tonight, the divers were looking to recover his body, for there was no hope left that he would still be alive in those frigid waves.

That man got out of bed this morning, got dressed, and left his home for what was going to be an ordinary day. Maybe he didn't wake his children before he left the house, but he'll be back soon. Maybe he was going to work early because he works whenever he can, but he'll slow down later. Maybe he had a fight with his girlfriend the night before, but he'll make it up to her tonight.

Maybe none of these things are true.

Maybe all of them are…then all the plans he pushed to tomorrow will never come to be. We're not in the habit of embracing mortality: there's always more time.

But actually, there's never enough.

He'll never have another moment with his children. He'll never slow down enough to enjoy life. He'll never be able to comfort his girlfriend in the aftermath of their argument. He's all out of chances, but who knew it would go that way? It was a day that started like any other…ordinary.

How perspective would change if we actually realized that any moment could really be our last…

I sent Nick off to bed as the last hours of Christmas day dwindled; his eyes had grown heavy while he rested on the couch. I was tired too, but I was feeling too anxious to sleep. I decided to watch a movie instead—I have watched very few this year. As The Christmas Shoes began to spin, I positioned the tissues close to my hand.

Now, it's not all that common for a straight-to-DVD movie to be on my scroll of must-sees during the holidays. (It's hard to stand up next to Jimmy Stewart, Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Cary Grant, and Danny Kaye, after all.) This movie, however, touches a nerve. It's a story based on a song by the same name. A little boy's mother is dying of heart failure, and he wants to buy her shoes to wear once she gets to heaven.

It's sweetly innocent… and heavy (at least it is for me). It probably doesn't help that it was around this time six years ago that I realized that my mother would be leaving. Soon. I dissolve whenever I hear a story about a child losing his or her parents…really, a story about anyone losing someone who they loved. I cannot help but be empathetic to that overwhelming sensation of loneliness, and I cry raw tears—as if it were only yesterday when Mom took her final breath. I don't let myself reside in that place of despair, but the memories of those emotions are vivid and easily summoned.

The movie is incredibly touching, and I don't think anyone is immune to the breadth of emotions it stirs. I seem to get caught on a different part of the goodbye every year. This year, it was her husband telling her that he and their son were going to be fine…that it was okay to go. I remember visiting her in the hospital on January 19, 2006.



My brother and I were in the hall outside her room when one of our aunts came out. With a hand on each of our shoulders, she told us that we needed to tell her to go.

Everybody else had already told her, but she continued to fight against the inevitable…so that left her children. Charlie and I couldn't tell her that day. We hugged each other and cried because we knew we would have to find the strength to lie. We would have to tell her it was okay to go when it really wasn't. It wasn't okay at all. On that day, our tears would have betrayed us and our best attempts.

She came home on a Saturday. Hospice nurses came to our house and made the living room into a makeshift hospital room. We all kept vigil around her, not wanting her to feel alone when she left. On Sunday, my pastor took me and Charlie aside and reiterated that we needed to tell her to go. "She's holding on for you," he said. I remember his eyes shining with unshed tears as he swallowed hard and said, "I wouldn't be able to leave my children either."

She wasn't herself by that stage. She was looking through us as though seeing something that we could not; her eyes did not focus on us as we leaned over her bed. Yet, there were words that everyone said we needed to say…words that felt sharp and jagged in my throat. Charlie went first.

After about three minutes, I heard the door slam from where I sat in the far south-eastern corner of the house. Everything seemed to rattle as my brother ran as fast and as hard as he could away from the house…the room…the bed…her. I was rattled too…by the strength and the violence of his feelings. Stumbling a bit, I made my way to her bedside.

I sat next to her and started talking. She was non-responsive, and I wasn't sure that she could hear me or comprehend what I was saying. Nonetheless, I told her how she inspired me. I told her what her love meant to me. I told her that I wanted to live up to her example. And, on a sob, I told her that I was going to be okay. Suddenly, profoundly, she opened her eyes and pierced me with her gaze. I watched as twin tears gathered in her eyes, and we stared at each other for several seconds. I saw the question in her eyes. Will you really be okay? they asked. Slowly I nodded, realizing only at that second that it was true.

Then the moment was over. Her eyes closed, her head lolled to the side again, and her clenched fist loosened. I kissed her cheek and felt my heart break.



These images replayed in my mind as I watched that scene last night. When the story ended, my tears had not, so I watched the scene again (and again and again) until I was finally spent. I went up to bed feeling lighter and less burdened. For once, I fell into sleep immediately and did not wake for almost seven hours. I can't remember the last time I slept so easily or for so long. I have so many hurts that still need to be soothed…but I keep forgetting that they are there. How many memories have I put on a shelf to deal with when I felt less vulnerable?

The cry felt good…cleansing…and afterward, love filled the void where the grief had been.