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.

I started writing this post in July, so the dates are a little off. My brother's birthday is June 10th.

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My brother's birthday was last month, and I always stress over which card to get him. Inevitably, I pick the funny one because it's easier to say something to him on a laugh. We've been through a lot of difficult years together…and today we are each other's main link back to Mom. No one understands what her being gone feels like to me—no one except Charlie.

There is absolutely no one in my life as close to my heart as my little brother…but I've never told him. I know that he feels the same way about me…but he's never told me.

On the surface, this admission of closeness might surprise a lot of people: we don't talk often. We see each other only a few times a year. The only line of communication we maintain somewhat regularly is the occasional text message.

I was watching a movie years ago, and one of the characters said something that has continued to ricochet in my mind all this time. The thought was so simple, real, and…somehow…relevant to my relationships.

Rather, it was relevant to one of my relationships.

"Sometimes we love people so much that we have to be numb to it. Because if we actually felt how much we love them, it would kill us."

The relevancy was a curious thought. I've never considered myself numb to anything—actually, the opposite is usually true, and I feel too much. I've learned over the years to process most of this internally before reacting—giving the appearance of numbness, I suppose.

But actually numb? Nah.

Yet, there was a personal truth there.

I was very close to my brother when we were young. We were best friends before the problems started. I was eight. His temper was violent and completely uncontrollable by the adults. The situation made me grow up very early in life. I was dealing with mature struggles, automatically accepting that I needed to defend and protect the little monster who tormented my family…because somewhere inside that monster was my brother.

It didn't matter that the doctors said there was a reason for the outbursts. Reasons rarely matter in the moment. I learned the art of walking on egg shells and tried to make myself invisible. I blamed him for a long time for stealing my childhood from me, never allowing myself to imagine what life looked like from his shoes.

I wasn't only protecting him; I was protecting me.

When he turned 18, he began distancing himself. He became aloof and taciturn, a stranger who wanted nothing to do with his family. At the time, I was very angry with my brother. He had broken my heart countless times, but we all stuck around. Now he was turning his back on us. I returned the behavior in kind. He wouldn't even look at me the last time I saw him before moving to North Carolina. He was sealing himself off from everything that had ever caused him to feel.

It occurred to me while I was away that he wasn't only protecting himself; he was protecting us.

The reason we always got the brunt of his temper was because he loved us, he felt safe to let it out with us, and he knew at the end of the day that we would still love him. And also at the end of the day, he hated himself for hurting us. The farther away we were from him, the less likely that we would be around when all of those bottled emotions became too big to contain.

In adulthood, he has full control over his reactions—a hard-won battle, I am sure. I am proud of him—there isn't a word in the dictionary that adequately expresses how much I celebrate his accomplishment. He grew to be such a good and decent man…unfailingly kind.

…and I get to be his sister.

I remember being bickering children and Mom telling us that one day we would be each other's best friend. I didn't believe it. I remember thinking that it was one of those canned phrases that parents say to their kids when they are sick of saying everything else.

I was wrong

Try to find that on a birthday card.

I know today is supposed to be Sophie Sunday…but I am too wrapped up in all of the media footage today, footage from 10 years ago. My heart is too heavy to write about her antics today.

I know the air is flooded with recollections of where people were when they heard the news that America was under attack. I won't go into that…I went into that a few years ago. I have read some jaded comments about the influx of reflective conversations: it's really such a shame that empathy is a lacking trait in our population. This is an important part of healing: remembering how much something hurt, still hurts…and remembering how you found the courage to live your life.

People need to talk: let them.

9/11 took part of our innocence away forever. I remember being glued to the television trying to tell myself that this wasn't real…this wasn't happening…because this couldn't possibly happen. I was watching live footage when the second plane hit. Until I saw the shadow of that plane coming from the right of the screen, I believed I was watching a horrific accident. Even after the second plane hit, I remember someone on the news saying, "I wonder if they are having air traffic control problems." The chills still assault me when I think of the moment of realization that air traffic control had nothing to do with it and the overwhelming feeling of impermanence.

Seeing the images from that awful day again, I am just as stunned as I was then. 9/11 meant something to all of us, but I had my loved ones to lean on. My heart goes out to the people who mourned on a private level first. I can't imagine the loneliness in the midst of that mess. Several months later, our president said in a speech, "Every one of the innocents who died on September 11 was the most important person on Earth to somebody. Every death extinguished a world." I hope that this day does not give them too much pain.