happy Mother's Day

Today is my first Mother’s Day without Debbie. Friday was my 39th anniversary. One year ago this weekend, Debbie went out with me for our anniversary to a French restaurant in Coconut Grove. On Mother’s Day 2012, my kids put in a butterfly garden for her. Three weeks later she was gone.

Debbie was an awesome mother and grandmother! We reminisced today how she was always present at every event related to our children and grandchildren. 

I invited my kids over today to help them process her absence. I do not know yet what is would be like to celebrate a Mother’s or Father’s day without my parents. Thank God that experience is still ahead of me.

This has been the weirdest year of my life. After the cancer roller coaster ride of the last seven years, I suddenly found myself alone in a deeper way that I can remember in my adult life. Confused, disoriented,  questioning myself and my identity, at times even angry. Thank God for my friends!  Like Ringo Star, I got by -- ♪ with a little help from my friends ♪

Now, after six or seven years of grief, and almost one year of her absence, I am starting my life over again. I cannot go back, I can only go forward into the unknown tomorrow. I know I will not be the same person tomorrow that I was yesterday. That thought is a little scary for me.

I can only trust that the One who loves us, the One who brought me and Debbie together in the first place, also holds tomorrow in His hands. He is good, and he is not finished with me yet.

“one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead I press on …”