Alot of my girls my age are trying to GET a man,,,I'm just trying to RAISE one..

Tonight i was doing laundry (something i hate almost as much as doing dishes, which is obvious if you have ever been to my house)

i folded Kailiegh's workout shorts, Emory's Gap sweatshirts and my Affliction t-shirts...and mixed in with all of that were these little bitty boxer shorts. Just like something you would find on your bedroom floor after a long night with a boy that let's face it will turn in to a faded memory and a bad country song....small. innocent. not yet jaded by all the things that make boys want to break a girls heart.

and it dawned on me that while i CALL him my little man...

THAT IS TRULY WHAT I HAVE LIVING AND BREATHING IN MY HOUSE....this little man. who will someday love (or break the heart) of some girl living and breathing in some mommy and daddy's heart as i type this.

I think as parents we want what is best for our kids, but we don't always think about what is best for the ones that will love them someday.

It's about so much more than what sports they play in high school. or if they have girl friends, or how they validate you as a parent. If they go to college or what career path they choose to take and whether or not you understand it.

it's about the overall human being you help to shape. That you teach them to love and to be loveable. To give and to let all the amazing people give you things that you deserve to be given. the overall package.

Daniel Isaiah,
You truly are the man in my life. The one that has stuck around and fought it out with me and not given up (not that you have much of a choice) You constantly amaze me with your heart and your passion for all things Isaiah. Let me say this..mommy to son. if the rest of this blessed life with you is anything like the last 5 years, all I can say is I can't wait...

Girls will come and go. We are manipulative, deceitful creatures. But we are also magical, enchanting muses that when chosen correctly enhance and brighten your life. choose carefully and love without abandon.

There is so much more I can't possibly teach you about being a man because I am not one. but I am not worried about that, you have a daddy that is a phenominal man so i know you are taken care of in that department.

I love you, and I am excited and blessed to get to watch the man you are going to grow into...and i just want to do right by you....

Love, mommy

Has It Really Been 20 Days???

I must say that I am water logged this days. Slower, muted, numb these days.

It almost makes it harder that Kaileigh is handling this so much more silent than I am. I am not by any means saying that is better. At least I am getting it out, sometimes she scares me. But she does grieve and she does talk and she does want to cry. She just can't yet. and since there is no handbook on this I just have to sit in the background and love her. and just be here.

I honestly have NO concept of what my child is thinking, feeling, needing right now. All I know is that she is not alone and I love her.

If you know me at all you know that I live my life through my relationships. Good and bad they do drive how I feel, think, act. This one has been tough for me to lose because it was so life changing for me. And it continues to change my life to this day. The fact that I always thought in the back of my mind that it would one day be great. He'd be a great dad and we would be great friends.....His death exhausted that possibility and for me that loss is what I mourn...

Those last two days with him were a blur. But I cling to them like I havent lived hundreds of days before him and I can't imagine living hundreds more with him not annoying me somehow, somewhere... I keep telling myself loss is loss. He wasnt THE love of my life, but he was a love OF my life and I want to honor that. and cherish it...all those years of all that other crap really in the end isnt important.

I'm sure in some way I could be doing more for Kaileigh. I'm sure that I'm doing something wrong. But that is a whole nother post.

20 days.....really??

What a difference a week makes...

i wasnt sure how to tackle this one so it's taken me a few days to get my thoughts together.

a week ago today my precious daughter Kaileigh and i sat in the hospital ICU @ Sparks holding her daddy's hand and trying to wrap our heads around how someone could put a bullet hole in their own head.

yea, wish i was making that one up.

and let me tell ya, a week later i still don't know if i got that one figured out.

Suicide has always been stuff of bad lifetime movies for me. That cliche "how could someone be so selfish" question and other such nonsense. When it happens to you, it's incomprehensible. people looking at me with sad "dont know what to say" puppy dog eyes, and that feeling of wanting to throw up but instead having to explain what happened and don't even get me started on pretending to "get back to normal"

Leon was my high school sweetheart. I'd had a few loves before him but nothing even remotely like him. We had Kaileigh when we were 19 and the years that followed were rocky and sometimes a little hairy but for 16 years this man has been in my life.

and now he isnt.

Kaileigh is a trooper. She returned to school and so far everyone has been really supportive of her. I'm not sure what the days ahead are going to look like for us, but we will get through it.