I wish my Mom could see Micah laughing about the tickle bugs in the couch, or how he loves using FaceTime (she would have thought that was so cool), or Maya’s quirky little crawl and how she is pulling up on everything. My mother always had good tidbits of gossip for me, and I miss the phone ringing all day with random little stories and updates. I feel disconnected to the “information train” – I have no idea what is going on anymore with our extended family and friends. I miss my sounding board…my life is much more quiet and insular without my mother in my life. I find myself reaching for the phone to call her and tell her about the kids’ doctors appointments, or the funny things they say and do. I miss my mom terribly when I am at the yarn store, trying to decide which yarn to purchase for a project. I definitely have more smiles than tears in my life, but it is the little things I find challenging. I always think that anyone who looks at me must be able to see what has happened to me – as if I have this huge shocking open wound, exposed and bleeding, visible for the world to see. But I also feel as if I am walking around with this big gaping hole in my chest. I spend time with my children, I’m working on rebuilding my business, I go out with my friends, and I am trying to create balance in my life and find me again. I wake up each day, I focus on all the good in my life, and I try to be normal again, even when I don’t exactly feel normal. A friend of mine renamed her blog “Impersonating Normal” after she lost her son…and I understand that sentiment. ![]() I think of her every day, many times a day, and not a day passes that I don’t shed tears. I think that is what I’ve been doing the past few months…trying to figure out how to run through the raindrops…or at least learn to grin with pride after getting soaked by life. But this week, I remembered that even as I sit here, soaking wet, it is easy to WANT to believe we can run through the raindrops if we just try. This year, I’ve learned all too well about raindrops…and life’s rainshowers have me sitting here, hair glued to my head, clothing soaked, shivering, and beads of water sliding down my face. We can wistfully remember a time when we believed we could avoid the raindrops if we just tried, but we are all too aware that it was never possible to actually run between the raindrops. As we get older, we realize that rain is unavoidable…as is getting wet. Even when you sit there, hair glued to your head and beads of water dripping into your eyes and down your nose, you can still beam and insist that you avoided the raindrops and stayed dry. Running between the raindrops is a great metaphor for life…when you are little, you just BELIEVE you have the power to avoid getting wet. ![]() I sat down in the front seat, crying (and soaking wet), and I said out loud, “We did it, Mom, we ran between the rain drops and we didn’t get wet.” ![]() I was sure my Mom was grinning down at us as we ran to the car and I buckled Micah into his car seat. I found myself smiling, and even said out loud, “Don’t worry, Mom, I’ll run between the raindrops.” I stopped cold for a second, frozen, tears welling up in my eyes again, and then I turned to Micah, took his hand, and said, “Come on, Micah, let’s run between the raindrops.” As I bundled Micah up in his jacket and pulled the hood over his head, I heard my mom’s voice echo in my head, chastising me for not taking an umbrella with me. During the first bit of rain last week, I stood at the door, preparing to take Micah outside. Even as an adult, if I was visiting my mom and leaving in the rain, she would smile and say “Don’t forget to run between the raindrops” and I would reply “Of course.” She would remind me every time it rained, and when we got to the car, or when I arrived home, she would always ask me “Did you run between the raindrops?” and “Did you get wet?” I always proudly beamed at my Mom, declaring that I did it, I ran between the raindrops and I didn’t get wet. When I was little, on rainy days my Mom would tell me to “run between the raindrops” so I wouldn’t get wet.
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