Happy Monday! Or maybe not so Happy Monday as the weather is terrible today. Hope everyone is keeping safe inside somewhere!

This weekend was our first “Those Who Speak” gathering. Dreamed up and hosted by Laurel Donahoo at her too cute house in Lake Caroline. Seriously the cutest house ever. Expected nothing less from her though! For women who have trouble getting pregnant, staying pregnant or who have lost an infant. It was so so so wonderful. I had in my head that it was going to be really sappy…and while we were all quite emotional in sharing our hearts, it was nothing short of so sweet, encouraging, funny and uplifting. A lot of “trusting God” statements made, a lot of hard tears shed and a lot of deep deep smiles. Something so satisfying about being in a room with other women realizing you’re not alone.

One thing it helped me see a little more clearly…is the drama surrounding loss. Whether with family, friends, sisters, mothers, and even our perfect husbands (wink, wink).

So I decided to share a recent break through with my own family drama. It may or may not be about a woman I call “Mom” 🙂

(Side note… Had two new friends comment that they were so relieved to know I wasn’t always so positive once they heard some of my stories that night. I quickly explained… Gods hand in this is the only positive thing here. He has turned my despair into hope. My ashes into beauty. My sadness into growth. My aching empty into marvelous. I’m not naturally positive. Christ in me urges me to focus on the rainbow and not so much the funeral I had to plan.)

Here goes the ugly turned pretty…hope it can encourage someone else who is having beef with family or friends.

My mom and I have always been so close. Maybe too close at times, if that’s possible. I know we can both drive each other crazy but we are fiercely crazy about each other. When we got the diagnosis with Wills, my parents were of course absolutely devastated. And I had these visions of us all just sticking together like glue through the whole journey of seeing how this story played out. I wanted to process about it ALL. THE. TIME. And slowly but surely I started noticing that when I would start into a Wills story, my mom would just glaze over like a Krispy Kreme donut. It was a visible difference. She would be engaged one minute… Mention Wills’ name… And she would appear to completely check out.

Well about a month ago, she stopped by (probably dropping off groceries or picking up a macaron order to deliver for me…very selfless woman) and I was having a particularly tough day. Fenley was gone so I knew we could “chat” so I just point blank asked… Why do you not want to talk about Wills? We went back and forth for a few minutes. Which then led to actually yelling at each other in my driveway. And then she said the most profound thing to me.

“The hardest thing I’ve ever been through wasn’t losing Wills. The hardest thing I’ve ever been through is watching you lose Wills.”

Hello, light bulb.

My precious mamas heart was breaking for me and I didn’t even realize it. Moral of that story? Be open. Be honest. Ask and answer the hard questions. Even if it’s yelling at each other in the driveway. I would rather yell and sort it out than be quiet and bitter. Be understanding of the people in your life. They’re sorting through a lot of their own stuff. Preaching to myself.

Needless to say, we talk about her marvelous grandson more now than before. Which makes me a happy mama.

All for today folks,
Lauren

A few pictures of Wills… Duh 🙂 one with his Honey and one with his Guinney and one with me.