The Bitter Work of a New Year

Dear Caleb,

I cannot believe we are in the year 2013, and honestly I am frustrated about that. Mentally it is always August 2009 with me; my mind cannot seem to yield or even fathom any other time. While everyone else is dreaming up new ambitions and goals, all we get is to live another groundhogs year: reliving difficult dates, getting through unfun holidays, celebrating everyone else growing 1 year older... this is getting REALLY OLD! I keep thinking to myself "How many years do we have to keep doing this???" I am growing very tired and weary of this... I am just tired of being TIRED!!

Our family has this massive wound and it requires a lot of dressings to keep it from risk of infection. But the problem is, the dressings are only suppose to be temporary, and I do NOT like removing them. The wound exposed to open air aggravates my grieving heart. I just want to keep these temporary band aids on! I have learned that I am like one of your favorite movie characters, Shrek the Ogre, I have layers... LOTS and LOTS of layers. I do not like to expose my wound/ our family's wound... it hurts too bad. So what do I do? I do what I have learned to do with these temporary band aids. I dress this wound so well that the dressings have become hard like a cast. I have a VERY hard outer layer. I have made it incredibly difficult to let people help me undo these dressings, including your Daddy. I do not mean too, but this wound when it gets exposed is terribly bitter! It can take me weeks even months to recover when it is time to apply some attention on it. Of course we all need help at times, but we have received so much help that I am all helped out. I feel guilty for making others feel that they need to worry about us, using their precious family time to stop and help us... What if that very day they stopped to help us was the last day they got to spend with their family? I cannot take people's time away from their very valuable family time together, I do not need more guilt to carry on my plate.

I have learned also that I have become my worse enemy. It is myself and myself alone that stops me from healing and removing these dressing layers. It seems like with each new year that goes by I just  keep putting more and more on.. I think that is why God sent us Cumorah, to help comfort my heart and melt away these layers. I have too admit, I am in LOVE with having four kids again. It is comforting, it is familiar... I have missed it so much. Going backwards to just three kids was painful and ever so awkward. Yet this new group of four still makes me miss our 2boys 2girls time together. It touches my heart to see how much Montey loves Cumorah. They were sleeping side by side the other night, and made me flashback to how excited you were when Montey was born. You finally had your bedroom buddy, and you two slept side by side. I didn't know whether to smile, laugh, or cry watching Cumorah and Montey. I just feel like I am broken and never gonna heal... there are so many things that try to get me to remove these dressings to heal.... but I can't....I can't! Mentally I am stuck, it is just always August 2009 until we see your sweet face with us again.

So what do I do now? Where do I start? Where do I go from here? I know you want us to be happy. I too want to see our family happy again. I want to be able to laugh and smile with everyone and actually mean it. But I do not know what happiness is anymore, at least not the way I thought it was. Because the happiness I WANT and long for canNOT be found in this life. I know the way to find true happiness is ONLY through Christ. Clothes, money, fame, fortune, popularity.... do not come close to the happiness that I so desire- those things hold NO joy for me, nor desire to obtain.

So...... I am starting this new year on a specific mission for myself that will have a very strong and positive impact on our family... it is the "Pursuit Of Happiness". If I desire to be happy then, I know I need to try harder by starting now to get there, that I will be ready and worthy to be given such a blessing.

Caleb I know broken hearts can heal, I know that true happiness can be obtained.... I just don't know how to get there on my own. So we as a family continue to look to Christ for he is the only way to keep breathing once he removes all our bandages of layers. He is the only way we can keep smiling when we look at our scars from these wounds that he has healed. He makes things possible.... and I am trying to wait faithfully for this day. I just pray that we can find the strength to push through til then.

SO, SO Love You Buddy Boy!
Love Immensely, Your Mommy