Remember me.

My heart has been really sad lately. I'm missing my mom right now. Maybe it's because I'm worried that when my kids are my age, they will feel the same way about me. Because I won't be there. Yes, that is a negative way to think. But I have to accept that this disease may get the best of me. That maybe, in spite of the great family life I have, maybe there will come a time when I lose whatever fight I have in me. Even when you have a lot to fight for, sometimes the war is too exhausting.

If I were to die today, I don't think I would feel ok about it (who would?). There's something about being sick that makes you live in the now, and makes even the little things, even your kids pooping the in bath tub (gross), grateful for that time you spent with them. When you walk in the kitchen, and you find your daughter giving your dog a makeover with your makeup, the tempation to become angry has disappeared. Instead, I laugh with her. I open my arms wide enough for her to jump into. And as I breathe in her cake batter scented hair (thanks Ryan!), a moment of calm and peace washes over me.

This isn't a cheesy pep-talk. Because I know as quickly as I am happy with my daughter, I also short-fuse out on her when I'm feeling sick, or tired, or just annoyed about everything. And it is still my job as her mother to discipline her when she does wrong. To teach her how to treat other people. The same with my son, although that is a much different kind of teaching ( we have begun the hitting phase). My job is still to raise them, but my job is also still to enjoy them. To love them. To appreciate them for the gifts they are, the gifts I don't deserve.

I want them to remember me by the way I loved them. I want them to look back in their life, whether I live to be 30, 40, or 100, and have their best memories of me be the ones where they know what it's like to be loved and appreciated.  

"As sure as stars light the midnight sky,
As sure as children wonder why,
As sure as newborn babies cry,
I was born to give my love to you"

*song by Martina McBride- I do not own the lyrics. *