Forever 2012

I was filling out my weekly calendar for next week and it dawned upon me it's time to get a new calendar for 2013. I love sitting down at the beginning of every year and filling in important dates. I love the emptiness of the calendar because it communicates this freshness. 365 days just waiting to be lived. I have almost everyone of our calendars since Mark and I married, and for me it's like a memory box full of goodness. I laugh and cry as a flip thru the calendar. Things catch my eye, like in April of 2003, "Doctor's Appointment for sonogram" and suddenly I flash back to laying on the ridiculously cold table with ridiculously cold gel dumped on my belly and I hear the word, "GIRL!" and my life changes....FOREVER! I see things like, "Julia's first step, Lucy's first word at Colonial Beach, missed period in July of 2008" and we all know what that means! :) "Mom and Dad coming to town, Larry and Jere over for dinner, Matt proposed to Jo, Jonathan flies to Baltimore, poisoned Zach with lasagna, Liisa and Andrew's wedding, friends over for dinner, one year check up (quickly turning into 9 year check up) small group, Christmas Concert Sunday night, MSU vs LSU,  Mark graduates, move to Twin Lakes, move to Starkville, move to Va, move to KS" and on and on the dates and events continue. It just takes a few words, and years and years of memories of incredible events flood my heart.

2012 will be no different. While, the event listed on November 21st, 2012 will forever be lasered into our hearts, I am actually comfortable here in 2012. And it's with MUCH hesitation I flip the calendar to 2013.

2013 not only means a new calendar it means a new online picture folder. And in that calendar and in that folder something terribly important will be missing. Events that will include my mom and new pictures of her beautiful face. The permanency of her death keeps startling me; whether it's while cooking ground beef, plucking my eye brows, or staring at the tree. The permanency of our separation keeps leaving deep indentions on my heart. I know well enough that time will space out those startling moments and the indentions will not be so deep, but oh my, it takes my breath away how much I miss her!

2013 will be the very first calendar year in my whole life that my mom will not be apart of, and I am afraid to cross the great divide. Feeling as if I leave 2012 I leave my memories of her there. I leave her there. 2012 still holds her. Her pictures are easily found in the 2012 folder. 325 days of 2012 involved HER. I don't dread Christmas. I dread 2013. I know there are new memories to be made and still lots of life to be lived, blah, blah, blah... But I don't want new memories, or more life, I want HER. I want it to be forever 2012.

~Sara