No Idea How To Title This

It's been a week and ten days since I said the final goodbye in this life to my mom. I don't want to dwell on it too much on here, this blog isn't meant to be my personal journal, and I know you all don't want to read that stuff anyway, but I wanted to mention something. A lot of people don't seem to know what to say to me about it. I know it makes a lot of people really uncomfortable, and they don't bring it up at all. I just want you to know that when people lose someone special and important to them, it's okay to bring it up and talk to them about it, or at least give them the opportunity to talk about it, even a little. I have gotten lots of "I'm sorry for your loss," and I appreciate those. Most of the time I say thanks and acknowledge that it was a hard summer for me, seldom do I say more. The people that get more are ones I can tell really want to know how I'm doing, and I'm okay with saying more. One of the hardest things is that I had this huge thing in my life happen this summer, and people don't ask about it. We're buying a house this fall, and everyone wants to know about that, but it pales in my mind compared to losing my mom.

I don't want this to make people feel guilty, just to let you in on how grief sometimes works, and let you know that it's okay to talk to someone who's lost someone special and acknowledge that it hurts. Don't shy away, and don't think you'll hurt me by bringing it up, I love my mom and I love talking about her, even though it hurts and I might cry. That's ok.

I will end this with a quote from a card I got from a good friend, who didn't know what to say but took the chance and it really meant a lot to me.
"Dustin, I have tried to think of the right thing to say about what you are going through and the reality is I have no idea. What I do know is that it hurts and you are missing one of the most wonderful people in the world. If you ever need to talk let me know. I've been praying for you and will continue to." Thanks Kevin.

Moving On...

At Drumheller-Royal Tyrell Dinosaur Museum

Fun at Calaway Park

A bunch of us after mom's service

Mom's coworkers did a cancer relay in her honor

It's so hard to move on. To leave Regina is going to be difficult, because this is the last trip that we'll ever make up here where mom was here too, at least for part of it. We came and she was here, tho not doing well, but in leaving I know that every other trip up here will be different. Already we've seen how different it is up here with mom gone, in so many ways life is just not as easy as it was when mom was here with us. She would organize our days, make plans for fun things to do with the kids, watch them at home so the adult kids could go to dinner and a movie, sit and drink coffee with us in the mornings even while entertaining a couple grandbabies at the same time. Even more than that we miss how she reminded us of what was important in life, of relationships and people, instead of upset over little differences and struggles we had. 5 grown kids, with 3 spouses and a boyfriend, all together, makes for lots of challenges. Then add in 7 grandbabies and life is just that much more challenging, but she always made sure it worked just fine when we were all together. It's been somewhat more stressful this time without her, but we're figuring things out. One of the things she said to me recently was that she'd put enough of herself into each of us that we'd know just what she would say in a situation, even when she isn't here with us.

We're leaving to go home on Monday morning. We'll drive to the Ozarks and stay a couple nights there, then leave on Friday and go to my in-laws place for the weekend. We have a lot of stuff there that we need to go through and determine what needs to be stored and what needs to be kept with us. Sunday sometime we'll go to Tom and Connie's place to "move in," which is where we'll be staying until we find a house. You can pray for that to happen soon, because while it's been good up here and will be good with Pflederers, our family needs our own place to live. We still haven't seen much that we've really liked online, so we're praying that we can come up with something soon.

I'll leave with a saying that each of us Bailey men has taken as a part of us, by Saint Julien of Norwich. "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." Mom loved this quote and gave it to each of us when cancer first entered our lives, and we know she's well again now...