Confessions Of A Mom

I knew better than to leave Tigger alone. I had that feeling, but I decided he’d be okay long enough for me to put my swimming suit on. Lesson—always follow those feelings. :) Tigger had washed his hands, and the sink, and the walls, and the door. It could have been much worse, and I really couldn’t be mad when he turned around with soap dripping from his chin like a white, foamy beard. “Ho, ho, ho,” he said. Like I said, it could have been much worse.

It’s those little things that make it worth it. For a week that has been lower than higher, (though I haven’t been able to pinpoint exactly why. It could be lack of sleep, it could be not seeing my husband very much, it could be that I got another rejection for my manuscript, although it was a very nice rejection, :) or it could just be life. Not sure.) I’ll take all the little moments I can.

Though it’s been a tiring week, there have been some very interesting things happen too. We went down to visit Lion at the cemetery as we do every week and I found an envelope in his flowers. It was a sweet note from one of the other mom’s who’s child is buried where Lion is.

Over the course of the week, she and I have had some good conversations. It was reaffirmed again to me that life never brings what we expect. Nobody’s experiences are ever exactly the same and who are we to say that we’ve had it harder than others? There are always people who have had something harder or something easier than we have. Then again, what we perceive as being harder than what we’ve been through, another person will think that our experience has been incredibly difficult too. Am I making sense?

I guess what I’m trying to say is we just never know. We never know how a particular experience has affected someone. Maybe on the outside they appear to have it all together when inside they are crumbling. Maybe they appear to be having a difficult time when in reality they just deal with situations differently than we think we might.

I think of the day after Lion returned home. I wanted to keep things as normal as possible for Tigger, so I had Tigger’s dad take him to his baseball (or was it soccer?) class. Tigger’s dad (I think I’ll have to come up with another name for him) didn’t want me to be by myself, so my mom came over and we went to get some picture frames that I wanted to get but didn’t manage to get before Lion was born.

The cashier asked how we were and my immediate response was, “Okay.” We walked out of the store and my mom said that she’d never believe what people say to the question, “How are you?” again. “You just lost your son and I just lost my grandson. We are most definitely not okay,” she said. It just goes to show that again, we just never know.

So I’m learning not to be judgmental. People handle things in different ways, whether it’s different than how I would deal with it or not. I’m hoping I’m making sense and that this post isn’t as scattered as it feels. Basically, you just never know. Keep that in mind before we jump to conclusions. You never know.