GREEN PASTURES AND QUIET WATERS

 The last weekend of October was a rough one, and I was feeling a little bruised and battered, both physically and emotionally after it all.  Among the trials was a stomach bug that had me bedridden for 36 hours and that first photo above is sloane coming home from daycare with K. right before she came into the room to comfort me and give me hugs and kisses. (The photos below that is Sloane proceeding to love on Rusty later on that weekend, which he tries to bear.)  After the tumult, the week turning October into November was a gentle one, green pastures and quiet waters, if you will. Sleep was sparse, but the weather was friendlier, my mind was quieter in reflection, and my body finally got the kind of exercise that makes the the blood pump life back to all the dark places in my heart and mind. 

I lost two grandmothers this past year. They were very different in personality and spirit, and burned bright in different colors during their lifetime. I've been thinking a lot this past year about loss and how that description seems to describe exactly what it does feel like; as if a part of me left the world with them, because they were a part of my history and my life story, so inevitably, a part of me. A loss isn't truly a loss though, if "death is swallowed up in victory" but it sure feels that way sometimes. Regardless, I will keep believing that all of it- my past, present and future is all swallowed up in victory and so when I am weak, I will rest in that.

I have also been reflecting on the overflowing life that is present in my little one and in the context of death, I can't help think that these two wonderful grandmothers of mine, different and complimentary in how they influenced me, as well as my aunt, who I looked up to so much, are all somehow present in my daughter now.  These women passed down parts of who they were to me and so they are a part of her history too.  It gives me hope. 

These following photos were taken a few months ago, and I never got to post them, but here they are; photos of our little love, bubbling with new life.