Five Minute Friday Word of The Day:  Turn

We aren’t sure how things will turn out in life, are we?

The past couple of days, I’ve been out of sorts.  It was something we couldn’t quite put our finger on.  Until today.

Today is my grandmother’s birthday.  She passed several years ago after struggling for two years, in and out of hospitals and just going through so very much toward the end.

And these were the last days of my mother-in-law’s life this exact time last year.  It haunts me to this very day.

Just when you think you’re doing great and nothing can bring you down, you’re hit right square in the face with memories.  I’d love it to always be happy, joyous memories.  However, that is not always the case.  You have to endure days of pain to appreciate the joy that comes in the morning.  Or, you go through the storms to appreciate the beautiful rainbow that appears after the gray skies clear and the sun begins to emerge yet again.

I’m not choosing to focus on all of the negative that this time of year holds.  In the middle of all of this, there have been great moments of pure joy.  We celebrated my daughter’s boyfriend turning 20 years old, and one of my nearest and dearest friends turned 51 on the same exact day.  I’ve laughed, smiled, and shed some tears this week.  I’ve been a big ball of emotion, so hard to handle being in my own skin at times.  I cannot imagine what people think that have had to endure all of this right alongside me this week.  But I thank them for not giving up on me or turning away when I needed them to pull me out of my funk.

I didn’t want to tell my husband what was wrong because I didn’t want him thinking of his mother’s last days, if he wasn’t already there mentally and emotionally.  So I held it in, often shrugging my shoulders when asked what was wrong.  I was not withholding to be mean.  I was thinking of preserving his feelings.

But there are brighter days ahead … another friend’s birthday is approaching … and my dear mother’s birthday is the very last day of the month.

SO I feel the feelings … and I turn the page.