Hum...

I really wanted to just type some stuff in my blog without having to have a scrapbook page to add. So... I was thinking about what happened today... And it brought to mind, my cousin, Shawna called today. She was telling me about my aunt's 60th birthday party that's coming up. She also reminded me (as if I needed reminding) that I've got a "big one" coming up too (I'll be 30!). And our conversation kind of just went on until she brought up a topic that we had discussed way back in October... She has some good friends who lost a daughter to cancer in November and was wanting some advice from someone who'd been through a similar situation to weigh in on how to best deal with the siblings. It's weird to have to drudge up all those feelings from 15+ years ago. She asked me an odd question, though - if I had felt some resentment toward Troy & my parents during the entire thing - if I felt like I was being, not really neglected, but getting the short end of the stick when it came to my parents. I didn't even have to hesitate when saying, "Yes. Without a doubt, yes." It took me until college to actually start dealing with some of those issues and to this day, I still harbor some of the emotions that I felt during my eighth grade year after Troy died. But I realized something today as I was talking to Shawna. That if I KNEW that one of my two boys was going to die within the next year, I wouldn't hesitate to spend as much time with them as possible. I would take them everywhere with me, I would sleep with them, I would cuddle them every waking moment - I'd smother them.

But then I thought about something else....

We are not promised tomorrow. They aren't promised tomorrow. So why am I not taking advantage of every moment with them now? What if I didn't have tomorrow with them? Or worse, what if I DO, but I don't take advantage of it and 18 years go by and I've never truely taken advantage of them. As crazy as they drive me sometimes, and as much as I just want some "me" time or that extra 30 minutes of sleep... I need to make sure that I don't miss the time I have with my kids.