From the title you can conclude that I have found something! Der! The following are fragmented thoughts, written in haste and shoved, for safe keeping, in the back of a dusty journal. I am typing the thoughts as I found them, only changing the punctuation and grammar as needed….

June 2006:

There are times in my life that touch my heart and create peace. Christmas; picking out the tree and finding the decorations stowed away in the musty garage. Listening to the irritating, ceaseless banter of my children reciting their lengthy, materialistic wish lists a whole 4 months before Christmas. Burning candles that smell of evergreen and the sweet spicy fragrance of peppermint way before Halloween. The joyful resonance of Handel’s Messiah being played at the start of September. These things I hold as sacred mementos of life; things that I could not live without. More than these and above all else are those over-looked, under appreciated moments of the day. The moments that may seem inconvenient; but when all of the lights are out and your head seeps into that soft, formed spot on your pillow, you realize how true, pure and delicate those moments really are; these moments I could not live with out as well.

If I were gone tomorrow, would the others in my life remember these things and try to recreate life as mom liked it? Or would they choose to forget me and hide my presence and their grief by doing life differently? Why does it bother me so; to be jealous of those I will leave behind, while I go on ahead? Why is my nature programmed to try and continue to run my life the way I want it to run, when I won’t be here to see my plans carried out?  I don’t want to worry about what will become of this life I have, when tomorrow I could be dead. I can’t make my husband never marry again, although I hope he doesn’t. I can’t force my family to listen to Christmas music in September and have all of the Christmas dishes in everyday circulation by the start of Halloween; so why does my heart long for those things to happen? Why does my mind find it so important? Do I worry because my soul knows that my mind will never know what will happen down here when I am gone? Is it because I do not trust that I have left a mark on my family that will cause them to have happy memories of me? Do I worry because of the mistakes I have made? Or is it the constant nagging in my head that says, “another women could do your life better than you can,” followed by the horrible thought that my family just might like that other lady more?