Dear Mom...

Dear Mom….

4 years…

I wasn’t even sure I would write a letter this year.  I looked back
over my letters from the last three years and I still have the same feelings,
so I was feeling at a loss of words.  Not much that I can say, that I haven’t said before.  I was looking through some poems and one jumped out at me about one of the things I miss most about you…the way you cared so much and missed us so much, that you would annoy us by worrying and
calling to make sure we were safe and wondering when we would be home for a
visit.  This seemed fitting:

 She always leaned to watch for us

Anxious if we were late,
In winter by the window,
In summer by the gate.

And though we mocked her tenderly
Who had such foolish care,
The long way home would seem more safe
Because she waited there.

Her thoughts were so full of us,

She never could forget,
And so I think that where she is
She must be watching yet.

 Waiting til we come home to her

Anxious if we are late
Watching from heaven’s window
Leaning from Heaven’s gate

We have missed you so much again this year in our lives.   Our year has been busy and fun, but we sure wish you were here to share it with us.  Since I have written last lots of course has happened.  The first thing that pops into my mind is Christmas.  It was finally St. Mary’s turn to have Christmas Eve mass since you passed.  It was wonderful to have our routine back and to see all the families I knew growing up. Although I mentioned in my three year letter that I didn’t have any moments that I felt you were with me, I believe I did this year.  The psychic said I would have less (I will get to that), but I felt I had more.  The first was on Christmas Eve. 

I have been through the drawers in the bathroom many times when I stay at your house since you have been gone.  I leave things there or use your things after I get out of the shower and get ready.  This particular night I opened one of the drawers to grab a comb and there was a necklace peeking out from under the brush.  I just don’t remember it being there because if I had, I would have put it in your jewelry box.  This necklace was special. Let me back up….Sally had told me about a necklace she had lost several months earlier when she came down to watch mine and Jenny’s kids so we could go out for dinner.  She had described the necklace to me and I said, I think my mom had one just like that! When I saw the necklace in the bathroom drawer, I instantly grabbed it out and smiled.  It was the same necklace Sally had lost.  Turns out, Sally was coming to your house while we were gone to church to be a “special helper”.  Strange I found it the same night?   So I left the necklace in an envelope on the table for her to replace the one she had lost, as I was certain
you wanted her to have it. J

 Over Christmas break Jamie had talked us into having a psychic over to her house as she had heard from a co-worker this woman was good at doing readings.  I love Jamie and the crazy things she gets us in to.  She invited Heather, Tracy and myself as we had all lost someone close to us. I convinced myself before I went, it was not going to be life changing no matter what she said and I would take it with a grain of salt and just have fun with it.  Before she arrived, we were all sitting in Jamie’s living room a little nervous, wondering how this was going to go. I said to the girls, don’t give her any information, just say yes or no and let her give us the information.  I have two types of personality really…part of me gives people the benefit of the doubt.  I always want to think the best of people, that they wouldn’t purposely manipulate someone or cause harm to someone else.  I like to think that I stand up for people when others try and accuse them of something I don’t have proof of.  The other side of me is skeptical of people and I hate being made a fool of.  So I wasn’t going to be easily manipulated.  She didn’t know any of our names except Jamie.  Could she look at
Jamie’s face book page and pick the three out of the three hundred friends she had and study our histories?

 The woman arrived and asked if we had any questions.  She wanted to know if we wanted separate readings or if we wanted to be all together.  Of course we wanted to be all together as we didn’t care what she said, we have been friends forever.  She asked us if we cared who we heard from.  I asked what that meant.  She said that sometimes people want to hear from a specific loved one and sometimes they don’t care who appears.  She said that sometimes spirit guides appear as well.  I asked who spirit guides were and if we knew them.  She said they guide us through life and sometimes we know them and sometimes we don’t.  She said that we should be open and try and
get the most out of the reading.  She said that sometimes people just sit there and just give yes and no answers and it takes much longer for her to get to the point the spirit is trying to relay.  So I threw out the advice I had given to all and decided I would just participate, still not really knowing
what was in store for us.  Since there were no more questions, she got started.

She sat on one side of the room and we sat on the other.  It went Jamie, me, Tracy and then Heather.  I kept seeing her looking above us.  She finally settled on me and said, I am going to start with you because you have a lot of people around you.  I was SO nervous, but not surprised because I truly believe spirits are with us and they knew I would be open to listening. (yet skeptical..lol)  She started with the first person that stepped forward, which was a spirit guide. I later told Rick I believe I had so many spirit guides because I am always forgetting things and getting lost.  Sometimes when you have that little voice in your head that reminds you that you forgot something, I sometimes say thank you out loud..ha ha. Anyway, the spirit guide was holding an open book.  She asked if I was going to be going back to school or had to study for something.  I couldn’t get what it meant, so she moved on. I thought..oh geez, this is going well. Let me talk to someone I know, don’t care about the book!  (On a side note, maybe he was referring to the Caring Bridge entries I wrote as kind of my therapy that I had printed in a book or these letters to you, or maybe I will be an award winning author some day? J)

 It is hard to remember all of my reading, but many people came through including my friend Craig (very unexpected), my great-grandma and my great-great grandma was another one of my spirit guides.  I was nervous because I thought she was only there for an hour and I was using up everyone else’s time, but she read us all for quite a bit of time. The surprising part of the reading for me was that she didn’t just talk to us about our relatives, if in fact she knew who we were, but she told us
things about ourselves that only our closest friends would know.  Example, she talked about how she thinks I can read people well. (I also think this of myself at times)  She said that if someone is talking to me, I can usually tell if they are lying.  We all started laughing, because Heather has been known to do this to me a time or two.  She asked if there was someone I really wanted to talk to because I still had so many around me, that she didn’t want me to be disappointed if they weren’t the next ones to step forward before my time was up.  I said yes, my mother.  She closed her eyes again and said she had found her. She said she didn’t notice her as much as the others because she was standing sideways and her head was looking down.  The psychic said that when she sees eople,
they are normally facing her and when they aren’t it sometimes means they haven’t fully passed over to the other side yet.  That was kind of troubling.

The woman said, oh, she did not want to go did she!  Even in her final moments she was fighting and not accepting it. I looked around the room and my friends all had tears running down their faces.  I teared up, but was trying really hard not to cry.  Again, I can’t remember all that she said but I remember she said she was proud of me and missed us.  I was kind of disappointed mom didn’t mention the kids.  The psychic told us that we needed to talk to her (not at the moment, but later) and tell her we were O.K. and it is O.K. for her to pass.  She said that my great-grandmother was with her, so she thought she was with her family, but hadn’t fully passed over, wasn’t accepting it yet.  She asked if I had any questions and then her eyes focused on Tracy.  She said to her, oh you know this woman also.  She was like a mother to you too.  You could tell her things that sometimes you couldn’t even tell your own mother.  We were all pretty impressed that she knew this. 

 She went on to read Tracy’s mom (and describe a cake Mary made for Tracy for her birthday and described a bedroom in Mary’s house) and several of Tracy’s relatives, as well as Heather
(although she didn’t pick up on that Heather and I were sisters and she had read her mother already, although she did say I had a sister when she read me) and Jamie which she said things to them that amazed me as well.  Almost looking into our souls.  At the end she said she could see we were good people and had good hearts.  While she was reading Tracy and Heather, she would stop at times and come back to me and say, I can see your mother looking at me now, she is facing me, not standing sideways and with her head down. She said that sometimes people pass during the readings. (Dad and I weren’t really buying this one…so what if someone doesn’t ever have a reading,
their loved one never crosses over???)  There was also a child that appeared during the reading that none of could place and we talked about it after the reading was over. Jamie looked at me and said; maybe you are going to be pregnant. I said, bite your tongue!  The psychic popped in and said, no I can see she won’t have any more children, in fact I didn’t see any more children in any of your futures except a slim possibility in yours and looked at Tracy.  We all started laughing as Tracy has twins already and was like, no way! J I wonder what else the psychic saw but didn’t mention like the possibility of us having more children!  After the woman left, we all sat at the kitchen table silent.  I said, you know no one is going to f’n believe us, right?  We were just surprised at how accurate she was at some things she couldn’t have found out.  I did what I said; I didn’t make it
life changing and just enjoyed it. Hoping to do it again in a few years.

The beginning of the year brought sadness as Peggy passed away unexpectedly.  I was really sad about her passing.  Another person gone too soon, and just a really nice person that reminds me so much of my child hood.  No matter where you go, you always remember the people you grew up with. Even if I am not close with half the people I grew up with in Leopolis, I still consider them friends and would do anything to help them. Jeff S. also passed away expectedly way too young.   You gained another two card players with the crew you already have up there.  Heather’s dog Lizzie Lou also got hit by a car.  It was so upsetting to lose her too. I know she was just a dog, but we all loved her.  You never got to meet her; she was born on the day you passed, so today would be her birthday.  Make sure you give her hugs from all of us. 

Lexi still very much remembers you and keeps you in her thoughts. I can’t believe she is going into 7^th grade already.  We have our ups and downs, but so far she is a very good kid and I hope she continues on the right path, hanging with the right people.  Last week we were renting old movies on a rainy day and I suggested My Girl.  It is a sad movie, but I thought she would still like it.  When the movie was over she was saying how sad it was and why didn’t I warn her!  Then a few minutes later she burst into tears saying that the sad movie turned her thoughts to you and can’t kept saying over and over how unfair it was you died.  She just can’t understand why, as no one can.
After we hugged for a bit I told her the anniversary was coming up this week. I said that I usually write you a letter to get all my feelings out and it usually helps thinking maybe she would want to do the same.  Not sure if she ever did or not, if she did she didn’t share it. 

Will is still Will. J  He is going into third grade this year and seems like he will be very outgoing with sports and activities like Lexi.  He played basketball in the winter and then coach pitch baseball this summer until he broke his ankle about a month ago.  He can be a little crazy sometimes too, but he is still my momma’s boy at times and still funny.  A few weeks back he had a follow up appointment in Oshkosh for his ankle.  We were sitting in the room waiting for the doctor to come in and the nurse had taken off his walking boot and wrap.  When she left the room, I told him his boot
was probably starting to smell and he told me to smell it.  I took a sniff at the top and said it wasn’t
bad and then another where his toes went. I practically gagged then and he thought that was the funniest thing ever.  He said, smell it again.  I said, no way!  He said, I triple dog dare you.  I still shook my head no.  He said, well the thing about trip dog dares is…you have to do them!  I just busted out laughing, it sounded so funny. J

Dad is still doing well.  He stays active with the legion, watching the kids and dogs when we need him to, going to the races, etc.  For his birthday this year he said he wanted dumplings and sauerkraut instead of gifts. Although Heather had made them with Grandma before, I had not.  Between the two of us figuring it out, they turned out pretty good.    Speaking of Heather, her and Jim are well too.  Heather has made a lot of positive changes in her life in the last few months and we are all so proud of her for continuing to do so on her own.  We went on our annual family vacation to the cabin in July again and had a nice time.

I think this is the first year I haven’t worked in your flower beds. Usually I got to tend them at least
once during the summer. As the kids get older, the busier we get so I don’t have as much free time.  Somehow though, it doesn’t bother me as it would have the first year.  I know you would understand and I had transplanted some into my flower bed a few years back and watching those grow each year is enough.   

Sally was telling me about a story of an experience with a hummingbird she had when she was planting her flowers.  This isn’t the first year she has experienced the hummingbird, but this time the bird came right into her garage and just sat in front of her for a few seconds, which of course we all believe to be you letting us know you are watching over us.  Lexi and I saw a hummingbird at the
greenhouse when we went flower shopping. I pointed the hummingbird out to Lexi and said I think Grandma is flower shopping with us!  Then Lexi was all concerned because the hummingbird couldn’t seem to find the way out of the greenhouse and kept flying back and forth from one end to the other.  I joked with Lexi saying, yes that definitely is Grandma.  Found her way here and now
can’t find her way back out! J  Of course, I am just joking!

I will close here.  I guess I had more to say than I thought, as usual.  We love and miss you terribly,
especially on these anniversaries.  We continue to do things you would enjoy on these special days to remember you fondly.   Please continue to watch over us.  

If flowers grew in heaven

Lord, then pick a bunch for me.
Then place them in my mother’s arms
And tell her they’re from me.
Tell her that I love and miss her
And when she turns to smile,
Place a kiss upon her cheek and hold her for awhile.

All my love –

Melissa