Mother's Day 2016

It is Mother's Day and I am going through so many emotions because this has been a very eventful week!

Monday, I had the privilege of picking up Nathan after 10 1/2 years and bringing him home from prison. This momma has waited a long time for him to be back at home and I am so thankful to have him here. I won't even begin to convince you that everything has been perfect, because it has not been. There is a lot of garbage that has been piled up on him while he was incarcerated that we have to work through and out. We knew this going in and we are in it for the long haul. We have discovered this week that if we keep him a little busy with things he seems to do better because he is not constantly thinking about things.

He is a long way from free. He meets with a parole officer over the next year or so on a regular basis to make sure he successfully gets incorporated back into society. He is subject to random drug and/or alcohol tests. We could at any time have our home searched for alcohol, drugs, and/or weapons contained here. That was one of the stipulations for his release to not have anything in our house. We never did have the weapons or drugs, but the wine cabinet had to be cleaned out before his arrival. I do miss my glass or two of wine I had grown accustomed to having each night, but it is well worth doing without to have him back. This is such a minor sacrifice and so worth it to me.

We spent several days this week getting his photo ID, going to the optometrist and ordering glasses, requesting a replacement social security card, getting clothes. I had scheduled vacation days as soon as I knew for sure he would be coming home and when. I am glad I did. It gave us lots of time to talk, not talk, and work through things and get him settled in.

Thursday was also a very significant day for me. One year ago on the fifth of May my dad died and so Thursday was the anniversary of that. He so wanted Nathan to come home. Every time I talked to him he asked about Nathan and how he was doing. Even when he did not remember my other boys names, he always remembered to ask me about Nathan and he always remembered his name. He would have been down here on Monday if he were still alive. That is how important it was to him. It made me especially sad knowing that he had almost made it to when Nathan got home, just a year short. I thought about my dad all week, but even more on Thursday, the fifth of May.

The day was also significant to me because after 17 years of working at Fidelity Investments, I turned in my laptop, corporate credit card and ID card on Thursday. I technically worked for Fidelity through Friday, but all of my stuff was turned in on Thursday. I thought it would be tough and I would be so sad after so many years, but not really. The past 3 years have not been fun for me. I landed in a role that I really did not like. I had looked for a job internally but just really did not find anything that interested me so I instead looked outside of the company and found a new position. So on Thursday, I said goodbye to Fidelity and hello to life.

Saturday was my happy place because we opened the pool, or should I say pond, at least that was what it looked and smelled like. Nothing a couple of boxes of shock could not fix! In fact as I write this blog post today the blue color has returned and I can almost see to the bottom of the deep end of the pool. We will do some vacuuming and the filter is running pretty much nonstop right now as we are cleaning it all out. Opening the pool is so significant to me each year because it symbolizes that summer is nearly here. It is supposed to be cool this week so we will not turn on the heater yet, but hopefully after that we can start warming the pool up getting ready for the Memorial Day weekend. We always do something that weekend and while it may or may not be warm enough to get in the water, we will spend some time in the lounge chairs enjoying the pool.

Sunday is nearly perfect! For the first time in 9 years I had Mother's Day with two of my sons. Nathan and Aaron bought me a beautiful flower, Italian Heather, I have never seen anything like it. I was hoping to put it out by the pool but it is only hearty outdoors in zones 10-11. Since we are in zone 6 I can put it outside in a pot for the summer and then bring it back in for the fall/winter. It is beautiful! I also got a picture made with my boys!

Perfection would have been if I had my Ian here too, but he can only be here in my memories of him. I miss him every day. I am grateful for everyday that I did have him with me and I am very grateful for my other boys who I still have with me.

You would think things would slow down a little after such a busy week but alas I have at least a couple more days of excitement before I get back into a routine. Tomorrow is my first day on my job with RR Donnelley. I happened upon this opening when talking with one of my coworkers and expressing to them I was looking for a new job. He immediately told me about this position and connected me up with the hiring manager. My experience over the past 17 years made me the perfect candidate for the job. RR Donnelley is the company that will be handling all of the printing work for Fidelity. Much of this work was done internally previously however it was recently determined that it should be handled with a printing company. They needed a handful of people with Fidelity knowledge that were willing to change companies and I decided this was my time for a change.

I am so very excited about tomorrow. I dubbed this year as the year of change and I was willing to make changes. We finished up the Brave journey at church today, so how appropriate that I move into the new job that I was seeking as part of the Brave journey. I had charted my course early stating that I wanted a new job by June 1. I beat that date by nearly a month! I am ready for a fresh start!

And lastly Tuesday will be our annual celebration of Ian's life! This is the first time ever that Nathan will be here for one of these celebrations. He was already incarcerated when Ian died. We do a balloon send off and a shot of Captain Morgan's each year on Ian's birthday. We also have a juice of some kind for anyone who does not drink. I have not decided if I will do a shot of Captain or if I will have a shot of grape juice. Since Nathan cannot have alcohol, I may just have the grape juice along with him. It will be the first time I do not take a shot of Captain so I am just not decided at this moment what I will do. I guess when the time comes I will make my choice and not worry about it. My promise was not to have alcohol in my house and I will not.

So as you can see, this has been an emotional roller coaster of a week. I said I wanted change and boy am I getting change. I knew it would not always be easy and that's OK. Life easy is life boring! I would rather have the roller coaster and feel all of the emotions, both good and bad.

Happy Mother's Day!