Bittersweet

Bittersweet heart today- my daughter, Nina, is on the mend. She's had a nasty bout of viral pneumonia and is finally on the upswing. We're glad, because she's begun her senior year and starting her final high school swim season. Well, that's not the only reason we're glad she's getting better, but it's important.

I'm looking forward to the meets, long as they are, because I often get to sit with Wendy and yak up a storm, something we are both very good at. I also like the down time away from the little boys, darling as they are. Most of the time, meets are fun for me. (Except the one last year at Viewmont- I had a head cold and thought I was going to implode between the noise and all the chlorine in the air. That and the fact that I suddenly looked at my beautiful daughter's beautiful stroke through the water and thought to myself...Hey, wait a minute! I don't want her to get a scholarship somewhere. I don't want her to move away from me. I want her to stay forever in my house, leaving her stuff all over the place and staying up way too late, clanking her dishes around in the kitchen and making her dad and I wonder if we should just come right out and tell her she needs to get to her room for the night so we can at least make out in peace.)

Anna is fun and is getting more fun, more tender, more responsible as the days go by. We are enjoying her so much. By the time she's ready to leave home, I'm sure I'll find it a struggle to keep that stiff upper lip stiff.

And yet today, I have the word "Love" written on my arm in pink ink with a heart around it in tribute to suicide awareness week and in honor of my friend, Catina, who lost her daughter to suicide last year. I am in love with my daughters, and I ache for Catina. And yet I also am so glad that Catina has her sweet Antonio and Maia, that motherhood still keeps her busy. As I looked at my arm a while ago, the ink got all blurry and I felt my eyes burn. Strange. I thought I had cried all my tears for Abbey last year when it happened.

Our souls are eternal. Love is eternal. Our Heavenly Parents and Savior are eternal. We lift each other, and sometimes we are the ones who need lifting. And don't we all have people in our lives for whom we would gladly take all the pain? I suppose that when we hurt for other people we aren't necessarily lightening their load, but perhaps there is comfort in commiseration, in companionship. It takes a village, that I firmly believe, and not only to raise a child, sometimes just to make it through life as an adult.

I'm grateful for my village and all the wonderful people in it. I'm glad for moments that cause me to reflect on it.