Mini update

Hi everyone!  I promise I will update soon...life needs to slow down a bit then I will get around to it.  This is just to hold you over until I actually do a real post (with pics).  Here's a tidbit of info. for you in bullet format:

• The 32 week picture is on its way.  It has been on our camera for almost 2 weeks now.  We have about 6 weeks to go!
• School is in full swing.  I am working half days and loving it!  It's so nice to walk out the door before 1:00.
• Jonathan is diggin' his new job.  He was in Texas last week and will be in Chicago next week.  He's a traveling man!
• We closed on a house TODAY!  Yay!  After looking for about 5 months, we are so thankful it has actually happened.  It is a bit surreal.  We are super excited to bring our son to a HOME from the hospital.  God continues to amaze me.
• I have a baby shower here in CO next weekend---good times!
• The Amazing Race begins next weekend too.  Love it!

Okay, you got more than a mini update.  I suppose I can do this more often.  For some reason I feel the need to have pics to include with a post, but I guess you faithful readers just want something new to read! :)  Thanks for checking in.  Photos are on the way.

Missing

Alcoholic and absent.  Two words that describe my grandma perfectly. I saw her twice, once when I was 5 and the other when I was 21.  I vividly remember both encounters.  She chose not to come to my mom's wedding and 24 years later chose not to come to mine.  Not only was she absent in my life, but, perhaps more importantly, absent in my mom's.  Alcoholism, what an unbelievable disease that warps one's mind in such a way that children and grandchildren come second to the bottle.  By God's grace I have no bitterness toward her.  

I never felt as though something in my life was missing.  I am blessed by two amazing and loving parents, perhaps that's why I did not feel a void in my heart for a grandma.  However, now that she's gone I feel as though something IS missing...her. She has always been absent so why do I feel like this now?  In the depths of my soul was a hope that someday, somehow she would show up. Not physically, but emotionally, as a grandma. One who loves you, one who knows you, one who sends you birthday cards with cats on them.  Now that she's gone the hope also fades.  The hope that she would be a part of my life.  My own flesh and blood, a stranger no more.  It will never happen.  Brain and lung cancer consumed her body faster than anyone expected.  The void that was never there has made its appearance. As long as she was alive, there was a chance...an opportunity for a miracle.  As I type I realize there are many miracles in the midst of it all.  My mom, who never felt loved by her own mom, has loved me unconditionally. She did not have an example of a mom yet she continues to be the best one I could ever hope for.  

The funeral is tomorrow.  I am not going.  I wonder what others will say about the grandma I never knew.