Is it time? I think it's time...

I'm not serious most days. I don't know what it is about today, but I feel that today it might be time. It may be because today is the sixth anniversary of my mom being diagnosed with colon cancer--I remember the date so well because I can still vividly hear the GI doctor coming into her recovery room and telling my dad and me, "It's really bad," and for some stupid reason my mind started thinking, "Of course it's bad. This day is bad. It is tax day and the day the Titanic sunk... and now it is the day my entire world fell to pieces." I may feel like writing this entry today because a very dear friend of mine is going through the same agonizing experience with her mother as I type this and it has stirred feelings within me that I need to let go. Whatever the reason is, I have decided that right now I need to get back to life, or at the very least, make a valiant effort to do so. This means two things need to happen. Ok definitely more than two things. But we will start with these two:

1) I need to start scrapbooking again. Sounds weird, doesn't it? My mother and I loved to scrapbook together. Especially after Liv was born. God, my mom couldn't scrapbook fast enough! I have all of her scrapbooking stuff... papers, stickers, scissors, punch-outs, die-cuts, you name it! After Mom died, I didn't just quit scrapbooking-- I quit taking pictures altogether. I didn't want to remember it. I didn't WANT to remember a life without my mom. I didn't want to have to look at a family picture from some holiday and think, "Wow. What an empty hole."

A whole year. I missed out on recording an entire year of my daughter's life because I couldn't bear to let myself label any event as *important* without my mom around. I still have a hard time, but I'm getting better. I have started taking numerous pictures again. Of everything. And it's finally time to start putting them all back together again. It's time to take my memories and decorate them, put them into neat little boxes, journal about them and make them into something my kids will one day look at over and over and over... My mom would've wanted that. She would tell me that I am being crazy and that I should record each and every moment with my kids before it is too late. And she would tell me to use up all the Christmas stickers because she bought way too damn many, and why did I let her do that? And she would say that I should make sure to get just as many pictures of Sam as I did of Olivia, because poor Jake never had a proper album!

2) I'm going to start watching Cardinals Baseball again. Ok, this one is even crazier than the scrapbooking thing--I know! It is really odd what your mind and emotions do during the grieving process. But my mom died during the 2006 World Series, which we won, of course. My mom was barely lucid, but I remember her asking repeatedly, "Is the game on, yet?" And my dad and I telling her repeatedly, "No, not yet. Not til later," and then looking at each other like we couldn't believe that she was on her deathbed but still asking about the God-Damned Cardinals! And I can hear the sound of all my uncles and aunts and cousins, who came over to be supportive and see their sister/aunt one last time, cheering for the Cardinals as my mom lay in her hospital bed in our living room. They weren't cheering to be heartless. They were cheering because they just couldn't think about that. They just couldn't think about my dad and me sitting on the staircase crying uncontrollably as everyone cheered their Cards to victory. And I can't blame them. And I don't blame them... but, I haven't been able to watch the Cardinals since. I think this is the season, though. This is the season I watch them again and I can almost hear my mom (and possibly that alto voice up there that belongs to my Grandma Bell) saying, "Well, it's about time!" Oh, my kids are so far behind... will I ever explain to them the Bell loyalty to the Cardinals at this late date? Liv is almost five. I have a lot of catching up to do... but I will do it.

I will do it all. We will go to Cardinals games and I will take a million pictures and scrapbook every single damn one of them.