IMG_0895Over the last several weeks I have faced life lessons that I will likely spend the rest of my life unraveling.  I am discovering things about myself at a pace that I can hardly begin to keep up with.  I watched over my baby sister as the angels swept her away, and was washed with a sense of grief and relief of a magnitude that I could have never prepared myself for.  Somehow I figured out how to put one foot in front of the other when it took everything I had to simply breathe.  Now I am forced to look at life through eyes that are forever changed, clouded by the knowledge that I am still here and she is not. 

I don’t know how to write about what this all means, when I have not figured anything out yet, but write I must.  Here on my Mamavation Monday post, I have accountability.  I have friends who are waiting on the sidelines to help me get back in line.  I have people who can help me decide that life is too short to deny myself whatever I want to eat to be controlled by an addiction to food. I have people to remind me that I need to sleep in to take care of myself I don’t have energy to get to the gym because I haven’t been in a month.

Life is short!  It maybe the only lesson I have processed, but it could be the most important one.  I have a responsibility to my children not to leave them early too, I have a responsibility to not leave my brothers sister-less, and I need to be around to bury my parents instead of them burying another child.  I have a responsibility to get into shape so that I can be a bone marrow donor for other patients with AML.  I need to get it together so that I can run, bike, walk, scream, and shout for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  I need to live my life for myself, my loved ones, and for my sister and her memory. 

I know that I have a lot to get done, but I haven’t forgotten that this is a process that requires baby steps.  I have yet to decide where to start, but I think it might be quitting diet soda come to me this week.