April 12 ...

It's a rough day.  There are a couple of reasons for that.  I'll start with the least painful one.  It's my nephew's birthday.  He just turned 13.  None of our family, including his father, my older brother, Joey, has seen him for almost 10 years.  His mom took him and moved away leaving no contact information and refusing to answer her cell phone.  After less than a year had gone by, I tried calling her from my home phone.  Guess what?  She answered, because she didn't recognize the number.  When she realized it was me, I could tell she would not have answered had she known it was me.  I informed her that Joey had been trying to get in touch with her and talk to his son, but he had just stepped out to the store.  (He was living with us at the time.)  I told her I would have him call back just as soon as he got home, and less than 10 minutes later when he called, she didn't answer.  She no longer answered to my phone calls either.  How sad.  I sure miss him and would love to get the chance to get to know him.  I cannot even imagine how hard it is for my brother.

What makes April 12 a terrible day more so is ... it's the day my mom died.  April 12, 2001 I got the worst call of my life from my mom's father in law.  He told me that he found my mom in the side yard and she had been shot in the chest and they were doing an autopsy.  I'm not even going into the story more than that - I can't go there right now.  It's ugly and painful and worst of all, mysterious.  9 days ago marked 10 years since that day.  Funny, I think about it all the time - I think of my mom almost every day still.  But I didn't even one time realize on that day what day it was.  The next day, I remembered.  I guess I am blessed that I was in Washington DC having a great time with my kids and my best friend and her family.  It didn't even cross my mind.  Part of me feels guilty for not remembering, but a bigger part of me is thankful for the distraction.  It's too painful.  I like to remember my mom for the loving, cheerful, funny woman she was.  When I think of April 12, 2001, I think of her laying in the yard shot in the chest, lung collapsed struggling to breathe and bleeding.  I wonder what she was thinking and I hope she wasn't suffering.  The only comfort I find is knowing from the autopsy report that it was a matter of minutes before she passed.  I wasn't going to blog about it.  It all sounds so morbid and who really wants to read something so depressing?  But while perusing Facebook this morning, I saw something on a friend's page.  Pictures of a beautiful rainbow.  The date of the rainbow?  April 12, 2011.  The pictures were taken here where I live, so I missed it being in DC.  I can't help but feel like that rainbow was a hello from Heaven.  I wish I had been here to see it.  I'm thankful for stumbling across the pictures anyway.  Here is one of them ...

Isn't it beautiful?  Rainbows have a special place in my heart.  Back in 2002 shortly after Haley had been diagnosed with Leukemia and started her chemo, she was extremely ill.  She was in the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit) and I honestly wasn't sure if she would live or die at that point.  The life was gone from her eyes and she was just so sick.  I took a rare break and left the hospital to go to Walmart to buy her a blanket for the hospital.  I was driving back to the hospital and I was just so distraught.  I prayed to God.  I prayed for His will to be done (hoping His will was for my baby who had already been through so much in her short life to LIVE!) and to be with her and comfort her.  I prayed to please give me a sign, is my baby going to live?  I don't even know how I continued to drive.  Tears were streaming down my face.  Then I saw in the sky the most beautiful, perfect rainbow I had ever seen.  It was a completely sunny day - not a cloud in the sky.  I knew then that it was an answer to my prayer.  God was giving me a sign that everything would be OK.  From that day forward, rainbows have always had a special meaning for me.  So, when I saw those pictures I knew they were a hello from Heaven and that I was meant to see them.  :-)