Today, my tears have been near the top and breaking the surface often. Even in the tears though the day has been full of little joys or moments to bring the laughter out too.
Really the day started yesterday or at least the back story to some of the laughs started yesterday!
All of last week we went to a VBS in kent at CC South, the first church we went too when we first moved out here to WA. It was really good to see friends that we had made the first year out here and hadn't seen (aside from facebook stalking) since moving to Seattle. It was good for me to be at church where people were not avoiding conversation with me because Elias is gone and fear of awkwardness or uncomfortableness.
So yesterday was the last day and although it was good, it made us all extremely worn out and poor Josiah was just a bundle of emotions. So when on the drive home he was all weepy and irritable at his siblings and just overall grumpy and sad, I asked him why he was crying still (after being scolded for teasing Enoch earlier yet was still crying) and come to find out one of his teeth had been knocked loose (by bitting into a chocolate bar) and now he was afraid I was going to pull it out so that thought had him in tears. HaHa :) Once we got home I had completely forgotten about his tooth (probably because all I saw was the junk yard my house had become because of being gone everyday this week and too exhausted to clean in the evenings) much to Josiah's relief until he started talking to Judah about his tooth being loose and I heard him and then I remembered to look at it. Josiah then proceeded to work himself up crying and screeching about how much it was going to hurt and he didn't want me to pull it to the point where he was almost hyperventilating about it. So after giving him the chance to pull it out himself he just spending 10 min. crying and not really trying. I took over and after a few tugs seeing it was super loose but not so loose it was going to just fall out without some tugging. I decided that with all of Josiah's blubbering through that and the fact that I just could not stop laughing at Josiah because his crying was so unnecessary and borderline ridiculous that I would let his tooth alone a few more days. Haha, poor Josiah after that ordeal and once he had calmed himself down he told me thanks for letting him keep his tooth in a bit longer and try and let it fall out on it's own.
So then today as we were about to head out to Sam's Club for grocery's and as it was getting close to lunch time but we were out of bread. I told the kids we would either get some pizza or pick up some hamburger's on the way out for lunch but if they were too hungary to wait they could eat an apple on the way. A few minutes later as we were just about to walk out the door, I see Josiah just standing there by the counter looking like he was about start crying so I asked him what was the matter. He looked at me and said "Well, I broke my tooth." I said, "What? You broke a tooth?? Which one? Come, here and let me see." He opened his mouth and showed me the tooth that was loose and we had tried pulling yesterday it was bleeding around the top and he said again "It's broken." Chuckling I could see he was about to start getting himself all worked up about so I went and grabbed a napkin and said "Okay, come here lets get this over with, open up." and I just barely touched his tooth and it fell out. I showed it to him and he quickly took a deep breath, calmed down and looked very relieved. Then promptly asked me if he could get three dollars for it. Laughing I told him no and he said, "Two dollars?" Then I told him "No, you can have one." Chuckling again. Then to top all that off a few minutes later as we were still trying to get out the door Josiah stated, "Well, yeah, I will have a hamburger now. I can enjoy now that my tooth is out."
So finally getting out the door I went and got the mail and found a package sent to us by a family who lost a son last year and started a fo by undation called Ayden's Foundation of Hope. The sent us some financial support, a couple of books about grieving (MaryBeth Chapman book + plus Steven C Chapman CD, Angie Smith (wife of Selah vocalist) book + Selah CD) a king james bible, a streams in the desert book, a heaven booklet Randy Alcorn and a sweet note. So reading their story had me in tears. So driving home after the store I was attempting to listen to one of the CD's I know they have very good lyrics but sometime the music is a little too "contemporary christian" if you know what I mean but I wanted to listen to it anyways. As it was also fairly hot out I had all the windows down and the music "loudish" not blaring but still loud. Pulling up to a stoplights a sports car with it's windows rolled down pulled up beside me, there was a hispanic twenty something girl driving and her significant other (boyfriend?, husband?) was reclined in the passenger set and I see him out of the corner of my eye glance back at me with this smirk on his face. My thought instantly was "Yup, what of it, I am loudly listening to slightly cheesy contemporary christian music." and I had to laugh at myself, seeing what this guy probably saw, a white chick, in a white minivan, loaded with kids, Ron Paul sticker on the back, cranking up the contemporary christian music, stereotype!
and then I promptly switched CDs and put back on the Josh Garrels I was listening to before that because I didn't want to roll my window up the rest of the drive home and decided I would listen to the music at home.
Ha ha, oh the things i care about, didn't want to be labeled as one of those people, needed to preserve my hip seattlelite status!
Shared the box with Judah when he woke up and let the tears fall again together for our sweet Elias and painted these pictures of my day for Judah laughing to together at the funniness of it all.
Later in the evening we put on the extended version of Lord of the Rings (we haven't watched the extended versions before and some friends insisted we needed to borrow them) as the kids and I folded laundry and then right before Judah left he prayed for each of the kids, somewhere in his prayers for them he prayed that they would not be afraid to die. Then a few minutes after he left for work and the movie was just finishing up, Jaelle runs up to me and just bursts into tears and sobs. Once she could control herself a little she told me she was crying because she "missed Elias and I loved him so much and that I am afraid to die and I don't know how to not be afraid to die and even though daddy prayed I would die, I am was still afraid to and I am just thinking about Elias" all in one long continuous stream of chatter between sobs. My thoughts, "what did Judah say to this girl??" LOL, I heard him pray with her but didn't hear what he said and somehow in Jaelle's attempt to explain to me her thoughts, daddy praying she would not be afraid to die turned into daddy prayed I would die, but I am still afraid to die and I don't know how to not be afraid of dying. All the while Enoch is seeing Jaelle crying and not wanting to be left out, mustered up some tears for Elias saying he was missing him too and now Josiah was in tears too hugging Enoch because I was holding Jaelle. And so after holding her and just letting her cry and then attempting to answer her, we all prayed together and then I sent them all off to bed.
Later, Judah called and I related the latter conversation and he clarified what he had said to her and I just had to laugh. What else can you do? Laughter is good medicine it helps to spill out the raw emotions, relieve the pressure of darkness threatening to drown you. Otherwise I would just be curled up on the floor in a big heap of raw emotions and sobs unable to move or pull myself up, I think.
I then finished a book, watched another movie, stayed up way too late and that ended my day.
