I'm finding myself in a raw place this Christmas season. I don't know what it is--I'm not typically a sentimental person. But this year, I find myself swallowing a lump in my throat and blinking back tears way more often that I would like. Grief is such a bizarre thing. Here I am, 15 years out, fighting tears as I'm driving down the highway. It hits out of nowhere, and it really doesn't care how inconvenient the timing. Like Sunday, after a bad day where I had made my husband, daughter, and son all frustrated with me (for different reasons--I'm talented like that). Then I had fought the crowd at WalMart, something I'm never a fan of, in search of gifts and stocking stuffers. I was driving home in the dark, which is already not such a great thing for me because my night vision is terrible. And there was the flag. After Michael's death, my family had a flagpole installed at the cemetery. There's a light shining on it at night so it doesn't h...
just me, stepping out of the boat in faith, trying not to focus on the waves around me