I discovered last night that the slide show put together for mom's visitation is online. I had no idea, but the funeral home's website has a link to it. This is the type of thing one learns when they are constantly Googling his or her mother's name.
Link:
Leslie Campbell Slide Show
I think you'll need to then click on "View Video Tribute"
Many friends who wanted to be in Iowa for her funeral couldn't make it due to cost and so I'm putting this link up for anyone who wanted to see. About the songs - Kelsey and I chose them. One word about that - we don't particularly like Celine Dion but, honestly, the words to "Because You Loved Me" fit mom so well. As I've said before, mom raised us almost completely on her own. She was our constant and our home. So we did choose an obvious, sappy, cliched song - deal with it.
It's been more than seven months since she died and everyone was right. It hurts just as much. I'm just a little better at doing other things while hurting.
I hope you enjoy these photos as much as we did. I haven't actually sat and watched the slide show since the visitation, so I'm going to do it at well.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Hello October!
I do not know why I feel so good this morning. By all rights, I should not. But I've learned, slowly, that when life feels good, you'd damn sure better sit up and take notice and appreciate it.
Mom's birthday is one week from today and I know that it's going to be really sad. She'd have been 65. It's another facet that feels so wrong to me - from now on our age gap is no longer fixed. My mom will not remain 20 years older than I am; she will always be 64. I hate that each day, she becomes a smaller percentage of my experiences. Does that make any sense to you? What if I don't want to move on? What if it feels disloyal to not think of her very first thing, very last thing of each day? It doesn't get easier, it's true. But finding a way to live with it and just maybe, one day, finding a way to make it all make some difference, makes it tolerable.
This week I made an apology to someone I hurt in the past. Sometimes amends are overrated. I guess I was feeling so good about what happened in Houston and felt that anything was possible, which is just not the case. My warm and open feelings towards the truck driver and his wonderful family did not translate into this particular person finding much redeemable in ME, and it frankly hurt, which means I'm still not the magnanimous person I aim to be. I wanted to defend myself, to expound, to say, "Oh yeah? Well what about this? Did you know this?" Being demonized is really not a lot of fun. Dropping it is always a challenge for me. My family says I'm like Claire on Modern Family - I always have to be right. HUH UH! Let me prove it to you..... haha.
I've done the best I could and I know I'm a passably good person. If you can find me someone who, if his or her worst choices were public knowledge, wouldn't be ashamed, I'd be amazed. I'm through letting my shortcomings and people who knew me from the darkest days of relapse define me because they never did and never will know the person I actually am. Maybe amends ARE useful, if only for separating the wheat from the chaff in life's experiences.
I love my friends! My husband! My children! My bigger family! I am excited to be getting back on the horse of my life. Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, library, reading, sunshine, exercise, grief group, recover, my dog! Oops, I left out the cat. Stupid cat. Most likely I will end up in tears at some point today and that's okay too. Most days I have a cry. But if I start to have more hours without tears, that's a good thing and I'll take it.
Last night we went to watch this Champions of Tennis thing and got to see Agassi, Chang, Courier and Martin play and it was so fun! Laughing, excited - and then tears falling when I remembered I couldn't call Mom later to tell her about it. It just turns on a dime. But for many months, I didn't even have the laughing and excited part happening, so it's a good thing. Next week we have dinner with our excellent group of friends - Fall Harvest theme - and there is a lot to look forward to in the beauty of a Minnesota fall. I'm going to bookmark this one to reread when I'm feeling like total crap next.
Mom's birthday is one week from today and I know that it's going to be really sad. She'd have been 65. It's another facet that feels so wrong to me - from now on our age gap is no longer fixed. My mom will not remain 20 years older than I am; she will always be 64. I hate that each day, she becomes a smaller percentage of my experiences. Does that make any sense to you? What if I don't want to move on? What if it feels disloyal to not think of her very first thing, very last thing of each day? It doesn't get easier, it's true. But finding a way to live with it and just maybe, one day, finding a way to make it all make some difference, makes it tolerable.
This week I made an apology to someone I hurt in the past. Sometimes amends are overrated. I guess I was feeling so good about what happened in Houston and felt that anything was possible, which is just not the case. My warm and open feelings towards the truck driver and his wonderful family did not translate into this particular person finding much redeemable in ME, and it frankly hurt, which means I'm still not the magnanimous person I aim to be. I wanted to defend myself, to expound, to say, "Oh yeah? Well what about this? Did you know this?" Being demonized is really not a lot of fun. Dropping it is always a challenge for me. My family says I'm like Claire on Modern Family - I always have to be right. HUH UH! Let me prove it to you..... haha.
I've done the best I could and I know I'm a passably good person. If you can find me someone who, if his or her worst choices were public knowledge, wouldn't be ashamed, I'd be amazed. I'm through letting my shortcomings and people who knew me from the darkest days of relapse define me because they never did and never will know the person I actually am. Maybe amends ARE useful, if only for separating the wheat from the chaff in life's experiences.
I love my friends! My husband! My children! My bigger family! I am excited to be getting back on the horse of my life. Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, library, reading, sunshine, exercise, grief group, recover, my dog! Oops, I left out the cat. Stupid cat. Most likely I will end up in tears at some point today and that's okay too. Most days I have a cry. But if I start to have more hours without tears, that's a good thing and I'll take it.
Last night we went to watch this Champions of Tennis thing and got to see Agassi, Chang, Courier and Martin play and it was so fun! Laughing, excited - and then tears falling when I remembered I couldn't call Mom later to tell her about it. It just turns on a dime. But for many months, I didn't even have the laughing and excited part happening, so it's a good thing. Next week we have dinner with our excellent group of friends - Fall Harvest theme - and there is a lot to look forward to in the beauty of a Minnesota fall. I'm going to bookmark this one to reread when I'm feeling like total crap next.
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