Chapter 16

Well before I have had time to blink half the summer is over!  I can hardly believe that in another month I'll be preparing to send my babies back to school.  This is the last year of grade school for my Ellie, and I can hardly believe where the time has gone.  Our first year as a family of 3 Ellie was just starting kindergarten.  As I look back on those years with all the heartache that I've dealt with, I can also recall some wonderful elementary school moments.  In the midst of divorce, court proceedings, custody issues, bankruptcy, disease, and illness my little family has also enjoyed ball games, recitals, school plays, choir concerts, science fairs, birthday tables, spelling bee's, and other very "regular" elementary functions.  It's amazing now as I look back and remember all the good that came along with the bad.  When I went through each trial over the different years I remember thinking...."this is the year that will defined by HIV."  Or..."this will be the year that will be defined as my divorce year." It's always hard while you're going through some awful situation to look around at all the positive that is also happening.  It's like the BAD consumed all my thoughts, and somehow I managed to go through the motions of day to day life, but I never could see the blessings that I was blessed with while trudging along.  I have always looked to the growth process of the lotus flower.  These beautiful flowers that bloom on the waters surface have a very difficult and a rather unpleasant life before they hit the top of the water.  This flower starts in the mud.  Buried down deep in the ickiest muck the seed of the lotus flower starts.  Many lotus flowers don't make it out of the mud.  They suffocate and die.  It takes years for the flower to persist and grow up through the dirty and dark mud beneath the water.  After much of their life in the mud and darkness the flower finally reaches the top of the water, and can finally bloom and bask in the warmth of the sun.

During the different times that I have spent under the water and in the dark and dirty mud I have had a difficult time knowing that if I stay steadfast I will eventually hit that goal of the top of the water and reach the warmth of the sun.  I don't know if the lotus flower knows before hand that it will eventually reach the sun? But I have learned a life lesson from the lifecycle of this flower.  During the times that my life is in the mud, I need to remember that if I don't give up and surrender my spirit I will reach the surface and feel the sun again.  This is a lesson I learned a few years ago, and it has helped me tremendously when looking at what I may be dealing with in the present and also what the future may hold for me.  Before I had really experienced hard trials I didn't have any idea how to deal with such difficulties.  Although I may still be only in my 30's, I do feel as though I have a couple life notches in my belt.  I have dealt with some tough things, and while I went through them it was hard to not let them consume me.  It was hard to look at anything positive because all around me was so negative.  So I thought.  Looking back now, I had positive around me even then.  My beautiful girls have always been there.  My oldest who started my divorced journey with me when she started kindergarten has always been a straight A student, excelled in sports, choir, school plays, and is becoming more and more the best big sister ever.  This is just one example of the positive, or my lotus flower, that has blossomed after coming up through some of life's mud.

Now I have learned that bad days do come.  Sometimes they come in the form of bad weeks.  Bad things happen.  Life will throw the biggest curve balls our way.  But without these trials I wouldn't have learned a great lesson.  I try my hardest not to concentrate on the dark, cold mud.  But when I'm having a rough time or a severe struggle with something I look up toward the sun and know that I will bloom again.  I'm so grateful for this life on earth.  I am so grateful for EVERY lesson I learn.  Everyday here with my family and loved ones is a blessing that I do not take for granted.  I try to embrace each morning and give thanks each evening for the day that I've been given.  I take deep breaths that fill my lungs all the way.  I try my hardest not to put something off until tomorrow that can be done today.  My kids keep growing up, and summer 2015 is halfway over.  I'd better make sure to spend as much time as I can with these 2 young women blooming with them in the sun!