Thanksgiving

What motivates you?  What keeps you going through challenges?  How do you embrace the moment while you wait?  What pushes you forward, spurs you on?

On this Canadian Thanksgiving weekend I'm thankful for:

Music.  All types.  These are just some of my favorites, old and new.  Sinead O'Connor.  Sara Bareilles.  Music Together.  Beastie Boys.  Public Enemy.  

Support systems.  They are fabulous.  They are not for the weak, but for the strong.  We were created to crave community, belonging, speaking and listening.  Caring.  Helping.

Nature.  Thank you God for it.  Its complexity, its fragility, its intricacies, its beauty.  

Family and community.  Thank you for thriving cities, art, dance, concerts, teachers, and all people that improve communities, care for others, provide encouragement and bring about improvement.

Quotes are bits of shared wisdom.  These quotes have been particular meaningful to me within this last week:

I am thankful that I am parenting.  I love being a mother.  Exhaustion.  Overwhelming joy.  Peace.  Chaos.  Laughter.  I love the bliss of experiencing a new body and soul growing into herself.

I love being an educator.  There is always something more to learn, some assistance to provide, another way to listen, to share, to collaborate.  I love electronic tools and new ways of thinking that increase efficiency and effectiveness for students and teachers every day.  I am motivated by turning data into information to inform instruction and increase learning.  

I love life.  This messy, painful, joyous existence.  It surely is a gift.  

I am thankful.

Songs for Sorrow

Recently I have been holding my own little memorials by listening to these songs from the Twilight Saga: Eclipse soundtrack.  It came out last year at this time and I saw Eclipse at least four times in the theater.  By myself.

Heavy in Your Arms by Florence and the Machine
Chop and Change by The Black Keys
and With you in My Head by UNKLE

It's true; they may not sound like memorial songs.  The movie and music helped me escape or experience my searing pain, anger and sorrow, depending on what I needed at the time.

And lately I sing this song to myself frequently: Precious Lord Take My Hand.

This may sound incongruous, but that's the story of the human experience.  Well, it's the story of mine, anyway.

Last year at this time Kevin and I were:
Worried
Excited
PREGNANT.

One year ago yesterday our baby died.  I floated in the deepest ocean of sorrow.  Her name is Lily.  She lived a short time, but our hopes and dreams for her were beyond measure.  She would have been five months old right now.

And her other sister that went to heaven far too early would now be 1 1/2; her name is Eva (eh-vah).

Some people call them angel babies.  All I know is that they were our children.  And I know it is the purest love.

I'm thankful.
I remember.
I'm pensive about what could have been.