Before and After

It’s weird how your mind associates and processes events. I am currently in a place where I refer to everything (either outwardly or internally) as “before Sky died and after Sky died”.  I can look at a simple photograph (not even of my children) and know that was just days before…I can look through messages on my phone and see the clear distinction of where happiness was and where horror began.

There is a picture on my phone of Caden and Ashton from trick-or-treat night….November 3rd, 2012…I took the photo just minutes after Skylar pulled away to go out for the evening. I sometimes refer back to the photo on my phone and just close my eyes and remember how perfect everything was….NEVER imagining that would be the last time I saw my baby alive and the last time my boys saw their sister.  Wow. It’s more powerful than I can even express….that moment in time where everything was “ok” and then you fast forward just a bit and your entire world is flipped on end and your life is rocked to the core.

I don’t want my “after Sky died” to be a failure or a disappointment to my amazing daughter.  I know I’m still living within the shock of this tragedy and I can only pray that in a few years the rawness wears off ; and as many have said to me, that I learn to live “beside” this pain and not in the midst of it.  Right now that doesn’t seem likely but I also never thought I could survive 5 months without her either. God has carried me through.

I’ve written about it before and I choose today, to write about it again. Make your days count. Spend them with those you love and those that matter. Pay your debts, right your wrongs, forgive others and focus on what and who are important. Lift others up, be a light to your friends and treat others with kindness. You have no idea what crosses others are bearing.  I want my “after Sky died” to count. I want my actions, thoughts  and words to reflect the love and devotion that I have for Skylar and my other 3 kids.

I Love You More…Skylar, Lexy, Caden & Ashton. xoxo

“Don’t count the days, make the days count.”
Muhammad Ali

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens. – John Homer Miller

The struggle of life is one of our greatest blessings. It makes us patient, sensitive, and Godlike. It teaches us that although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it. – Helen Keller