Old Box of Pictures

I am so glad to have my laptop back so that I can update my blog! There have been multiple topics I have been wanting to write about, and I hope to get caught up in the next couple of weeks. 

Here I am 24 weeks prego squinting from the bright sun. I can't believe how fast time is flying.  15 weeks until D-day. Holy Molely!

Two weeks ago, I made the drive back to Oklahoma. I came back early for doctors appointments, and to organize the house before school started for myself.

My 23 week appointment went really well. She had a hard time at first finding the heartbeat. We would start to hear it and then it would disappear. I could feel Evan going crazy in my stomach, and the doctor laughed saying that he must be running from her. I could see the wand on the heart monitor jump up and down from his acrobatic activities. Finally, Evan got tired and allowed us to measure his heart rate. 155 beats/minute!

After my appointment, I began sifting through a tub of old pictures that I have been meaning to put into a scrapbook for literally years. As I am sure many of you can relate, grief sneaks up on you at the most random times it seems. Sifting through an old box of pictures, standing in a grocery store line, or driving along the highway. 

As I looked at all these pictures, I found tears streaming down my face. There she was. My beautiful mom.

I stared at pictures of her as a precious little baby on her mom's lap, a sweet little girl posing for portraits, and family photos out in west Texas.

 I saw pictures of her in her high school band, getting ready for senior prom, with her college roommates, and after she preformed in the play "South Pacific."

I remember thinking to myself that I never really got to know this woman in these pictures. 

Don't get me wrong. The mother I knew was and still is one of the sweetest most loving women I have ever known. She had a very quiet, gentle spirit. And to many she came across as being very shy. She loved my sister and I so much. And it was evident to both of us as little girls all the way up to the day that the Lord took her home. If my mother ever spoke ill of another person, she never did it in front of me. So to this day, I still think that she never did. I definitely strive to be more like my mom in this area and numerous others.

So, what do I mean by saying I feel like I never really got to know the person in these pictures? It is because the mom I knew was a woman underneath a veil of mental illness. 

For those of you that do not know, my mother was diagnosed with Manic Depression/Bipolar Disorder right around the time that I was born.  This was a very hard time for my mother and for our family. She began taking medication for the chemical imbalance which helped her maintain a sense of normalcy, but if she stopped taking the medication she would have an episode that would literally take at least a year for her to recover from.

During these episodes, she would spend months in a very manic state. Never sleeping, constantly talking, laughing at things that wouldn't normally be funny to her, and very high strung. I have looked through some of her journals from this time, and you can see a very definite difference in her handwriting. During this time, her script would be exaggeratedly large going slanted down the page and sporadic in thought. I remember her doing laundry at all hours of the night, constantly cleaning, folding, scrubbing. 

Then she would spend months in a very depressive state. Sleeping all the time, barely talking at all, constantly in her room. There were times that my dad had to get church friends of theirs to drive Marylin and I to school because she would fall asleep at the wheel.

My mother had 3 major episodes throughout her life. Once when I was in elementary school, and then jr. high and high school. When everything stabilized for my mom, she would go back to the mother I always knew. But even then, I still feel like she lived with the chains of the disorder. Never truly able to break free.

If my mother were here right now, I would tell her that I love her. I would say that I was sorry for not being the daughter that I should have been. I would tell her how much I regret getting off the phone with her because I thought I was too busy for a conversation. I would thank her for her selflessness and love, and I would give her the biggest bear-hug I could muster.

I look forward to seeing my mom again someday in heaven free from the weight of this world, and I can't wait to tell Evan about his grandma Marianne. 

Thanks for reading, and do me a favor. Give your mom/dad, aunt/uncle, guardian a call, and tell them how much they are loved.