Life Figured Out
Wednesday, October 2, 2019
Wow, That was Hard.
Wow, I can't believe how the other day's writing has affected me the ways it has. I feel like I have kind of been in a weird funk since then. Later that night, I went upstairs to put Brooks to bed, and I just laid there staring at him while he slept, praying to God that he keeps my children safe. That he will protect their little bodies from harm, and that I will never have to hear that awful C-word like so many parents have to. I pray that I will never have to relive the hell I went through, but instead of it being my mom it is one of my children. I just don't know if I could survive. I think because of what happened with my mom, I am so aware that in an instant life can change, those bad things can happen to me. That the ones we love most are not guaranteed a tomorrow. In those moments of reality, I panic. While I was praying and begging my Heavenly Father to protect my children and to please never take them from me, it all felt very familiar. It took me back to when I was a little girl. Praying and begging him to never take my mom too soon, and just at that moment, a thought came to my mind. The thought was, pray for strength and faith to get me through any of my hard times to come. It was a good reminder that Heavenly Father can't always protect us from life. I believe we came to this earth and that life is supposed to be hard at times so we can have opportunities to grow and turn to him. I didn't do that with my mom. I had no faith in Heavenly Father anymore after she died. I turned away. I think it takes strength to have faith. I had neither. I will get into that later on in my blog, but back to my topic for today. Writing this stuff about my mom and about myself is not going to easy. I don't want to relieve the worst years of my life, but I want her battle written down because she was a warrior. She fought hard. She was so strong. I also want my battle written down because I too was a warrior. I have had to fight to get to where I am now. I feel like I would be doing her and myself a disfavor if I didn't journal all of this. So I'm going to keep pushing through and have hard days when I need to because it was a hard thing to go through. I hope too, that someone that is grieving and going through this can hopefully find something out of my writings. Even if it's just that they are not alone in all of this. Grief can be so lonely because each person's grief is their own. No one knows their exact pain or exactly what they lost. Life just keeps moving on and you feel so stuck because you have this chain and ball wrapped around your ankles making it feel impossible to move forward. Everywhere you turn there is a reminder of how your loved one is gone and life will never be the same.
Saturday, September 28, 2019
The Day My Life Forever Changed
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWuoPeZ2uo7ndw8eRcF9mWNBBxb6-2bYHUnYyZEwuWKKkhW3Yqnl3rPXDh2FUMqe1yPdmhYgXd8B5kehd4KsLtHdwGSvguYtWbBIj3hmw8SbnzLU0Y20MOpQUaXTiFls7-s6hZe8TyQlL3/s1600/download+%25283%2529.png)
Christmas Eve, December 24th, 2016, is a Christmas Eve I will never forget. Why did we have to find out on this day that my mom had stage 4 lung cancer? Like seriously why?
I want to rewind a little bit. First off, for some reason, ever since I was a little girl, I feared my mom dying too soon. It is something I thought about often, prayed often that it wouldn't happen, cried about, and told my mom she had better never die too young because I couldn't handle it. I was my mom's only daughter, and she and I were very close. My parents got a divorce when I was 8 and I spent the majority of the time with her. I would see my dad for 6 weeks out of the summer and every other holiday, but we didn't live close to each other. My mom was my rock. She was my person. She was the one person on this entire planet that I felt like I could rely on. She loved me uncondtionally. We got along great beside your typical teenage fights every now and again, but we hated being mad at each other. After high school, we didn't have anything to fight about anymore and so we were just best friends. I moved away after high school. I moved to Idaho, then to utah where I met my husband and settled down. She and my stepdad moved to Utah a couple months before I got married. It's so crazy, now knowing what I know. They were supposed to move to Utah so her family, her mom, siblings, my brother, and his wife and kids, me and my kids could spend the last years of her life with her. She wouldn't have wanted it any other way besides my twin brother being out here with his kid. Life would have been perfect for her. She was so extremely happy living here. We were all blissfully happy. I mean, my marriage struggled on and off, but whos didn't. I felt like my mom was there so she was the bandaid a lot of the times when I felt like things were really bad between Camden and I. This all comes into play later on, so I wanted to mention it now.
At the start of 2014 my mom started wheezing. We didn't think much about it because she had a cold. A month later I don't know if we thought much about it then because it was now February in Utah where the air is terrible and in the middle of winter, and it wasn't like she was wheezing terrible or all the time. She noticed it when she would climb the stairs or take deep breaths in. It wasn't affecting her daily life, and so we didn't worry that much. I believe it was maybe March or April and we are sitting on the couch in her living room and I could the wheezing. I remember really hearing it and saying out loud, "Mom, that is not normal. You have to get that figured out now.". She made an appointment with her doctor that week. When she went to the doctor's office they diagnosed her with acid reflex. They said the wheezing was not coming from her lungs but that it was, in fact, coming from around her windpipe and that acid reflex can cause that. Over the next several months they tried different medications to get it under control, and in the meantime, she developed a cough. The cough started about July. She thought she was just sick with a cold and didn't think anything about it. Coughs also seem to last forever. After I'm guessing a month in half of coughing she went back to the doctor. She was still wheezing too. So they thought maybe they misdiagnosed her and re-diagnosed her with asthma or COPD. They started her on medications that they said could take a good month to two months to kick in. She tried it and it wasn't helping. She went back in and they gave her a new medication to try. The time frame is probably now November beginning of December. In November she also had a couple of weird attacks around thanksgiving. She thought maybe it was her gallbladder but from what I remember never went in because the pains did not keep happening and they went away after a few hours. Also mid-November she noticed she had developed a sore spot on her collar bone. The sore spot over the next several weeks continued to get worse. So much worse than the coughing and wheezing got put on the back burner. The week before Christmas her whole neck started to get swollen and she could barely move or sit up without getting help. It was so crazy to just see her go downhill so fast. It was so scary. We had no idea what was going on. She made an appointment and the only one they had was December 23rd. She went in and they decided to do an x-ray. The next morning, which was Christmas Eve, they called and said she was being admitted to the hospital for a serious bone infection. That she would be put on IV antibiotics and that it could be a very long extensive stay at the hospital but for now they need her in there immediately and they need to find out where this infection was coming from. We were relieved in a way because we were finally getting some answers to what in the hell was going on. I met them there at the hospital. We were all very scared. I was terrified that they for some reason they were going to bring up the C-word. We asked the doctor do you think that this could be being caused by cancer. He said the x-ray didn't look like cancer and that nothing is pointing to cancer but that is scary and they need to run a lot of tests to see where this infection is coming from. I left my mom there. I couldn't do anything more and I had presents to wrap and things to do for Christmas. I told her I would be back. I got a phone call later in the day saying that it didn't look like it was an infection, and they were going to do some more tests and try and figure out what was going on. I loaded up my kids around 6:30 to head to the hospital so they could see her. I remember walking through the halls. I was walking so fast to get to her room. I wanted to know what was going on. If they had found out anything. My kids were running trying to keep up with me. I walked into her room and what I saw I instantly knew something was very wrong. My stepdad was laying his head in my mom's lap crying, the doctor was kneeling beside her bed, and she just sat there staring at me, with tears rolling down her cheeks. I just looked at all of them and said what? What is it? What is going on, and my mom just started shaking her head back and forth. I knew. I told them no. I kept saying no. Then the doctor came up to me and said, "It has been confirmed that your mom has cancer. She has cancer in her lungs, liver, lymph nodes, and bones." It is in the later stages and we know this because it has spread everywhere. We think it might have started in her lungs but will not know for sure until the biopsy is done. I'm so sorry,". I just started screaming. I was absolutely out of control. Even if I tried to control it I couldn't, even for my kids, I couldn't. They were screaming and crying because they didn't know what was wrong with me and I just couldn't stop. I have seen movies where someone finds out their loved one has died or something, and they are howling, screaming, crying so loud. I never understood it until that moment. It was one of the worst moments of my life. I went and sat in the stairwell. I sat there for a long time. I would have moments where I would start panicking like I was going to have a panic attack. I was hyperventilating and then all of a sudden just calm. I'd just sit there in a daze and then in the next moments I was just screaming again. I had so many things running through my head. So many unknowns. Was my mom really dying? Was this our last Christmas? Am I going to have to watch my mom die? Is there any hope? Can we fight this? Can she live? Can she survive this? I wanted all these questions answered and I wanted them answered now. I went and found the doctor. I needed him to be brutally honest with me. We went to the waiting area. It was like a scene out of a movie. I was there but I wasn't. I was watching from a different place. I was watching someone else's life. Not mine. The waiting room was empty. It was just him and me. I said, "Give it to me straight. How bad is this?". He begins to tell me if my mom decides to do chemo, wait for what? Decides to do chemo? Why would she not do chemo? Well, because it won't cure her. It will give her some time, but not long, and it will most likely be a very rough, hard chemo that will make her very sick. Her cancer has spread to other organs and when it does that there is no coming back. I couldn't even believe this is what I was hearing. It was so awful. So so so awful. There was nothing left to do at this point. They were discharging her with lots of pain medication and a referral to an oncologist. We all just went home. I remember getting home and having to do the whole Santa Clouse thing. I remember putting all the presents under the tree sobbing. Thinking about how my mom will never see my kids' open presents again. That this is our last Christmas together. To try and wrap that around your brain is just the most painful thing ever. I remember crawling into bed that night. Sick. I was physically hurting in a way I didn't know was possible. I didn't sleep. My husband just held me all night. We talked all night, cried and sobbed off and on all night until we saw the sun start to come up and our kids calling out our names because they were up and wanted to come downstairs. I just sobbed the whole time opening presents. I was a complete mess. My life had just forever changed and there was no going back. I didn't totally understand the saying, ignorance is bliss. I understood it that morning because all I wanted to do was go back to not knowing what I knew at that moment, and that was that my mom was going to die.
At the start of 2014 my mom started wheezing. We didn't think much about it because she had a cold. A month later I don't know if we thought much about it then because it was now February in Utah where the air is terrible and in the middle of winter, and it wasn't like she was wheezing terrible or all the time. She noticed it when she would climb the stairs or take deep breaths in. It wasn't affecting her daily life, and so we didn't worry that much. I believe it was maybe March or April and we are sitting on the couch in her living room and I could the wheezing. I remember really hearing it and saying out loud, "Mom, that is not normal. You have to get that figured out now.". She made an appointment with her doctor that week. When she went to the doctor's office they diagnosed her with acid reflex. They said the wheezing was not coming from her lungs but that it was, in fact, coming from around her windpipe and that acid reflex can cause that. Over the next several months they tried different medications to get it under control, and in the meantime, she developed a cough. The cough started about July. She thought she was just sick with a cold and didn't think anything about it. Coughs also seem to last forever. After I'm guessing a month in half of coughing she went back to the doctor. She was still wheezing too. So they thought maybe they misdiagnosed her and re-diagnosed her with asthma or COPD. They started her on medications that they said could take a good month to two months to kick in. She tried it and it wasn't helping. She went back in and they gave her a new medication to try. The time frame is probably now November beginning of December. In November she also had a couple of weird attacks around thanksgiving. She thought maybe it was her gallbladder but from what I remember never went in because the pains did not keep happening and they went away after a few hours. Also mid-November she noticed she had developed a sore spot on her collar bone. The sore spot over the next several weeks continued to get worse. So much worse than the coughing and wheezing got put on the back burner. The week before Christmas her whole neck started to get swollen and she could barely move or sit up without getting help. It was so crazy to just see her go downhill so fast. It was so scary. We had no idea what was going on. She made an appointment and the only one they had was December 23rd. She went in and they decided to do an x-ray. The next morning, which was Christmas Eve, they called and said she was being admitted to the hospital for a serious bone infection. That she would be put on IV antibiotics and that it could be a very long extensive stay at the hospital but for now they need her in there immediately and they need to find out where this infection was coming from. We were relieved in a way because we were finally getting some answers to what in the hell was going on. I met them there at the hospital. We were all very scared. I was terrified that they for some reason they were going to bring up the C-word. We asked the doctor do you think that this could be being caused by cancer. He said the x-ray didn't look like cancer and that nothing is pointing to cancer but that is scary and they need to run a lot of tests to see where this infection is coming from. I left my mom there. I couldn't do anything more and I had presents to wrap and things to do for Christmas. I told her I would be back. I got a phone call later in the day saying that it didn't look like it was an infection, and they were going to do some more tests and try and figure out what was going on. I loaded up my kids around 6:30 to head to the hospital so they could see her. I remember walking through the halls. I was walking so fast to get to her room. I wanted to know what was going on. If they had found out anything. My kids were running trying to keep up with me. I walked into her room and what I saw I instantly knew something was very wrong. My stepdad was laying his head in my mom's lap crying, the doctor was kneeling beside her bed, and she just sat there staring at me, with tears rolling down her cheeks. I just looked at all of them and said what? What is it? What is going on, and my mom just started shaking her head back and forth. I knew. I told them no. I kept saying no. Then the doctor came up to me and said, "It has been confirmed that your mom has cancer. She has cancer in her lungs, liver, lymph nodes, and bones." It is in the later stages and we know this because it has spread everywhere. We think it might have started in her lungs but will not know for sure until the biopsy is done. I'm so sorry,". I just started screaming. I was absolutely out of control. Even if I tried to control it I couldn't, even for my kids, I couldn't. They were screaming and crying because they didn't know what was wrong with me and I just couldn't stop. I have seen movies where someone finds out their loved one has died or something, and they are howling, screaming, crying so loud. I never understood it until that moment. It was one of the worst moments of my life. I went and sat in the stairwell. I sat there for a long time. I would have moments where I would start panicking like I was going to have a panic attack. I was hyperventilating and then all of a sudden just calm. I'd just sit there in a daze and then in the next moments I was just screaming again. I had so many things running through my head. So many unknowns. Was my mom really dying? Was this our last Christmas? Am I going to have to watch my mom die? Is there any hope? Can we fight this? Can she live? Can she survive this? I wanted all these questions answered and I wanted them answered now. I went and found the doctor. I needed him to be brutally honest with me. We went to the waiting area. It was like a scene out of a movie. I was there but I wasn't. I was watching from a different place. I was watching someone else's life. Not mine. The waiting room was empty. It was just him and me. I said, "Give it to me straight. How bad is this?". He begins to tell me if my mom decides to do chemo, wait for what? Decides to do chemo? Why would she not do chemo? Well, because it won't cure her. It will give her some time, but not long, and it will most likely be a very rough, hard chemo that will make her very sick. Her cancer has spread to other organs and when it does that there is no coming back. I couldn't even believe this is what I was hearing. It was so awful. So so so awful. There was nothing left to do at this point. They were discharging her with lots of pain medication and a referral to an oncologist. We all just went home. I remember getting home and having to do the whole Santa Clouse thing. I remember putting all the presents under the tree sobbing. Thinking about how my mom will never see my kids' open presents again. That this is our last Christmas together. To try and wrap that around your brain is just the most painful thing ever. I remember crawling into bed that night. Sick. I was physically hurting in a way I didn't know was possible. I didn't sleep. My husband just held me all night. We talked all night, cried and sobbed off and on all night until we saw the sun start to come up and our kids calling out our names because they were up and wanted to come downstairs. I just sobbed the whole time opening presents. I was a complete mess. My life had just forever changed and there was no going back. I didn't totally understand the saying, ignorance is bliss. I understood it that morning because all I wanted to do was go back to not knowing what I knew at that moment, and that was that my mom was going to die.
Sunday, September 22, 2019
A Little Catch Up
Wow, I'm terrible at updating things. I think what it is, I get overwhelmed trying to write everything that I want to write about, and so I just don't. But then I look up my blog and I think, man I really want to blog about this. I want to write my story for my kids. For others. For myself. The past 9 months have been actually really good. I still have bad days. My husband still has bad days. We still have crazy days with kids and being busy but for the most part, we are happy. We are good. We live the dream. We have life so good and over the last 9 months, I have these moments of such relief that I still have everything. I have so much gratitude for my husband sticking through the toughest of tough times. We have been through so much together. I am the luckiest girl alive to have the man I have. He has shown his true character over the last 3 years of what he is made of. I'm not sure there are many men out there that could endure and hang on through what he has. He wasn't always hanging on for me. He did a lot of hanging on for our kids. He didn't want them to grow up in a broken home. He saved us. Now I will try my hardest to keep updating. Maybe I will do small portions at a time so I don't feel so overwhelmed. I'm excited about this. I just need to take an hour a day to write my story.
Tuesday, December 18, 2018
Unexpected
I really want to start from the beginning of this journey, but today is not the day I am going to do that. Today I want to write about today, and what happened. Today is Sunday, December 9th, my mom's birthday. So really quickly, Happy Birthday Mom. You truly were the most amazing person I have ever known. I love you so much and I miss you every single day. Today I wanted to call you so bad and tell you what happened, but I am almost positive you played a part in all of this!
Today I woke up and my first thought was about how I think it might be fast Sunday. I have been terrible at fasting. Well, over the last 2.5 years I have been terrible at church in general, so fasting was the last thing I ever thought about doing. Last Fast Sunday, a month ago, I decided that I needed to be better at fasting, and I put in my calendar a reminder every fast Sunday to remind me. Well, I didn't even get a reminder about it today because normally it's on the first Sunday of every month and it's the second, but we had stake conference the first Sunday. Long story short I was supposed to fast today and I'm not sure if I have ever really had such a cool experience the way I did today. Usually, you have something in mind about what you might be fasting about, but this morning I had so many things I wanted to fast about I wasn't sure which one I was going to really focus on until I got down on my knees and begun to pray. I knew right away that I was going to fast for Camden, and my prayer was that he might find peace in his heart. That the anger he has for me, the pain I have caused him, that somehow someway he will be softened. That he will be able to learn to forgive me, and we can move forward. That the atonement will work on him and his pains will start to go away. Something you will learn in this story of mine is that I have made some really bad choices and some really poor choices, and he has been hurt very badly along the way. Well, a little bit after I finished my prayer Camden gets a text from the bishop wondering if they can meet today during the second hour. Then a little bit later he gets another text but this time it's from the stake presidents clerk asking if Camden and I both would come to meet with him, his counselors, and our bishop. Now we know he is getting a calling, we just had no idea what it would be. The stake president asked me to come in first before Camden so that he could talk with me. He just asked how things are going for us. He knows the whole story about what has happened over the last couple of years, something I will talk about too, but he wanted to make sure Camden was worthy to accept a calling. Which he is. He then brought Camden in and the Bishop. They asked him to be the second counselor in the bishopric. We were a little shocked. The place we are at in life right now is overwhelming. We are literally trying to just survive and make our marriage work, but the Bishop assured us that there is no doubt that this is a calling from the Lord, and that he is meant to be in here right now, and that there is a reason for this. The whole conversation in that room today was one of the most spiritual experiences. The bishop said that for the last couple of months he had been getting this feeling of Calling Camden, but kept crossing his name off the list, because he too is also very aware of the hardships we have been facing in our marriage. He didn't want to add any more stress to our lives. He said that earlier that morning he felt like he just knew that he was supposed to call Camden and he had to do it today. He called the Stake president who happened to be meeting with the high council. All 12 of them. This process usually takes like a month to happen and it happened for Camden in just a few hours. I felt like this was an answer to my prayer. To my fast. The stake president and his counselors all agreed that the way to be softened, the way to forget about yourself and your problems is by serving others. They also talked about how you will be softened in so many other ways. Camden will sit on intimate moments of people's lives as they go try and repent of their sins... serious ones. He will see others hurting for the things they have done. He in a sense will get to see my side of things. This calling is going to bless our lives in so many ways. I know without a doubt this is where my husband is supposed to be and spend some time helping others. President Cutler shared a story with us that touched us both very much. He told us that he doesn't share this with many people but feels like he should share this with us. When he was eight years old his mom had an affair with his dad with his best friend's dad. He said that his parents made it through but that he truly believes that they could have had a much better, stronger marriage if his dad had only forgiven his mom sooner and if his mom could have forgiven herself. He said that to this day he doesn't know if she has forgiven herself. I can understand that. I know that president Cutler was prompted to tell us this story because Camden and I needed to hear that. He urged Camden to forgive me sooner than later and for me to forgive myself, that if we did that it could make our marriage stronger and better faster. It could create something amazing.
I know things don't happen by chance. I know the Lord plays a role in every aspect of our lives. He is very in tune with all the fine details of our life. He knows, even though we may not agree at the time or understand why things are happening the way they are, that if we just hold on and have faith that some day we will understand. Whether it's in this life or the next. I don't understand why my mom had to get cancer and die. I do know and now can see some blessings that have come from her death. I would have never been able to see this 2 years ago, a year ago, or even fourth months ago. I'm just barley now seeing it, but I know now I'm on the right path to healing. I'm so grateful for today. I'm so grateful for the amazing men that I have come in contact with and for their love they have shown to Camden and I. I love this church and I know it's the true church. I know Heavenly Father is very aware of me and my life. I know he loves me and wants the best for me.
Today I woke up and my first thought was about how I think it might be fast Sunday. I have been terrible at fasting. Well, over the last 2.5 years I have been terrible at church in general, so fasting was the last thing I ever thought about doing. Last Fast Sunday, a month ago, I decided that I needed to be better at fasting, and I put in my calendar a reminder every fast Sunday to remind me. Well, I didn't even get a reminder about it today because normally it's on the first Sunday of every month and it's the second, but we had stake conference the first Sunday. Long story short I was supposed to fast today and I'm not sure if I have ever really had such a cool experience the way I did today. Usually, you have something in mind about what you might be fasting about, but this morning I had so many things I wanted to fast about I wasn't sure which one I was going to really focus on until I got down on my knees and begun to pray. I knew right away that I was going to fast for Camden, and my prayer was that he might find peace in his heart. That the anger he has for me, the pain I have caused him, that somehow someway he will be softened. That he will be able to learn to forgive me, and we can move forward. That the atonement will work on him and his pains will start to go away. Something you will learn in this story of mine is that I have made some really bad choices and some really poor choices, and he has been hurt very badly along the way. Well, a little bit after I finished my prayer Camden gets a text from the bishop wondering if they can meet today during the second hour. Then a little bit later he gets another text but this time it's from the stake presidents clerk asking if Camden and I both would come to meet with him, his counselors, and our bishop. Now we know he is getting a calling, we just had no idea what it would be. The stake president asked me to come in first before Camden so that he could talk with me. He just asked how things are going for us. He knows the whole story about what has happened over the last couple of years, something I will talk about too, but he wanted to make sure Camden was worthy to accept a calling. Which he is. He then brought Camden in and the Bishop. They asked him to be the second counselor in the bishopric. We were a little shocked. The place we are at in life right now is overwhelming. We are literally trying to just survive and make our marriage work, but the Bishop assured us that there is no doubt that this is a calling from the Lord, and that he is meant to be in here right now, and that there is a reason for this. The whole conversation in that room today was one of the most spiritual experiences. The bishop said that for the last couple of months he had been getting this feeling of Calling Camden, but kept crossing his name off the list, because he too is also very aware of the hardships we have been facing in our marriage. He didn't want to add any more stress to our lives. He said that earlier that morning he felt like he just knew that he was supposed to call Camden and he had to do it today. He called the Stake president who happened to be meeting with the high council. All 12 of them. This process usually takes like a month to happen and it happened for Camden in just a few hours. I felt like this was an answer to my prayer. To my fast. The stake president and his counselors all agreed that the way to be softened, the way to forget about yourself and your problems is by serving others. They also talked about how you will be softened in so many other ways. Camden will sit on intimate moments of people's lives as they go try and repent of their sins... serious ones. He will see others hurting for the things they have done. He in a sense will get to see my side of things. This calling is going to bless our lives in so many ways. I know without a doubt this is where my husband is supposed to be and spend some time helping others. President Cutler shared a story with us that touched us both very much. He told us that he doesn't share this with many people but feels like he should share this with us. When he was eight years old his mom had an affair with his dad with his best friend's dad. He said that his parents made it through but that he truly believes that they could have had a much better, stronger marriage if his dad had only forgiven his mom sooner and if his mom could have forgiven herself. He said that to this day he doesn't know if she has forgiven herself. I can understand that. I know that president Cutler was prompted to tell us this story because Camden and I needed to hear that. He urged Camden to forgive me sooner than later and for me to forgive myself, that if we did that it could make our marriage stronger and better faster. It could create something amazing.
I know things don't happen by chance. I know the Lord plays a role in every aspect of our lives. He is very in tune with all the fine details of our life. He knows, even though we may not agree at the time or understand why things are happening the way they are, that if we just hold on and have faith that some day we will understand. Whether it's in this life or the next. I don't understand why my mom had to get cancer and die. I do know and now can see some blessings that have come from her death. I would have never been able to see this 2 years ago, a year ago, or even fourth months ago. I'm just barley now seeing it, but I know now I'm on the right path to healing. I'm so grateful for today. I'm so grateful for the amazing men that I have come in contact with and for their love they have shown to Camden and I. I love this church and I know it's the true church. I know Heavenly Father is very aware of me and my life. I know he loves me and wants the best for me.
Friday, December 7, 2018
A little Introduction
Hello. My name is Blakley Cook. I'm 31 years old. I live in good old Utah, and yes, I am a Mormon. I am married and have been married for 10 years. I have three children. One girl and two boys. Ages 8,6, and 2. My family is complete and I feel great about that. I didn't grow up here. I was born in Montana. I lived there till I was 8, and then my parents got a divorce. My mom remarried my stepdad, Kent, who at the time was in the Air Force and was stationed in New Mexico. We lived there till I was 10, and then we moved to Florida where I graduated high school. After high school, I moved to Idaho, went to beauty school, and then after that moved to Utah and have been here ever since. I met my husband soon after I got here, and his job will keep us here for at least another 10 years. Well, that's my little introduction about me and now I wanna take a minute and write about why I'm starting this blog and why its titled Life Figured Out. Do I being 31 years old have life figured out? NO!!!!!! Not even close. Have I gone through some tough shit in my life where I feel like I have learned some very valuable life lessons? YES!!!!
I want to share some of these experiences with you. The only reason why I'm doing this is because the tough shit I said I had gone through, are things people are going through all the time. Now that I have been through it, I see people hurting and going through hard things daily. If it hasn't happened to you yet, I'm here to tell you its only a matter of time. I don't mean to come across negative at all but it is a simple truth. It wasn't but 4 years ago that I remember sitting there thinking life was pretty dang good. I was married, sometimes happy and sometimes not even close. Two healthy children that I loved so much. Family all around. My parents lived close and so did my older brother. I remember thinking if my twin lived in Utah, life would be close to perfect, minus the bad days here and there. Then it happened. Christmas Eve, yes Christmas eve, 2014 my mom was admitted to the hospital for a bone infection which wasn't actually a bone infection it was cancer, all over her body, slowly killing her. Until you have experienced what it's like to lose someone close to you, and not just lose them but watch them slowly die you can't comprehend the trauma it can cause in your life. Especially if you have not prepared yourself, or afterward do the things necessary to help you get over it. I'm here to write my story and experiences in hopes to maybe reach someone else going through something similar, and hopefully help them in one way or another. Whether it be to help prevent them from making similar mistakes as I did, because I didn't know how to deal with grief, or to just help someone feel not so alone in this awful thing we call grief. This stuff is very personal and it won't be easy to write but now that I feel like I am out of the fog I can see things so much clearer. I feel like I have answers people might be searching for themselves. I feel like I can maybe help others. Hopefully. This is my story. Whether anyone reads this or not I know it will help my children one day understand me better.
I want to share some of these experiences with you. The only reason why I'm doing this is because the tough shit I said I had gone through, are things people are going through all the time. Now that I have been through it, I see people hurting and going through hard things daily. If it hasn't happened to you yet, I'm here to tell you its only a matter of time. I don't mean to come across negative at all but it is a simple truth. It wasn't but 4 years ago that I remember sitting there thinking life was pretty dang good. I was married, sometimes happy and sometimes not even close. Two healthy children that I loved so much. Family all around. My parents lived close and so did my older brother. I remember thinking if my twin lived in Utah, life would be close to perfect, minus the bad days here and there. Then it happened. Christmas Eve, yes Christmas eve, 2014 my mom was admitted to the hospital for a bone infection which wasn't actually a bone infection it was cancer, all over her body, slowly killing her. Until you have experienced what it's like to lose someone close to you, and not just lose them but watch them slowly die you can't comprehend the trauma it can cause in your life. Especially if you have not prepared yourself, or afterward do the things necessary to help you get over it. I'm here to write my story and experiences in hopes to maybe reach someone else going through something similar, and hopefully help them in one way or another. Whether it be to help prevent them from making similar mistakes as I did, because I didn't know how to deal with grief, or to just help someone feel not so alone in this awful thing we call grief. This stuff is very personal and it won't be easy to write but now that I feel like I am out of the fog I can see things so much clearer. I feel like I have answers people might be searching for themselves. I feel like I can maybe help others. Hopefully. This is my story. Whether anyone reads this or not I know it will help my children one day understand me better.
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