Something to Write Home About

It’s been a long day for me.
I woke up this morning, and began to get ready for the day, the one I was planning to spend at the school, finishing up all my papers that are due tomorrow. I made myself a couple of sandwiches, and was on my way out the door, when the phone rang.
My aunt from Edmonton said that my mom was going to head to Edmonton for the weekend, because my uncle is having a hard time (due to the death of my uncle two months ago) It’s his birthday on Saturday, and I guess it’s just a hard time for all. So she proceeded to ask me if Mike and I could head up to Edmonton for the weekend, for us to be together during this hard time.
For me, it would have been no problem. But there is just so much going on that it sometimes seems impossible to get away. This is the last week of the fall semester of College, and so many things are due, exams are coming up, and stress is building. Plans fell through, things are crazy, and mom isn’t going to go to Edmonton anymore. So Mike and I were still going to go, but then he decided that he had too much going on this weekend for him to be able to go. But I’m still going to go. I mean, I had to work, but I’ve switched shifts with one of the girls there.
During all this confusion and stress, I’ve made some observations about family, ours in particular. I don’t know, it’s sort of random, but it’s also important, some of the things I’ve noticed.
To make it plain and simple.. no matter how far away our family is from each other, we are so tight. Unless it’s absolutely impossible, we are willing to drop everything, and come together to support one another. I mean, even though it was so financially impossible for all of us, we all headed out to Nova Scotia together to share in our grief in October. It was not necessary for all of us kids to go, but.. we did.. Because it was important that the family be together.
I don’t know, this has been one of the hardest years ever. What with my dad getting sick, and so much more. But we are still a family, still standing together. My uncle’s birthday in November, which I am thankful that I was home for, was pretty hard to deal with. I mean, does that make sense? No one wants to celebrate their birth so soon after the death of a loved one. And it’s the same for My uncle in Edmonton. He needs us right now.
The family feels like we shouldn’t be celebrating, because Uncle Derrick isn’t here anymore to celebrate with us. Even though it’s hard, We need to move on. I mean, It’s not easy for me to say that, I don’t want you to think that I’ve just shrugged off everything that’s happened. I still hurt every day, and even typing this out is hard to deal with. I still miss him every day, but I know that Uncle Derrick, if he knew he was going to die, he would have said to us, not to be sad, not to stop celebrating things that are meant to be celebrated. Uncle Derrick was a happy man. He loved celebrating. He would not want us to just stop everything, to stop being happy. He would not want that. I know that the family has to go through the grieving process. I know that we need to cry once in awhile, I know that it’s ok to miss him. But I also know that it’s ok to go on living life as well.
This is going to be a very difficult Christmas this year. We, as in my mom, dad, brother and I, are going to be spending our first Christmas in Ladner in a long time. When I first found out, my reaction was that my Christmas is going to suck, because everyone’s going to be crying and depressed. And that was really, really selfish of me. I am ashamed to say that I even thought that, let alone said it to my mom. This is going to be the time that we need to be together the most, because we are all still hurting. We need to be together, to be there to cry, to laugh, to do whatever it is we need to do. But we have to do it together. And we will, too. This is what I’ve learned about our family in the past while. Sure, we fight, we have our times, but in the end.. in the end we are family.. Nothing can take that away from me, not pain of death, not anything. We’ll hurt together this Christmas, and perhaps long after that. We’ve hurt together in the past. We’ll have to do it again.
But the point is that we’ll do it together…
That’s all I have to say for now about that.

I love you all very much, and I hope that everything goes well for you in the next little while. Thanks for listening to me.

Love Forever:
Ashley
xoxo

”Would you know my name?
If I saw you in Heaven?
Would it be the same?
If I saw you in heaven?
We must be strong, and carry on
Cause I know, I don’t belong
Here in Heaven.”

(for some reason, this blog site wont let me choose the date and time anymore. So it was written on December 8th 2005 at 1:30 in the morning)