Retirement

Sometimes it's the good stuff that keeps you going when the sadness over loss creeps in.

It's the holidays that come whether you're ready to celebrate or not. It's your kids who want to be pushed "higher and higher" on the swings, when you really would have otherwise been curled up on the couch that day if it wasn't for them. It's kindergarten kids who need every ounce of you and who come running for hugs, love and attention while you're all the while pretending that your heart isn't completely broken. It's the busyness of the school day that can sweep you away into denial and allow you to pretend that life is as it always was. When really, it's not.

But it's also the happiness of others who you get to feed off of...especially when it feels like your own happiness has been swept away.

My mom just retired...and happiness and celebrating this gigantic milestone in her life has been a welcomed distraction and something that has allowed me to feed off of her happiness and this new, exciting time in her life.

So the day that she retired, we snuck in and decorated her house...  

setting up the counter top with a fancy bottle of wine, jube candies (her favourite), a beautiful bouquet of flowers, her old nursing cap, scrubs and dad's picture display...

We set out her cards, blew up balloons, hid our cars down the street so she wouldn't know we were there, got the kids into their fancy clothes and all of us showed up for her that day...

because love is showing up.

And when she walked into her house on her very last day of work, she found her whole family standing there in her kitchen screaming "Congratulations!"...

and little people went running to her.

So with pizza for dinner around the couches...

and decadent desserts made by Jen...

we celebrated 40 years of a career in nursing. Forty years where she made a difference on a daily basis, where she comforted families and patients, where she loved on people and met wonderful friends. This is a woman who deserves every wonderful moment of retirement, and we couldn't be happier for her.

So the good stuff is a good distraction.

I made my mom a cake for the party that her co-workers threw for her, just a week after we lost our baby. And although she tried to convince me otherwise, I knew that with every roll of the fondant through my fingers and every egg that was cracked into the mixing bowl, I could focus on something else...something happy. Something different.

So we showed up at the party with cake and little ones--and celebrated until bedtime.

Congratulations mom--we couldn't be more proud of you and we're so incredibly happy for you.

Love Erica xox