Happy New Year

The holiday season is coming to a close with a bang this year. Literally. I heard fireworks as I was trying to go to sleep in the brother-in-law's basement last night.  Bang-bang-baang!  Welcome 2011!  Goodbye 2010, I can't say I will miss you...too much.  Although; 2010 has left us with many memories.  Some good, some not so good.  But as I have said before, I cherish ALL the memories.  They make me who I am today.  They remind me of who I was.  They are there to remind me of the journey we have taken.


We had a relatively quiet Christmas and New Years this year.  I was nervous before Christmas as to how it would feel.  Would I break down crying, would I be depressed and not enjoy the holiday.  What would the first Christmas without Kyara being here be like? I think the chaos that goes with having younger children at home during Christmas time, and the chaos of getting together with multiple families really helped keep my mind busy.  And when my mind is busy, I don't have time to stop and cry.  That is good and bad for me.  Good because I didn't want to be sad during Christmas.  It is the time to celebrate the birth of our Savior.  It is time to gather with family and loved ones and enjoy each other's company.  This is a joyous time, not a time to be sad or depressed.  So my mentality is to stay busy, so that I don't focus on the empty spot in my heart.  This idea is bad in someways, too, though.  I find that I didn't relax and really enjoy Christmas.  I was so focused on staying busy:  I continued to shop until the last possible moment (even though I could/should have been done a week earlier), we got our second Christmas tree (after the first dried out during our cruise and became a fire hazard), and for some reason, I got the brilliant idea that the presents would just wrap themselves this year.  When 2 nights before the Leonard Family Christmas, I realized that we had NONE of the presents wrapped, (and I am opposed to gift bags - there is something about wrapping paper, ribbons, and boxes being torn open that gives me that warm feeling inside) I knew we were in trouble.  Considering my wonderful, sweet husband doesn't wrap gifts (he does other things beautifully, but wrapping gifts is not his strong suite!), I knew I had a LOT of work on my hands.  And of course I could only work while the girls were asleep, and during the day...SHOP, which created MORE WRAPPING...  you get the picture....  it is a vicious cycle that had me up until 2-3:00 in the morning each night. 

So, what was my point?  Oh, yes, staying busy.  But then, Christmas came and went.  We had a lovely time.  The Leonard Family Christmas was as uneventful as you can get with 20 adults and 7 kids between the ages of 8 and 2.  "Wild and Wooly" is the way my mother, Bunny, describes it.  But, what a nice way to spend Christmas Eve.  We order a Subway platter, Chick-Fil-A platter, fruit, chips, and drinks, then spend the afternoon/evening in a big circle opening presents, laughing, and talking.  At 6:00 everyone piled in their cars to head to church for the candlelight service and communion celebrating Christ's birth.  How can you beat a day like that?  Then its home and bed before Santa comes!

We spent Christmas Day at home with the girls.  Just relaxing.  And, it SNOWED on Christmas Day.  We had a white Christmas.  Quite amazing.  The day after Christmas, we headed to south Georgia to visit my Grandmother and Granddaddy in Eastman.  A good amount of Leonards were there, so it was really nice to see aunts, uncles, and cousins who we don't see very often.

The week after Christmas was time to breathe.  This is the period that was hardest for me.  I think I stayed so busy during Christmas that I was able to ignore the emptyness, but once the hoopla was over and Gunars went back to work, I started to get down.  It was hard to figure out what the problem was.  I was moody and had a very short fuse.  By the time Gunars would get home from work, I was just about in tears.  Finally one night, Gunars asked me what was wrong and it wasn't until after telling him that the cloud started to lift.  So I am finding out, by voicing my sadness, I am able to release it, instead of holding it and letting it grow.  I am certainly going to try this new idea next time things start to feel like they are piling up on me. 

New Years was spent with the Dzenises.  We headed to north Atlanta and spent the night at Zigurds' (Gunars' brother) house.  We have a tradition of eating lobsters on New Years, so this year we had another feast.  Then we rang the New Year in with champagne and James Bond marathon.

And now we are on to a new year.  A new year means closing the book on 2010.  One thing I have been struggling with is forgiveness.  I think about how angry I am at the doctors that treated Kyara in Michigan.  I can't help but look back at things with ideas of what they should have done or how things should have been treated.  And I am angry that THEY didn't think of these ideas.  But since I am working on forgiveness and letting go, I forgive them.  This is what I have to remember...  Doctors are not God.   I tried putting that label on them, and it didn't fit.  More than once, I believed that the doctors will fix everything, but that is not realisitic.  Doctors are not God.  Doctors make mistakes.  God does not.  Doctors don't know everything.  God does. Doctors are not perfect.   God is.  So it is unfair for me to be angry with imperfect humans who made a mistake. God allowed this to happen, and God does not make mistakes.  All things are done to glorify God and Kyara's accident and death will be used to glorify God, too.  For, through this pain, I have become more aware of God's love.  HE is the one who carried me through the past 2 years. He has given me strength when I felt like I had none.  Somedays, He is the only reason I can get out of the bed.  I missed an opprotunity to glorify Him today at church with something my mom said to me.  The surmon was about the light in the darkness, and my sweet mom said she saw me as the light through the darkness of the past 2 years.  But really, it is not my doing... it is the Lord's!  He uses humans to show His glory, and HIS light was the one shining, not mine.  My human mind and body is incapable of shouldering the pain and grief of the past two years without Him.  The glory is God's, but thank you, Mom.  And thank you for being there for me, because I believe God made you my rock.