This is Why I DON'T Clean....

Tissue alert! Tissue alert!

I don't sound that bell very often, but today I will as I can't imagine anyone reading this and not crying.

Mike has been gone all week, so the state of the house is, dare we say, Armageddon?

So, I chose a room to start in and, as I'm working on Hooman's closet, I find a card Mom wrote to him dated 10/31/09, just a few days after her diagnosis. It says:

Dear Hooman,
I hope you have fun tonight riding in Uncle R's truck as you go "trick or treating". The picture on this card is drawn by the man who wrote about the Red Ryder BB gun.*
Thank you for all the love and prayers you have sent my way. I send love and prayers your way also. I want you to be a happy person. I will do my best to be better soon.

XOXO and Blessings, Grandma Joyce

Everything I italicized in the note, Hooman had underlined in black crayon.

Then, on the opposite side of the note card, he had written the following, which I am copying, misspelling and all:

I Hoped you wud make it I Love you sowe much you where the Best Grama ever recoded in History XOXO Hooman

And, on the back of the card, he wrote: I Love Hooman XOXO :)

This was room number one of what was supposed to be a whole house cleaning. And, now, I'm having to take a crying break and write this so I can move on to clean the toilet.

THIS, right here, is my excuse for not cleaning. Moving around this house, with the little reminders of Mom all around, dredges up too much stuff for me, still. And I'm not talking about dust and dirt and gunk. Though, surely, any dust-allergic individual should steer clear of our house during cleaning day.

Worse than the effect on me, is the fact that my boys are still suffering with the thought of Grandma being gone. Like finding the card today, it hits them when no one expects it.

Yet, we are so far from that crummy "reverse honeymoon" period we experienced right after Mom died. The time when all the services and memorials were over and everyone had gone home and now it was back to "real" life. The time when I felt tired to the bone and couldn't even wrap my mind around boiling an egg, much less cleaning a house.

The time when hearing someone complain about skinning their knee or overhearing people laugh almost made my homicidal. I remember wanting to scream "Don't you know my Mom just died? Your stupid knee will heal. And nobody should be laughing; you should be crying. All the time."

God has a funny way of moving us through the pain. He doesn't just remove it one day. Some days big hunks come off and the tears flow and sting our eyes. Other days, we revel in our memories and examine our lives and don't cry at all. In fact, we are just grateful for what we've been given. And some blessed days we don't even think about our loss at all.

That's how I know God is still with us Nowell folk (and has been and will be): I am getting to the point where there are fewer days of remembering my loss and more days of being grateful for Mom's gain.

It's not easy, it doesn't happen quickly, but, in the end, for Mom to be reunited with my Lord and Savior, it is certainly WORTH IT.

But, back to now. I have to clean. While God cleanses me with tears and writing and gratefulness for Mom's love.

And, you? If you are in a praying mood today? Say a little arrow prayer that I would finish this cleaning with a song in my heart and an attitude of gratitude for what I've been given.

And, quite importantly: no allergy attack from all the dust.


*Which actually added a bit of levity to the situation as I thought "You'll shoot your eye out."