Today is day 18 of my mother’s passing. Today is also day 1 of this blog. I am tired, have insomnia as usual and find myself back here on the couch, rethinking the past 9 months of my life. While eventually I will write more about my loving and wonderful mother; today…. today is for reflecting and as in the past 18 days, it is a time of reflecting on how I – or any of us- spend our time. Time with loved ones, time at work, time online, time in front of the TV, time in the kitchen, time giving to others and time taking from others. How have we spent our time? Will you- or I – look back on the time and be filled with regret? Possibly? Life is complicated and we are pulled in so many different directions- kids, work, laundry, food, extra curricular activities, and if your a mom- heaven forbid we forget or put ‘self-care’ on the back burner while our life explodes with to-do lists and then with tragedy. I spent the past 9 months of my life in a whirlwind. Diagnosis, surgery, chemo, trips to the ER, ambulance rides, lengthy hospital stays, wheelchairs, hospital beds, walkers, bedpans, bed sores, death. While trying to work, parent and be a wife. This has been the most trying and painful time of my life. Ya see, my mom was my best friend. We were like Peas and Carrots. And this, this is our story and my story of, as my mom has been saying since being diagnosed -that she was going to ‘trust love’. Trusting love to help me not only transcend my grief, but to recall all the wonderful times, and be fully in the present, to knowingly be ‘in my body’, rather than way out in the universe pretending this did not happen; to walk through this pain, rather than around it (or running around it as the case has been) and to be a more mindful parent as I struggle so deeply with missing my happy and joyful mother, every single day. Oh, and did I mention I am 33 weeks pregnant? Yes, being mindful on that front too.