I close out this day thinking of two things the March 22, 2016 marks - Stephen Caleb Oster's 38th birthday & today marks 3 months since I last kissed my mother's cheek. I'm holding both so close to my heart, so here are a few short thoughts:

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Easter Four Years ago... Happy Birthday Stud!

First for PH - my fav stanzas of John O'Donohue's blessing For Your Birthday:

Blessed be the mind that dreamed the day
The blueprint of your life
Would begin to glow on earth,
Illuminating all the faces and voices
That would arrive to invite
Your soul to growth.

Praised be your father and mother,
Who loved you before you were,
And trusted to call you here
With no idea who you would be.

When desolation surrounded you,
Blessed be those who looked for you
And found you, their kind hands
Urgent to open a blue window
In the gray wall formed around you.

Blessed be the gifts you never notice,
Your health, eyes to behold the world,
Thoughts to countenance the unknown,
Memory to harvest vanished days,
Your heart to feel the world's waves,
Your breath to breathe the nourishment
Of distance made intimate by earth.
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I truly spent time throughout the day offering gratitude to God for the man Stephen is already and is becoming, and I end the day with a sense of awe that it is also the man I get to navigate the years with for hopefully a very long time. He is my very very best friend who i enjoy immensely and the love I am still discovering. Happy Birthday Stephen!

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To recognize that over 90 days have past without my mother on this Earth hurts so deeply. There is still something so raw and horribly unnerving about time adding up since I got to hear from her and be near her. I actually become more and more haunted that this is the circle of life - to receive love and have love at an unparalleled amount to then let go and pass days with only memories is flat out awful. I miss her more all the time and I actually don't want to get to the curve in the circle where it evens out or becomes familiar to live without her. I love you mom.

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If she were here she would have written Stephen a cheesy card filled with adoration for the man he is to the world, to her daughter and to her grandkids. She admired him, dreamed with him, and thanked God for him all the time.

Good night all.