It started on May 1, the Sunday after Easter. Our church remembers those who died the year before on that day. Our friend MaryAnn has dubbed it "dead people Sunday". Ever since Nathan's name was read at that service 3 years ago, I have not wanted to relive it. So - we skip. We invited MaryAnn who does not like D.P.S. either to join us for breakfast out - which was great. That evening we had our usual Sunday night dinner with our friends (two other families). We always enjoy that!
Monday held school and ballet after school. Tuesday Lauren had violin and Julia started cello. I also helped out in Julia's class (which I do every Tuesday). Wednesday afternoon Lauren had a mother's day party at preschool and Wednesday night I had a 3.5 hour meeting for the Children's Museum we are trying to build. Thursday night I took Julia with me to choir rehearsal so she could rehearse her solo with the choir. As it turned out the choir's "oohing" was a little complex and we spent a lot of time on it. It was hard for Julia to hear her part on the third verse with our "oohs". She had complete confidence and got up in front of everyone and sang by herself with the piano first. She only got shy when the choir director started joking around about how much money she was going to make in the future and how he'd be her agent. She couldn't stand the attention and turned red and put her head down...poor thing. When it came to singing though...no shyness at all!
Friday the girls had their dance dress rehearsal. As usual the steaming and pinning of costumes took a while as did the hair. This year Julia needed a low bun (harder that a regular one because there is less hair to work with when it is low) and Lauren needed two french braids! Those french braids took at least 20 minutes for me. I was also a mother helper backstage, I try to do that in the spring. After the dress rehearsal we went out for pizza.Saturday we had our first real warm day of the season and worked outside int he backyard most of the morning. I took Lauren to a group violin lesson and then came home and started working on costumes and hair again for the recital. After the recital we bought the girls some Dairy Queen and shopped for dinner. We had our first dinner outside on the patio of the season.
Julia did a great job singing. Not perfect, of course, but really well for a nine year old who has not had much training. I was a nervous wreck singing next to her. In retrospect it may have been better if I had not sang that morning because I was trying to pay attention to her if she needed me to prompt her for anything and still sing my part, which we had just learned a few nights before and so didn't really know well enough to look up much. Of course, the camera angle had much of me on it, as nervous as I was, and I usually like to look a lot more relaxed and joyful when I sing, but it was all I could do to breathe.
She (and I and Luke) got many, many complements and it was wonderful to have her sitting next to me in the choir loft on Mother's Day. She proclaimed the whole experience as "fun", which is the best outcome!
A little more grief has been rearing its head now that the week is over, with all its performances as such. With Nathan's birthday and date of death being in the summer - there is a certain apprehension. I do see a overall curve, if you will, of grief and I can look back a bit now and see that the grief is not as intense, which is great. This is NOT to say I am "over it" or have "moved on", just dealing with it better overall. That also does not mean I don't have bad days, or weeks, but that they are less frequent, and I am grateful for that.
