I f***ing LOVE life. It's got its months, days, and moments, but through all of it, I am just so in love with life.
Yesterday, my oldest son who is 11 and I went for a bike ride. He was going to leave for a trip to see his best friends family that night and I wanted to sneak in some time together before his awesome adventure.
My oldest son, sometimes I tease and call him my dad. He just gets it, life, people, emotions, connection, love, joy. He's got an impressive pulse on life and likes asking all the questions that are sitting in his head.
Our philosophy on raising our crew is to talk. Talk lots, discuss things, and have difficult conversations. We want them to feel like they've got a safe place to come to us at any point in life because life gets hard and we all need help sometimes adjusting our sails.
We were venturing down a bicycle rock path near our house on a cloudy day. My 3-year-old was sleeping in the bike seat loving his nap in the warm breeze. My older one was beside me, cracking jokes and discussing his trip excitedly while trying to accomplish little tricks on his bike.
'Mom, he said', and took a pause to look at me.
'What's up bud?' I said.
'I don't want you to ever die, I wouldn't want to live anymore', he looked at me like he wanted to cry.
Insert cry break.
My heart felt broken for a second thinking about what he had just said. I mean, I have thought about it, what the family would look like if it's my time. Have you thought about it?
In my mind, I'm living until 100, so anything less than that is a total scam 😉 Seriously though, I've given a lot of thought to what it looks like if I were to die early, but mainly before my kids grow up. It's my job to have a plan and take care of my crew and as sad as it is to think about, it also gives me some comfort knowing we can do a little to help prepare if that were ever the case.
Back to the story. We both looked at each other ready to leap off our bikes and give an uncomfortably long hug. I don't know if it were more the situation or the fact that he was thinking about it that made me more emotional.
I don't have all the answers, heck I really don't have most.
I told him two things that were pretty darn good now that I think back to it. Talk about performing under pressure! After the long pause, I looked at him and smiled, here's the gist of what I told him...
1. We never know when it's our time and because of that, we have to really LIVE. There is goodness in every day for the sole reason we get to be HERE, ALIVE. There are no bad days. We get the chance to think about it all now and every day that we could literally be gone from this world at any moment, for any reason.
All the stuff they tell you about living a good life, do it. No regrets, no grudges, find the joy in it all, love, laugh, live. There are sure struggles in life but if you know you might be gone tomorrow, perhaps that lends some perspective for the situation.
2. If I die, your responsibility is to find your light and your smile back as fast as possible. It's sad AF to think about, but it was actually liberating to discuss. It's like we got to have a secret conversation that most probably don't get a chance to have.
I told him if God takes me tomorrow or without notice, I need you to do me a favor and I will do the same favor for you. I need you to continue to smile. I need you to continue to spread joy and be strong. Not strong like Arnold and not strong like a coverup of feelings your suffocating. I mean strong like you're willing to look within and figure out who you are and keep on moving forward with love and happiness. Growing through life.
I love and support you always, even if I'm not here, you know what mama would say. We party we don't pout, time to get up kid.
I'm emotional as I write this right now and for the actual love of GOD, please don't take me yet. Teaching my husband to cook will be a freakin' while and besides that, I just love it here ❤️
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