What a Week!

This past week has been the week from HELL!!!

Coming back from vacation is never easy, but last week - yikes! Think of every possible scenario that could happen in a week, and we had it. It started with the normal back to work issues, then escalated into a major vendor problem and the week ended with NO INTERNET ACCESS FOR TWO AND A HALF DAYS!!!! Sorry, yes I am shouting, but man oh man! Add into that buying a new car (yes, my piece of shit Neon finally took a crap!), minor storm damage from last week's storm/tornado and trying to pack my sweet Alyssa for a week at camp, AAAAHHHH!!!

So, we got everything done! My baby is gone for an entire week. She is at Cindy's house and is going to Girl Scout camp with Cindy's daughter Leigh. Leigh will be 17 next month and is a counselor at the camp. Alyssa was so excited to be able to go to camp with Leigh! It is a day camp, which means that they will be returning to Cindy's every night. Wednesday night they will get to sleep over at camp. Alyssa has made such wonderful progress that I am hoping she does OK. I really think she is ready for this. I don't think I am, but I think Alyssa will be fine. She even told us that she wasn't going to miss us 'cause she would be having too much fun! Me, on the other hand, was crying my eyes out when I was packing her suitcase!!!

Everyone keeps telling us to enjoy the peace and quiet. I already miss her so much that I can hardly stand it and she has only been gone one night!

On a personal note: If anyone has the opportunity to read the book Comfort: A Journey through Grief by Ann Hood, please do. I can personally attest to the fact that it is a very moving book. Following is the review from Amazon: "The first six pages of this wrenchingly honest memoir of Hood's daughter's death and its aftermath read like a tightly controlled scream. All the platitudes, the dozens of words of comfort that people offer—time heals, she is in a better place—are interspersed with Hood's silent, furious responses to these lies, with special scorn for those who say, Are you writing this down? The death of her five-year-old Grace in 2002 was completely unexpected: an ordinary strep throat somehow ravaged the organs of her small body. Hood takes readers through the slow, jagged steps of dealing with grief. Unable to write, she first took refuge in endless knitting, then got a tattoo on Grace's sixth birthday. Hiding from the Beatles' songs her daughter had loved, she found them so ubiquitous that she could finally listen only to talk radio. Grace's little shoes stood sentinel at the top of the stairs and three years passed before Hood could bear to clean her room. But there is redemption at the end of this short, anguished book. Hood and her husband have a new daughter, Annabelle, adopted from China, and at last, Hood can celebrate Mother's Day, albeit with a strange mixture of grief and joy.
A moving and remarkable memoir about the sudden death of a daughter, surviving grief, and learning to love again."

I had a hard time reading this book. I would read a chapter, cry for two hours and then have to put the book down. But I couldn't stop reading. I struggled along like this for an entire week and I am glad that I did! I finally understand. Grief never goes away. You just learn to adapt to it. If anyone else has read the book, let me know what you thought!

Got to go!