Picked All My Weeds But Kept The Flowers

A friend dropped me a line today because they know that the month I fear most is on the horizon and wanted to make sure I'm doing okay heading into it. To tell you the truth, I've been so busy lately that it totally escaped my notice that April arrives in less than a week. Usually, I start to get sad around my mom's birthday because the countdown is on. But this year has been crazy so far, in a good way, and so I haven't had a chance to exhale until this infection business made me sit my dainty ass down. And now...well, over the last few days really, it's starting to set in. As we know, there are good things in my life that come from the month of April - Miss N will be 7 (SEVEN!!) in a few week's time, I'll be 34 a few weeks after that and my niece will be turning 16 (Jesus) that same week. And after all of that comes that day of remembrance that I dread most. This will be year number 13. God, it's bizarre to even write that. It simultaneously feels like less and feels like more. I've lived without her almost twice as long as I lived with her. Those suffocating days where I can't even breathe and don't want to move are few and far between now. I've learned that moving on and forgiving myself and living life is all okay to do and is not a betrayal to her in any way. But there are still good and bad days. You never forget, it never gets easy but the only choice is to keep living. We shall see how this next month shakes out...