It was a beautiful, fall day when we laid my grandfather to rest. The sun was shining in a blue sky and it was warmer than it had been all week. The morning was a flurry of activity; showering, feeding and dressing the baby and finding something appropriate to wear that would fit my post-partum body. We finally managed to get out the door, getting to the funeral home in time

to get the baby settled in a side room with the babysitter. The speeches were beautiful, sad and injected with some humor, although I only remember the gist of what was said. But certain moments stick out clearly in my memory. When my uncle broke down crying, my heart broke in two and tears fell down my cheeks as well. My brother saying, “I just miss my Grandpa,” speaking the words in my head, broke my heart again. Unfortunately, the babysitter texted that the baby was crying and I had to step out, missing the letter that my mother wrote for her dad. After the speeches were done, we headed over to the cemetery and buried my grandfather, finally laying him to rest. There was nothing left to do except grieve the man we all would miss, the only balm to my soul being that he had lived a good, full life and that now he was no longer suffering.

I can still remember the smell of the country breeze blowing through the open window as we sped down the highway. It was a beautiful, sunny day, perfect for our trip upstate to visit my cousins. My uncle was driving and my aunt was his navigator, constantly referring back to the mapquest directions she had printed out. As she picked them up to check for the next exit, the wind gusted through the open window and pulled the directions right out of her hand, blowing them away down the highway. There was a moment of shocked silence and then my aunts contagious, hysterical laughter filled the car. She was so perfectly alive in that moment, that my brain still can't understand how there can now

be a world without her in it. But, I suppose that's the beauty of

memory, a piece of her will always be alive to me. She'll never be fully gone.

As far back as I can remember, I've loved writing. I suppose I was an avid reader first, and that ability for authors to bring worlds and people alive through their pen, became a fascinating ability to me. I've always wanted to write that book that draws you in, that becomes a reality to you for those hours lost in its pages. To create the characters that feel like a part of your world, the ones that can make you laugh or cry or even scream in frustration. But, too often when I sit down to write, my head becomes a jumbled mess of thoughts, bouncing from one idea to another, unable to form a cohesive idea to put down on paper. Perhaps that's all my writing will ever amount to, a bunch of rambling snapshots of my head at that date and time. I suppose only time will tell.

I'm sitting here on my couch. My forehead feels warm and my throat feels scratchy. But not feeling 100% has been a pretty regular part of life lately. Of course it's all for a goal. The feverish state is from my recent vaccination, an effort to protect myself. And all the other aches, pains and weight gains are part of the process of creating a life. These are far better reasons to feel unwell than I've experienced in the past.