Sharen Kim Beard

^^ My mom's headstone. If you knew her, you would know how perfect this is.
(Nanny is the name my kids called her, she wasn't an actual nanny.) ^^

* Sidenote: I meant to post this yesterday but when I sat down to finish it, I just got too overwhelmed and was feeling really emotional. There was a lot of crying. And then some more crying. So I decided instead to watch Eat Pray Love, which may have been a mistake. It made me feel homesick? I don't even know what that means. I also spent a majority of my morning today crying. Except not about my mom. It has not been a good day. I am still in my pajamas. It's 2 p.m.

Yesterday marks four years time since my mom passed away.
It has been that long.
And that short.
Time really and truly does feel fleeting and lengthened simultaneously.
Kind of like when you look at your children and are confused by how you all of the sudden have kids instead of babies.
Like, didn't you just birth them from your body yesterday?
And now they are growing hair places and borrowing your car.
Oh, you know what I mean.

^^ Isn't it beautiful? I love the trees there. It is tucked away and always very quiet.
The two umbrellas are standing right where both mom and Scott are buried. ^^

Anyway, last night, around midnight, I woke up in a panic.
I was worried that I was forgetting my mom.
I grabbed a notebook and frantically began writing down everything I could think of that made her special.
Some of her characteristics that I didn't want to lose.
I'll just list them off as I scrawled them down:
1. her soft arm skin?
2. big knuckles
3. always wore lipstick
4. walked in heels like a brand-new baby deer, hobbling around, knees buckled & legs wobbling
5. always kissed me right on the lips
6. answered the phone in a sing-song voice
7. ate popcorn for lunch every day
8. very high-strung and could never relax (reminder: this is a list about my mom)
9. was a bad dancer, there was a lot of sporadic bouncing
10. list-maker. Pretty sure she invented list-making.
11. hardest. worker. ever.
12. selfless
13. the embodiment of a MOTHER with a capital M.

Time is tricky and I still can't wrap my mind around her absence in my life for the last four years.
She has missed so much.
Oh I know, she can still see everything but really it isn't the same.
Not even a little.
Anyway, my sister and I decided to go and visit mom under her tree in Cottage Grove.
She is buried at the prettiest cemetery.
It is on a hill with a lot of tall, old trees.
And very green, kinda like Scotland.
We all wrote (or drew) a note for her on small pieces of paper, then tied them to six helium balloons.
Which were green, her favorite color.
We meant for the balloon release to be synchronized, but it is really hard to hang on to those strings.
Two floated up early in order to pave the way for the remaining four. It was a small crisis.
It was a sweet, short event but perfect nonetheless.
I am glad we made the trip and we said a quick hello to Scotty too.
He was laid to rest right next to her.

^^ Right before the "official" release. ^^

^^ There they go! Technically they got caught in the beautiful trees. But eventually wiggled their way free. ^^



^^ As we watched them float away, the kids said, "Next year, we should buy more balloons, just in case
we accidentally let some go. And we should release them away from the trees so they don't get stuck."
So clever, those kids. ^^

I miss her every single day.
I am grateful for all the things she taught me and did for me.
I am who I am because of her.
I love her. Always.

p.s. Yesterday I was working on the Pythagorean Theorem and I wanted to pluck my eyes out. I may not be proficient enough for graduate school. Or junior high, for that matter.