This year has been an immensely trying year for most. How do you then get up and carry on? Smile, wave, and carry on down the path?
I turned 40 this year, so for me it was a big milestone. Where others have expressed depression and extreme sadness, i felt nothing but happiness. It felt as though so much of my learning, my mistakes, my sadness, my disappointment, could be left behind in the first half of my life, and I could use the next half to truly be the Hayley I knew I wanted to be.
This year was also marred by a massive sadness for our family, as we lost our precious cousin, before he was able to see his 29th birthday in. How this has shattered his mom, and his dad and sisters, only they truly know. The pain and suffering that death brings with it, still takes me by surprise. The utter heart wrenching breathlessness, that overtakes you, and clutches at your very soul in your darkest moments, are something that you can never explain to anybody unless they too have walked that path. Just this weekend, we as a family had a tattoo done in cognisance of those suffering with depression and addiction. Pierre may have ceased to walk among us in 2017, but he is in our hearts, and on our skins, forever.
2016 also marks 5 years since we tragically lost my brother in law. Not a day goes by when I do not think of him, mourn him, laugh at memories, and feel the unbearable pain of his loss. Murder is an act that is absolutely in opposition to any kind of human emotion. To take somebody's life in cold blood, and to snuff it out, is unforgivable and the people who perform such an act, deserve a special kind of hell. The damage done to a family, to the people left behind, one cannot explain. Five years Wayne next week and yet you are as much a part of us now as ever. We love you and we miss you.
And yet with so much ugliness and pain and hurt, I am still a mommy to two amazing children, one of whom has a prize giving this week, in which we are hoping for prefectship, and another who has a prize giving next week. I am their support, their cheerleader, their teacher, their mentor, their punisher, scolder, conscience, and their very life. It is my God-given duty to ensure that they feel nothing but cherished, safe, and whole, and I work every single day to make that my goal. I slip, I fall, and I fail, but nothing keeps me down for long, as this is one battle I refuse to lose.
Life is a combination of so much hurt, so much ugliness, and so much beauty. Try hard to not lose focus, and sight of that beauty. And so as 2016 draws to a close, don't leave regrets behind you. Leave only satisfaction, peace, contentment and love. Be kind to one another
<3
