An Angel Above Us

     Easter is my favorite time of year because of the meaning behind the season and the new life that spring brings.  This year though, Easter is even more special because it will be the birthday of my beautiful late Grandmother Dolores, or as my family affectionately referred to her, our Big Gram.  She was an exquisite woman who lived with passion and a zest for life.  She was wise and patient and I cherish the memories of our conversations together.  She put her heart into everyone and everything that she loved and was not afraid to stand her ground.  She was stubborn but loving, stern but fair and conservative but accepting.  I fondly remember our weekly lunch dates together after Connor was born.  They are my most favorite memories.  To see her hold and snuggle with my baby brought an amazing amount of joy to my heart. Gram had a way of making everyone feel special.  She could make all of your troubles magically disappear when you were with her.  She was always there for me and my family and was a tremendous support and encouragement as I ventured through the journey of motherhood.  Her infectious smile and the twinkle in her eyes lit up the room and her laugh tickled my heart.  She was a strong woman who fought until the end.  She never gave up on the ones that she loved...I believe she is still fighting for all of us from her place in the sky.  Losing her was one of the most painful experiences of my life and I can honestly say that a little piece of my heart died along with her on the day of her death.  She was not only a grandmother but a dear friend who has forever changed my heart and the way that I live my life.  I am so thankful that Connor got to spend time with his beloved Great Nanny and that he still remembers her, I pray he never forgets.  I know that he will be a better person for knowing her. I know that I am.  I wanted to share something I wrote to read to my grandmother in her last days, it will give you a better picture of this amazing woman:

I'll always remember how you made me your special pancakes  when I had sleepovers at your house.
I'll always remember how you fell asleep with the t.v.  on.
I'll always remember watching you sit at your vanity doing your hair and thinking how beautiful you were.
I'll always remember how it amazed me that a woman so small could snore so loudly!
I'll always remember how you always had an ear to listen and arms to hug.
I'll always remember how you were so generous with everything you had.
I'll always remember how you loved to laugh.
I'll always remember your strength.
I'll always remember how your face lit up when you talked about your children.
 I'll always remember how proud you were  to share that you had 14 grandchildren with a total stranger.
I'll always remember how excited you became with the birth of each new great- grandchild.
I'll always remember how your house smelled of coffee and cookies.
I'll always remember how you had faith.
I'll always remember how you lived for your family.
I'll always remember how you encouraged me to be myself.
I'll always remember how you took the time to let me know that you cared.
I'll always remember how  you  spoke your mind.
I'll always remember how you welcomed  everyone into your family.
I'll always remember how proud I was to be your granddaughter.
I'll always remember how much you loved me.
I'll always remember how much I love you.

Gram, I'LL ALWAYS REMEMBER YOU.

With that Gram, I wish you a truly Happy Birthday!  You are forever loved, forever missed, and always remembered!  Thank you for being our Angel above and watching out for us all!

Here are a few pictures of the special lady!

 

  

This is a tough one...

     So I have been working on this blog post for about a month.  Trying to evaluate whether or not I want to open up and share this intimate struggle with the world. I have always been scared that if I talked about this with the world....that would be it and this struggle would be for real.  I guess I had always hoped it was a bad dream and that one day I would wake up and things would be different.  I finally made the decision though to publish this post in the hope that sharing my story might touch someone else's heart that has been given similar circumstances, so here goes.

      As some of you already know, for the last four years of our lives, Kieran and I have been struggling to have another child. I have some fertility issues and am unable to conceive naturally. We have tried various invasive fertility treatments and I have had surgeries to try and correct the problems, but unfortunately we have been unsuccessful in all of our attempts. We had always known how special our Connor was, but recently we came to learn what a miracle he truly is.

     For many years, I was very angry with the cards God had dealt me. I couldn't understand why we couldn't have more children when there were women out there everyday who didn't want or necessarily deserve the babies that they had. I felt as if I was a failure as a woman. I became very jealous of expectant mothers and felt as if every pregnant woman out there was a threat against me personally. I isolated myself from my pregnant friends and am truly embarrassed to say that I acted like a jealous child.

     Kieran and I explored adoption but decided that it wasn't necessarily what was right for our family. We explored more drastic infertility treatments as well, but came to the conclusion that being devout Catholics, we didn't feel like we could put ourselves in a situation where we might have to compromise our beliefs or values.

     Kieran handled the news of our infertility much better than I did. Maybe it was the guilt and failure I felt about my body being the cause of our struggles, or maybe it was my deep desire to have a large family, but whatever the reason I fell into a deep depression. I was sad that I wasn't able to give Connor a sibling and hoped that Kieran and I would be enough for him.  I lost myself in my own despair and searched for answers and reasons as to why.  I constantly prayed that the Lord would bless us with another child but never trusted that He had a greater plan for our lives.

     Last spring, I found myself faced with the decision of whether or not I could endure another round of infertility treatments . One Sunday, I was in mass and listening to my favorite priest speak about how we must accept the circumstances we are given and have faith in God's plan. I can't remember the exact words that Father George spoke, but they hit me so deeply that I felt myself asking God "Why have you forsaken me?" At the exact moment I asked God the question, I felt this overwhelming sense that God had wrapped His arms around me and was telling me that everything was going to be okay.  I wept very openly in church (to my husband's great confusion) and came to the realization that God had answered my prayers, just not in the way I had planned. He had given me the most beautiful son, an amazingly adoring husband, a family that truly loves and supports me and a job that I absolutely love.  On our drive home from church, I told Kieran that I felt God and that He had touched my heart and told me that I needed to give my struggles up to Him and just focus on all the blessings I did have in my life and that I needed to stop focusing on what wasn't.   In my sadness I had lost sight of who I was and what I believed in and I had pulled away from the Lord because He hadn't answered my prayer in the way that I wanted.

     In order to find peace in myself and my life, I had to let go of the preconceived plans I had made for our lives. I had always pictured myself covered in children and grandchildren and I literally had to grieve for the death of my hopes and dreams. It was hard to give up control to the Lord, but once I did, I found an inner peace and happiness I can't even begin to describe.  I have actually learned to be thankful for this struggle in that I have grown so much as a Christian.  I have learned that it is only through trials that one's faith is tested and by giving up my wants and needs, I can grow in God's love.

     Now I am not going to lie and say that if I got pregnant naturally, we wouldn't be through the roof excited, but we are trusting that God has bigger plans for us. Maybe there is some greater reason as to why we were only able to have one....I am just trusting that one day I will understand it all. 

     Don't get me wrong, I still have those days when I want to scream at anyone that dares to ask me when I am going to have another.   I have learned that almost everyone has an opinion about what Kieran and I should do next...( i.e. they recommend taking a vacation, going on specific diets,  they tell me I should see their amazing infertility Dr. and my favorite and most popular remedy for my infertility is that they always tell us "just to relax." The people that recommend relaxation as therapy I know have never been humiliated by the sterile treatments of infertility doctors because if they had, they would know that you can't just relax when hyped up on hormones or having to parade and discuss your sex life in front of a whole medical team of doctors and nurses).  In finding peace in myself though, I have learned how to take all their advice in, bite my tongue  and to give it to God.  I know that these people are only trying to help and it makes them feel better to offer an anecdote for my problem...so there is no need for me to feel threatened or angered by their suggestions.  I just need to follow my own heart and know that the decisions I have made are what is right for me and my family and that God has special plans for me.

     Through this struggle I have learned a lot about myself (my weaknesses and my strengths) my marriage, and my friendships.  I had always known I married an amazingly gentle and patient man but I learned just how selfless he is and how unconditional his love for Connor and myself is.  I learned who my real friends are when they demonstrated to me that they were there for me to listen, hold my hand and to just support me by being patient.  I learned that some friendships weren't forever friendships and that our relationships were more superficial.  I learned to be empathetic to other women who were struggling with the same thing and would never have any children of their own. The most important thing that I learned though is how blessed I truly AM.  I am so fortunate to have been able to carry my Connor.  He is a MIRACLE.  God's miracle and I cherish the memory of my pregnancy and his delivery everyday.  He is the most perfect thing I have ever done in my life and God has taught me to appreciate that perfection.

Are Mom Jeans Really that Bad?

I remember in high school swearing with my girlfriends that we would be anything but our mothers when we grew up (I am sorry Mom for admitting this....I love you but I was an impossible teenage girl at the time). We swore we would be "cool" mothers when we grew up and would never give into the comfortable fit of "mom jeans", drive minivans or say the nerdy and retro things our mothers said to us.) While I can say, I still haven't picked up a pair of jeans that I would classify as "mom jeans" or given up my SUV for the ease of automatic doors on a minivan (and believe me friends with minivans, I am jealous of that feature) I find myself repeating my mother's famous words and quoting her on a daily basis.

Case in point, this weekend I was talking to Connor about cleaning up his room. He asked me why he couldn't just wait to clean up his toys until the end of the day when he was all done playing. While in high school, I would have found his argument to be completely acceptable, I found myself channeling my mother and saying, "If you put your toys away in the right place right away after playing with them, it will be much easier for you at the end of the day and the mess won't drive me crazy." I cringed as the words came out of my mouth knowing that I had heard them spoken to me and resented them before but continued to go ahead and say them. In other instances, I have been known to use my mother's famous words: "If you take your time and do it right the first time, you won't have to go back and do it again." I clearly remember my mother saying that to me on several occasions when I did a less than mediocre job completing my chores and at the time, she drove me nuts when she said it. It is only now though that I realize how right she was and as much as I hate to admit it, she had a very good and legitimate point.

For those of you that know my mother, you know that she is a wonderful homemaker and has a gift for organization. Her home is always beautifully kept and is never cluttered. While I resented the rule growing up that my room needed to be clean before I could play with my friends on a Saturday morning, I now understand it and have a tremendous amount of respect for my mom and the way in which she kept her home organized, not to mention raising five children in the process.

While I will never possess my mother's great love for "The Container Store", I do find myself trying to implement all of the organization skills she taught me when growing up. For example, we have a rule in our house that after church on Sunday, we don't go anywhere until the house is clean and organized and the groceries have been bought and put away. You might think it a little extreme, but one of my new year's resolutions this year was to be more organized, therefore this rule has helped us all to keep the house in order and has actually given me more time to enjoy my family on the weekends.

My husband affectionately refers to my mom as "the Colonel". He gave her this name because of her extreme organizational and planning skills and has always joked that "The Mahoneys" run on a tight schedule similar to that of the military. If you know my husband, you know that he is NOT a planner and loves to just go with the flow and relax (he is even famous for his spontaneous catnaps and has been given the nickname "Slow-to-Medium Paced" by his friends.) Maybe it comes from my teacher's instinct and type A personality, but I am very similar to my mother in that I like to plan and know what obligations I have each week. I don't feel comfortable just going with the flow, but as a couple, Kieran and I work well together. I am even flattered when my hubby jokingly refers to me as "the little colonel" because I know it means that I possess traits similar to that of a wonderful woman and homemaker.

I guess in the end what I am saying is thank you Mom. I wish back in high school when I was trying to be rebellious and defiant, I knew half of what you did for me and our family. While my friends and I still probably would have made fun of mom jeans and minivans, we might have taken to heart the advice our moms gave us instead of having to learn it on our own later on.

I love you Mom! (or should I say Colonel?)

What it's all about

The past couple years, God has thrown some curveballs our way and I haven't always been the person I want to be or should be when I react to God's pitches. One morning last summer, I woke up and realized that I had lost sight of myself and who I am. I had taken it upon myself to try and control my life when what I really needed to do was to trust and put my faith in God. Recently, I decided to make some serious changes in my life to get myself back on track with God. I made a checklist describing the kind of person I want to be in order to hold myself accountable. I read my list often and try and evaluate how I am doing and what things I need to work on. I thought I would share my list with you:

I want to be the kind of person that people want to be around.

I want to be positive and lift my friends and family up.

I want to be proud of who I am and what I stand for.

I want to teach my child to be kind through my example.

I want to be a loving wife, mother, daughter, sister, aunt and friend.

I want to remember that physical beauty fades and that it is about what is inside that counts.

I want to laugh A LOT.

I want to be a good friend.

I want to have good friends.

I want to encourage those around me.

I want to not be envious of others.

I want to use kind and polite words when speaking to or about others.

I want to wake up everyday and thank God that I am alive.

I want to pray with my family and friends.

I want to turn to the Lord for comfort, support and encouragement.

I want to be a good person.

I want to make a contribution to society.

I want to let go of insignificant hang-ups and materialistic needs.

I want to share smiles.

I want to forget and forgive.

I want to teach my child to have empathy for the less fortunate.

I want to ALWAYS be thankful for what I have in my life.

I want to hug and kiss the ones I love A LOT.

I want to touch the hearts of those I meet.

I want to share Jesus with those that don't know Him.

I want to dance and play everyday.

I want to remember not to dwell on what isn't.

I want to let go of the past.

And Finally...

I want to love HARD, smile ALWAYS and laugh OFTEN!!!

Now what do you want to do??????? I challenge you to make your own list!