christmas time...

last year our christmas was with P's parents, which was a treat then, but now thinking how the Lord just made it that way, knowing that it was our last christmas with him...
last year... no... this is just P, but sometimes he gets into investigating things... he'll have a topic or idea and want to learn more about it. he'll spend hours looking things up, reading and asking questions that i have no answer to... so last year was the meaning of christmas and where did it come from. i have files on the computer about it. i haven't read through every article, but christmas was actually a very secular event which had nothing to do with Jesus' birth. P even brought up the notion of not celebrating christmas because of the origins and what it has become. it's funny because i liked the idea, not wanting to stress about gifts and stuff, exactly what P was talking about, but i couldn't imagine not celebrating christmas... ha ha...
last year we had over 130 neighbors come to our house for a christmas party. our community leader gave us permission to have this party saying, "you guys respect our religion, so it is our job to respect yours" (something along those lines). so 130 neighbors came to celebrate christmas. it is one of P's and my joy to have people over and serve. P shared about why our family celebrated christmas... he did such a good job.
last year was our last christmas together... if i knew, i think i would have gotten him a better gift... :) but for under $10, i did get him something he really wanted. a shirt with indonesian on it... he wore it all the time.
last year P led our family's tradition of christmas for the last time. he would read luke 2 and we would sing "silent night, holy night" in all our languages... english, korean, german, and indonesian. he was always so proud of my korean... i spoke 3 languages fluently and he only had 2... we would joke about that...
last year... last year is over... and here i am faced with a new christmas and it's without him... we didn't get to decorate our house with our santa hats on... we didn't get to go shopping for each other... he won't wake me up at midnight to open just one of the presents under the tree... we won't dance our christmas dance by the christmas tree... i won't be running around the house finding note after note to find my present... we won't be having our traditional steak dinner... we won't be pouring out little gifts from our stockings... no matter what christmas meant to me last year, or the years before... it's definitely not going to be the same this year nor the next...
this year i did not decorate until two days ago... this year i didn't get a tree... this year i avoided thinking too much of the holidays... but really there is only a week left... it's coming fast... this year i am trying to teach A that we are celebrating Jesus' birth. last year P and i talked about how A would be on stage at church saying her little part with auntie C, but this year i have to watch her on my own... we've practiced it for weeks and she could say it so well... and i just think how proud he would be of her... going on stage and saying her little part, "the star shone bright for wisemen that night". - i'm bribing her with a lollipop to say it on stage on sunday, so we'll see how she does.
this year is just going to be different... a little empty... a little sad... a little bit maddening... actually a lot of all those... it's going to be hard...
this year... i'll do lots of remembering... P always wanted things to be so special... making me feel like i was the only one that existed on the planet at that time... so here i go into a holiday full of joy and cheer, but also full of saddness and pain, wishing it was not this way, but accepting my path at the same time...
i don't want to put a damper in this holiday season... as much as i miss P and as much as i feel his emptiness... all at the same time i have a sense of hope and promise for the future that the Lord has in store for me... so... i just want to say that i wish everyone a very merry christmas and a blessed new year. may the Lord bless you and keep you!!!
please pray for P's bro MP and his family that will be traveling this weekend to spend time with A and me. please pray for a good time..
again thank you all for your love and encouragement and especially your prayers. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

dream world to reality

a few months back, the R's asked us to go to disney world with them. i wasn't quite sure at the time if i wanted to go because it was so close to P's birthday and the marking of 6 months since his death. but in the end i agreed to go. the awesome thing is how people have been such a blessing to me and A. the R's invited us to go and gave us free lodging with them and when a few families heard at church that we were going, they got together and bought us the ticket to go to disney for a Christmas present. the night i received my gift, i cried... how great it is to have such caring extended family.
disney world was like a dream. castles and princesses... fun... the first day was hard. P and i had been there together with A after we had A. we didn't go into the parks, but rode the monorail and visited a few shops then went to downtown disney. as i went to the park the first day, my heart was heavy with memories. i couldn't believe that i was doing something so exciting without him. my heart ached for him...
we had five wonderful days there with the R's and now we are back to reality... where life is still going...
last night i was journaling about how six months ago today i heard and saw P for the last time here on earth. as i journaled, my scab on my wound of my heart came off and started to bleed again. today when i got home LJM (grandma L) gave me a bouquet of flowers to commemorate today. she had evergreen around tulips and it was so beautiful and smelled so nice. as she gave it to me, she told me that the evergreen signified winter, but the tulips were for spring... and how true that is. just as my scab came off... i know that tomorrow the scab will start coming back. after a while... the scab will become a scar that won't bleed again, but let me remember what happened.
i'm reading a book called "a grace disguised". this is a book i started maybe a month after P's death and couldn't read passed the first chapter. a few times i opened and closed that book, but now i'm on chapter 10 and i can't flip a page without a tissue and pen at hand. all the author talks about is exactly what i feel. i love the book and can't wait to finish it. some people tell me that later i have to write a book, but i don't think i need to with this book already out there.
so today marks six months... i wondered how it was going to be like after six months when it was two months... i can't believe it's here... not because it was so fast, but that it is here... my life turned upside down and backwards and is turning back to normal, but some times... it just flips over again.
i was thinking of P during this trip. i thought of how he would have loved the trip. how much fun we would have had as a family, but then i thought of how glad he would be that we went. that even though he wasn't here, how he really would have wanted us to have so much fun. that's what we were... three very fun people... i thought of all the reasons he told me he loved me... and i thought of this time, i was working at my school and they told me i was rift. i didn't know what to do, but trusted that the Lord had something for me and went looking for jobs, went on interviews and just let God take care of it for me through prayer. this was way before he said, "i love you" for the first time, but i knew that this was one of the reasons why he loved me. anyway... i tell this story because i think of P and how he loved me for trusting in God through a time when i didn't know what was ahead of me... changing jobs at that time meant a lot to me... starting over, meeting new people, not seeing P as much since we worked at the same school... and more... but he saw that i trusted God's provision for my next steps. i think of how he would love me even more now... how if he was here he would tell me the way i'm handling this is making him fall more in love with me... i think of how he would not only be proud of me, but that he would tell me that's why he loved me in the first place. how i miss him telling me all the reasons he loves me and how i wish i could tell him the reasons i love him.
on one of the rides at disney i thought of his feet... i don't know why, but i did and kind of laughed at myself. oh how i do miss him...
he always made me feel special... a lot of people tell me that he made them feel special... so that's just P, but the way he loved me was not like any old husband... i remember a friend telling me after his death that P put men to shame and told me the time we were saying good-bye to people at church and during one of the prayers, P put his arms around me and whispered a prayer into my ear and this friend said, "why does he do that?" :) i remember that... i remember crying that day because his prayer was so sweet.
i used to have a xanga page where i would brag about my husband. i would always write the great things he did for me...
i miss him...
all this to say, disney was great.... its slogan is, "a place where dreams come true"... part true i guess since i didn't have to really think about things while i was there, but not so true because all my dreams didn't come true.
vacation is a true reality to single parenting.

this picture explains how i am feeling. the picture was taken when we went to visit indonesia and A stood at our gate longingly looking into what was once our house. i feel homesick. i want to go back home. i miss my home... the home P and i had together. i miss him. i miss us.

a friend, K, left a voicemail this morning on my phone telling me that our friend was in the hospital having the baby. my friend, H, had a baby today. sad i wasn't there with her. sad i won't hold her baby for a long time. sad that she's there and i'm here. how i wish she and i could be in the same place.

my friend T called today... made me more homesick. i really miss her. i like the uncontrollable amount of smses she puts up with. i miss her hospitality. i miss talking to her. i miss her pretty drinks. uh and her chocolate balls... woo...

P and i loved our house. he always told me what a good job i did making our home feel so much like home... i miss his encouragement... i miss him telling me how proud he is of me. (thanks to all of you who tell me he would be proud) i miss how we laughed together... i miss the fun things we did together. we loved surprising each other.

our tradition for christmas was to spend only $10 on a gift for the other person and $5 on stuffing the stocking. we had so much fun coming up with creative ways to get gifts. i'm going to miss that this year. we always made it special...

i could tell it's going to be a long christmas.

happy birthday P

today we would have been celebrating P's 30th birthday. A and i went to get some flowers and balloons and went to memory park. our weather was not so great today, so we got there and put everything where we wanted it with a dr. pepper too (A loves it just like her daddy) and took a few pictures then headed to the car. it was cold and rainy and icky outside.

it was a very emotional day. we had lunch where P and i went on a date before and headed home for naps. i cried throughout A's nap. i still find myself asking, "what happened?"

today A asked if she could get a helicopter to go to the sky. when i asked why, she said she wanted to go to heaven to say happy birthday. then after her nap i told her we had to get ready for the party, and she said, "we go to heaven or have the party here." we had already talked about how we were just doing a party to remember daddy and how daddy probably was having a party of his own in heaven. so she just wanted to make sure which one. tonight before she went to bed, she prayed to God thanking Him that she could blow out the candles then said, "when i bigger i go to heaven." now she is asleep after a long night of partying.

thanks for those of you who sent e-mails, text messages and called. it means a lot to know people are thinking and remembering him and us.

going before me

i wrote this a few weeks back and never posted it... sorry

the Lord has been good to me since before i was formed in my mother's womb. the Lord is compassionate and caring in all things of my life... He is going before me on my journey...

when i got back from indonesia, i told my "parents" at the house (G&L) that i was planning on moving out. i love it here, but i felt for A and i, it was a great next step. we talked and they agreed. they are sad and i know it'll be one of my saddest days because i couldn't be at the place i am not without them, plus it's our home...

i didn't have a place planned out or even knew if i wanted to buy, rent, whatever... in the midst of that, i went to see a couple at church (W&T). i went for some advice and in our conversation i told them i was planning on moving. they had already told me that they thought it was God's plan for us to meet because before i contacted them, they had already wanted to meet with me. T's mother passed away a little over a month ago and her house was empty. W&T both at some point had a thought of A and i living there in the house, which is right next door to them. they brought this up to me and i was a little bewildered and confused... then W says, "wanna go see your new house?"

it was everything i had wanted... a cute little bungalow house, furnished, 2 bedrooms, with a backyard and a basement.

isn't God good? how can anyone say there is no God, when He is going before me and preparing every step of the way... every detail that i need taken care of through His people? God is alive and living and knows all our needs... even in times of unknown chaos... He knows and cares.

birthdays

i think my daughter is the smartest. ha ha... but really i couldn't believe how smart this girl is. grandpa G's birthday was yesterday and so we were talking about whose birthday would be next... and she said, "no daddy birthday next then it's Jesus' birthday". i couldn't believe the memory she has. we have been talking about daddy's birthday coming up and how we were going to do something to remember him. we made a special daddy banner for his birthday, but then today we were driving and talking about christmas and why we celebrate it and A says, "mommy we have to make one for Jesus." i was like what do we have to make and she was explaining, "you know we make one for daddy and R." i was like oh yeah... so now that's our next project.
A's got awesome memory, so then we were driving by a big advertisement board and i didn't see it, but she says, "mommy i have to show you something." i said, "honey i'm driving what is it?" she said, "i see something, you know from the hotel. the mouse." i was like, "huh?" then she goes on talking... "the mouse, from the hotel i see it... you know the little mouse." then i got it... the commercial of the new movie with the mouse... "desperaux(?)" she remembered the commercial and saw the big board... ha ha... i couldn't believe it.
this story is for AB and TB. so when we were in indonesia, we got caught in a ditch while driving with friends. well the other day A sees a wheel barrel. A looks at it and says, "mommy that like the one in indonesia". i am again not knowing what she is talking about. again she explains, "mommy remember when Uncle A got stuck and the man bring the rocks." i was so impressed that she remembered that. when we were stuck in the ditch, men brought a wheel barrel of small rocks to help us out of the mud to make traction. well A remembered that from seeing the wheel barrel.
i pray that she will continue to not only remember the good things that happen now, but also continue to remember her daddy. she does remember some funny things with him too.
i love her... she's just too smart.

and let it snow...

this morning we woke up with chicago blanketed with beautiful white snow all over. i open the curtains to the backyard and tell A to come and look. she smiles all big and says, "silly snow's all over the chairs." then i took her to her room to show her the front and she says, "snow all over the car, mommy how we going to drive?" ha ha... i told her after breakfast we would go out to play in it because grandma L left the sled out. when i finished cleaning up breakfast and came to get her to go and play, she said, "i'm at school mommy. we go play after i done." i was like okay... finally we went outside. it was so much fun. here are a couple pictures.