Mother's Day

Today is Mother's Day. Today is a day to celebrate the amazing women who brought us into creation. I will start with my mom. This woman has been there by my side nonstop for the past 4 months. She slept in a waiting room chair for weeks as I slept in Johnathon's room. She worked from a small table in the hospital waiting room to keep her job. She was up all hours of the night to make sure I was ok and to make sure her future son in law was doing alright as well. She was there to dry my eyes on the bad days and celebrate with the good ones, she held my hand, she listened to me as I poured my heart out and expressed the thousands of different emotions I felt daily. She sat beside me as I sat through the funeral of the man who was supposed to not be in a casket in a church but be standing at the end of the aisle of a church waiting for me to become his wife. This woman has helped me become the strong woman I am today. She reminds me daily that I do not have to be superwoman and constantly try to take on the world. She reminds me I am human, I have emotions and I can express them. She reminds me that it is ok to cry and ok to be sad. She encourages me to not put on a fake face and tell people I am ok when I am not. She helps me be the transparent person that I am striving to be. I am beyond thankful for this woman and all that she has given me over the course of my life but especially over the course of the last few months as my world has been completely turned upside down and rocked to its core. She has and will always be a rock in my life. She has provided a firm foundation for which I will build my life. She and my dad took me back into their home after I lost John and reminded me that I was to stay there as long as physically necessary. She is constantly checking on me and making sure I am truly how I say I am. As much as that bugs me sometimes I am thankful that she cares enough to keep up with me and make sure that I am truly doing ok and make sure that I am telling the truth on the days when ok does not even begin to describe how I am feeling. I love you mom. I know you read my blog and hope this makes you smile. Thank you for being you and I am so blessed that God chose you as my mom. As much as we but heads sometimes I am forever thankful for the love and support that you show me daily and the courage you have given me to feel open enough to share my feelings. I love you.

There is another woman I would like to think about today and that is my mother in law. I woke up this morning and thought this is the first Mother's Day in 15 years that John will be spending with his mommy. It has been a long 15 years of separation and I can only imagine the glow on her face and that smile illuminating heaven today as she spends it with her baby boy. For anyone who does not know my sweet honey, he is a total momma's boy. He has her good looks and even better heart. He takes after her in so many ways. I was not blessed enough to meet the woman who created the man of my dreams but knowing him has helped me know her more. She raised the most incredible son and the man I am so proud to call my very own. So today Mama Ortega, kiss my baby, hug my baby, and celebrate this day dedicated to you together. I am so happy that you both are reunited. It hurts me to know he is not here with me but to know he is with his mom and a woman who loves him equally as much as I do gives me so much comfort. Smile today mom and know that one day I will meet you and be able to tell you face to face how thankful I am for your son. You have given me the best gift anyone could receive in life. And that is true and unconditional love. I know he learned how to love from you and his dad and you both are extraordinary people. I cannot wait to hug you and tell you that your son has changed my life, he has changed me, and has helped make me the person I am today. He makes me want to live each day to be a better person. So this Mother's Day enjoy having your baby back with you. I hope you will share him with me when I make it up there. Love you.

 

Today also makes me think of the Mother's Day I will not spend as a mommy to my whole baseball team of Ortega children (or Ortega Boys in Johnathon's prediction.) For as long as I can remember I have wanted to be a mom. I even went one year to my career day at school and told my class that. Since meeting John we have talked about kids. We have argued about how many and whether we wanted a boy or a girl first, or if we would have twins, and the name argument was ongoing. All I knew was that I wanted to have a family with this amazing man. I wanted our children to call me mommy and I wanted nothing more than to make him a dad. John may have laughed when people would ask us about when we were wanting kids but those who knew him best knew that he would have had a baby the day we got engaged! He was a baby magnet and they all just loved him. He had the cutest glow about him when little ones were around. He was constantly stealing people's babies and holding them, playing football with his little cousins outside, playing video games with our nephew, and just loving on them. I loved to see him in that light. The last year since our engagement we talked about babies all the time. We had names picked out we finally agreed on and knew how we wanted to decorate a nursery. We planned on getting a new car big enough to accommodate a growing family and started preparing ourselves for not being able to go out all the time with friends. I now see all of those dreams gone. I cannot imagine myself having children with anyone else. I have thought about adoption as that is something we did discuss if anything did arise that made it not possible for us to have our own children. It is something I think of for my future for sure. But I will not be an Ortega mom. That really gets to me. One of John's biggest goals in life was to be a dad and one of the dreams I had was to make his dream of a family come true. I will be thankful for the nieces and nephews I have and the love I will be able to give to them and maybe the future for me will hold children that I will adopt one day. As for now I will be here taking care of our four legged Ortega babies and being the best mommy I can be to them.

 

I love you my angel. Kiss your mommy for me and tell her Happy Mother's Day. I know you are wishing mine the same today. I am sure she is missing your big hug and kiss that you always greet her with. Enjoy today my love. I am so happy for you that you are back in your momma's arms. Stay there until I am back with you and maybe she will let you be in my arms again.