Well, today was a very sad and depressing day for me. I laid in bed half the day feeling sorry for myself , something usual for me lately it seems.

My mother passed away last Easter on Easter Sunday. She was very very sick with a rare form of Cancer. To explain why i'm extremely grateful that Christmas is over is sort of a long story:

I will begin saying that my mother was the most disciplined determined woman i have ever met in my entire life. When the doctors gave her 8 months to live she told them they were wrong and that she would do whatever she could to fight for her life. My sister had a friend who happened to know a Cancer survivor and her friend suggested to my sister that Mom try the holistic high alkaline diet; and as my mother told us a short time later, Cancer cant survive in an alkaline body. Which is actually true so we found out over the next 2 years or so. My mother went on a regimen of taking supplements, in the number of around 10-15 or more a day, and began to alkalize her body by eating high alkaline foods such as juiced veggies (the juiced veggies reminded me of a thick green sludge, something that comes out of your butt on a bad day) Like i said...determined. She ate no red meat., in fact nearly no meat at all. Vegan diet sort of. Nothing low alkaline. It was a very hard diet for anyone to be on but my mother, being as amazing and determined as she was, did this diet every day of her last 2 years. She lasted a year and half longer than those doctors told her and she actually made believers in the high alkaline diet out of her medical doctors. My mother came here to Nashville to visit last Christmas. By then she was pretty sick and had a difficult time getting on a plane and flying here from Vancouver Canada, but she did it. All for me. She knew i couldn't come to Canada for Christmas and she wanted to spend it with the WHOLE family and she wanted me to be with her too so she came here as sick as she was and we made a Christmas in Nashville. The high alkaline diet was beginning to not be able to keep up with her failing organs. So, she spent a lot of her time here snuggled up to me on the couch in her red pajamas. On Christmas Eve, my sister made a nice dinner of Prime Rib Roast and all the fixins. My mom sat at the table with all of her children and grandchildren all together for the first time in my mothers life. She cried a little and said how grateful she was for this Christmas and how wonderful it was to have us all together. THAT made it so worth it for everyone. A tad bit of bickering between sisters and brothers and nieces and nephews...typical family drama on Christmas. It was SO worth it to see my mother on that night and the look on her beautiful face.

So you see, that is why Christmas was so hard this year. I remember the beauty of last Christmas and then looking at this Christmas, alone, no family, sister went to LA, father in Canada....just me and Jeani. The best part was a fire we lit on Christmas eve. I told God i was sorry i didn't celebrate Jesus's birth in a better way but that i just couldn't get up the Christmas spirit this year. God said it was fine, and we got through it. Today i just cant help but look at this last month and recognize that all the mood swings have been because of losing my mother this Easter and the fact that i am the kind of person that just cant look at things the way other people do. I shut it all up inside and dont let anyone know what is inside of me or what i am feeling or thinking. So running through peoples lives with a tornado of mood swings probably wasn't the best thing to do. Its how i cope though and maybe someday i will learn how to cope like a normal human being. Maybe sooner than later i hope. But this is the reason why i am so shut down, quiet and sad this Christmas season.

So i hope the people in my life can understand that i am sorry for being such a jerk, and so quiet and withdrawn. And why i am so glad today, that Christmas is over. That i can now look at the next year and pray for happiness and success. And hope that maybe next Christmas, it will be filled with a little more joy and a little more spirit.

Until next time,

Tina