I overheard Mom on the phone the other day talking to her Mom, I believe. She has been talking about retiring early, a few years shy of her 30 years in teaching. But she was saying that nothing brought her more comfort than the feeling that she had helped another "gold star" family (that's what they call those of us who have lost a family member to war). She also said that maybe this was her mission, to help others through it. In that very moment, I felt so proud of her.

If you had asked me before how I thought Mom would have reacted to Evan's death, I would have told you she would be checked out for the rest of her life. I worried about it a lot before Evan died. How she would react if the unthinkable happened. She was always my main concern.

Ironically, she has done more living in the last four months than the last four years. She goes to sleepovers, she has lunch with my girlfriends and I, we have friends over for dinners almost every weekend, she helps other families. I asked her the other day if she wanted to go see Sex and the City with me after lunch(as I wanted to see it again), and was amused to learn that she already had plans to see it the next night with Dad and another couple.

I mentioned it to her the other day, that I felt she had been living a lot more lately. She agreed.

She assuredly has her moments. She cries, sometimes she cancels plans because she's down, sometimes she needs to talk about it, sometimes she needs a distraction too. But she's PRESENT too, for the first time in a very long time. I'm so grateful.

I've had my moments myself. One thing I have realized, through the tears and the suffering and the laughter, is how much fun I have hanging out with my girlfriends.

Sometimes you just have to laugh. I was moping around in the first week or so, sitting around my house one day that there were 200 people here. Mom called the center of our living room the "mosh pit". That whole first week, it was me sitting in front of the fireplace, surrounded my 10 of my closest friends. One day I was wearing a dress, and got up. Apparently I came close to flashing everyone, and one of my friends said, "I know you're grieving, but you're going to ruin your reputation, Alice". I couldn't help but laugh. Maybe someone looking on might have thought that was odd, given what was happening. But you have to have those moments of sanity-if I didn't, I would have gone crazy by now.

I just got back from a 5 day cruise to Mexico with three of my friends, and we had the best time. The beach there is incredibly beautiful(see above), and I actually got to practice some of my Spanish! We talked about life and relationships and enjoyed just spending time together.

I wouldn't have it any other way. Maybe I'm living again too.