Another month with more time to create moments of mindfulness. 

Sure, that’s what I tell myself as the month of love begins, again. 

The true questions come as I wonder and wander through more of my time with my mind full of other things. 

What if the point of being right here, right now? Is it to hang in there? 

That could be part of why I take every February to work more persistently to be mindful. 

Yes, even when I see what was before me as I walked along. 

Hang in there, it gets worse.

It was a shirt that said hang in there, it gets worse. 

Well, even though it wasn’t what I was expecting, the phrase seemed to make me grin as my life flowed across my memories. 

How is that possible? To hang in there means that even though I didn’t know what was happening right now, it would be okay soon. 

Sure, I’d heard that before. Life happens, be patient, it’ll be different before you know it.

Here is what also came to me in the exact second. 

Life had gotten worse in a sense a few times in life, when things hadn’t been okay soon. 

What are you supposed to do then? That’s what made me smile because I knew that answer, as well.

It had to do with my heart and feelings that came over time.

My heart felt like it had more empty spaces in it and could have looked like what I found here. 

Pink, full of love yet fragile if it was being viewed from another person. 

My heart also learned to hang in there.

Let me tell you more as my heart has also learned to hang in there. 

When I was a young mom, perhaps in my early 20s, with holes worn out in the knees from playing rumble tumble games with our son as we chased through our small apartment. 

Days were not long enough for the slides at the park or a merry-go-round ride with an uncle for that son. 

There were bonus moments of crackers eaten with aunts and dances with dad to round off grand adventures each week with our son who became more than we could imagine. 

My heart was full during this act and stage of life. 

This is where I learned that sudden changes could create a hole in my heart as surely as any medical event. 

In fact, it was through a sudden medical event that caused more changes and holes in my heart to come. 

Little did I know that grief could mean living alongside surviving and also creating new joy. 

This is what I learned to create and, dare I say, want again. Always with a granny hanky nearby for my leaky eyes and broken heart.

Life became more than one moment of hanging in there.

It is what I began to know and yearn for and love as life became more than one moment of hanging in there. 

Here is where I’m going to say some things that you may also be thinking yet have not said to anyone, yet. 

Being mindful can become knowing that things can get worse. 

My world did get worse as I changed from being a young mom with holes in my jeans as I played with our son to one who learned to lean into things that I never knew were going to be expected of me. 

Life getting worse in one way brought out another side, another way of viewing the world that I now know was what I needed to experience. 

Wait. Let’s go into that. 

For me, something worse happened when a medical event changed our son’s life in a moment the first time and then a second time. And, then for ongoing moments.

It also meant that I was changed, pulled out of ‘just’ being a mom to being Dallin’s mom. 

Who was going to hang in there and do what was needed for his lifetime of love, advocacy, stepping forward to help him learn to communicate about his own needs and live with pure essence? 

What a joy to create resilience with him.

Me. What a joy to create resilience with him.

I needed to let go of who I was before any other time and be as brave as he was every time an illness came to pull into a reserve of resilience. 

Dallin did. I could do it with him. Now I do it without him. 

Doing this every time with him was amazing and powerful. 

When I saw the phrase hang in there, the holes in my heart were wide open and patched together. 

Somehow, I am still hanging in here with all that heartache that comes each time my heart drops, broken with yearning for who I was before.

While truly knowing even if it gets worse my heart will hang in there. 

Would you like to come with me? Let’s do this together.