Lost and Found

I am one of those people that stayed up to watch the series finale of LOST.  I watched the pre-show with my sister for a while, then we ran to the store to get wine gums, popcorn and Fresca, then came back in time to watch the whole episode.  Along with approximately 45 minutes of commercials. Once the episode was finished, I was exhausted, but I slept very poorly last night.

As a true hardcore LOST fan, I was expecting a lot from this episode, but also not knowing what to expect.  I was not disappointed.  I did NOT see it coming that the flash-sideways world was purgatory (since I am Catholic, I will use the RC word), nor did I expect their reunion to be post-mortem.  But it all made sense: live together, die together.  In death, regardless of when they died (I loved the line Christian Shepperd used: in this place, there is no now; only here) they were all reunited in the afterlife and felt whole. They had spent their lives feeling lost, and in death, they found themselves in their connections to each other.

I have often pondered the afterlife, especially when my father died and in the events since then.  I have wondered whether I will recognize my dad when I see him again. I wonder what we will look like in heaven: if I die an old lady, will I be an old lady forever in the afterlife?  Will I return to my younger self? What will I do there? Who will I spend eternity with?  Will my dad be waiting for my mom, or will she be waiting for my step-dad?

It is said that our heavenly bodies will not resemble our earthly bodies, but we will recognize each other by our souls.  LOST was the same.  They needed to touch each other and feel each other to recognize their loved ones and make the connection. I have developed my own theology on afterlife, that we return to the person and entourage that we had when we were most happy, when we felt most purposeful.  Until one has lived their entire life, you cannot know the answers to these questions.  My period of happiness may have already occurred, or it may not happen for another 40 years. I may lose significant people in my life (again) that change my entire reality that shapes the soul within. I may yet meet people that will drastically alter my outlook on life, and that could change my afterlife.

Despite all my questions and uncertainty, there is one thing that I am sure of: that I will meet my Maker and that he/she will make a place for me in which I will be at peace. I just have to have faith that I will be with the ones who matter most to me, those whom I love. That I will be FOUND.

And I do have faith.

Happy

There are many  little words that a mother longs to hear from her baby, growing into a toddler and now a preschooler.  Kees's vocabulary is growing at an exponential rate lately.  Coupled with the fact that he imitates nearly every word we utter, both in French and English, he is a little vocal machine: he tells you when his food is "hot! chaud!" or when he sees a "boat! bateau!", or that he wants to go "house, maison."  He likes to state as many things as he can in both languages, just to be sure that both Tony and I understand exactly what he wants.

The other day, while Sacha was in preschool, Kees and I went to visit my Baba.  We were having a conversation about food (or something similar, although I am pretty sure it was about food) and Kees came crawling into my lap and kept iterating something over and over.  I wasn't really paying attention to what he was saying, since I was still talking to Baba, so he grabbed my face in his little hands and made me look at him.

"Ma ta,' he said, which is his approximation to "Je t'aime" which is "I love you" in French.

'Je t'aime aussi, Kees."

Then he hugged me and buried his face into my shoulder and said "Happy."

And that made me the happiest I have been in a long time.

My Kid-Free Mother's Day

I went away for Mother's Day.  My Baba made me feel guilty about it for, oh, about 10 seconds when she told me that I should be spending Mother's Day with MY mother (who lives about 5 blocks away).

HA!  Not only have I never had any sort of Mother's Day pampering, I have never had any time away from being a mother since I had Sacha.  Never have I had more than 4 hours away from my kids since August 25, 2006.  And that 4 hour stint was only once, when Tony bought me a "Get Stoned" spa package when Sacha was 3 months old.  Other than that, never more than 2 hours.

This weekend, I had 56 whole hours of relaxation and bliss.  Tony had bought me tickets to Stars on Ice for my birthday, to go with whomever I chose.  I decided to go with Talia, my sister, since she is as equally dorky about figure skating as I am.  I got to drive to Edmonton, which is 500 km from home, spend the weekend shopping, eating out, drinking Starbucks, indulging in a pedicure, singing karaoke at a pub, staying out past 10 pm and drooling over Scott Moyer.  And Kurt Browning, who did an entire routine to Luck be a Lady on hockey skates.  Them's are some skillz!

By Sunday, I was ready to come home.  I missed my kids, and I missed being a mommy.  Most days, I am trying to find some way to escape, and it feels awful.  I don't like being a SAHM who wishes she was working, or drinking, or doing ANYTHING else, frankly, other than being a mommy, raising kids day in and day out.

56 hours away was all I needed to want to go back to mommyhood.  I felt good about seeing my kids, about waking up at 6 am the next day, about why I chose to be a SAHM.

Moms who work at least have those 8 hours a day when they get to be someone else, a professional, a contributing member or society. A stay-at-home mother does not have an alter-ego.  There is only one self, and that is MOMMY.  This weekend helped me remember that deep down, Sarah still exists, a Sarah who can sing, who likes to spend hours at Chapters with a coffee in hand, a Sarah who likes to eat out at places without colouring pages for menus.

I need to learn to get away more often.  To learn to let go and let someone else take care of the kids for a day.  To reacquaint myself with Sarah and live her sans-kid life once in a while so that she can enjoy coming home to mommyhood.