When There Was No Hope....I Hoped.

and thanks to franchesca and natasha, today i'm forced to hope...again. to create hope where there previously was none. today i will be combining my saturday happy list and my monthly hope post. what's brought me some light during my darkest hours this week?

1. changing the world. so i wake up {always against my will these days}, go through my routine getting ready for work, drive to work, pull into a parking space, look down to get my tea out of the middle console, and BAM! my eyes are immediate drawn to this...

i have never even realized that there were little messages on the tea bags themselves. i don't think i ever paid close enough attention. but for some reason, that was the first thing i saw when i looked down. and of course, all things tie back to Juju {in my head at least}. my choices? could it mean our choice to finally become parents? our choice to bring another human being into this world? i really don't know if i'm special enough to make choices that will change the world. but i do know 1 very special little boy who's mere existence forever changed mine.

2. mail. earlier this week i received a very thoughtful card and magnet from someone who has become a dear dear friend, and who is, unfortunately, a fellow SIDS mom - tabatha, mom to Savanna. she lost her precious Savanna exactly a month after i lost Juju. sickening that we both have SIDS and the 12th in common. but here she was, deep in her own grief, thinking of me and my little boy. sending me a card, with such a touching, meaningful message, and a gorgeous magnet {which is now proudly displayed on my fridge}. touching doesn't even begin to describe it.

3. the kindness of strangers. this week i received several heartfelt emails from people that have run across my blog. 1 email in particular moved me to tears. she expressed how sorry she was for my loss, and then offered to not only donate something for one of my monthly giveaways, but to help organize fundraisers in order to help us meet our $5k in 2011 goal for Juju's memorial fund at CJ Foundation!! i'm always so very amazed by the generosity of people, complete strangers. it is just another reminder that the heart of life really is good.

4. the kindness of friends. speaking of fundraisers, yesterday marked the end of the Thirty-One fundraiser that my dear friend nikki organized for me. she is going to donate 20% of the total sales to Juju's memorial fund. i haven't gotten the final estimate of the amount to be donated, but the last time i checked, it was a little over $200!! that almost brings us to the half-way point. wow. and another very generous, loving friend, jane, has offered to donate 100% of the proceeds from a garage sale she is having at the end of april to Juju's memorial fund. i know you guys are going to get sick of me saying this, but i have some amazing friends.

hope definitely seems to have an inverse relationship with grief. whenever i have moments of experiencing more grief, i see very little {if any} hope. and when i have my hopeful moments, the grief isn't as suffocating - i can actually breathe. this week, despite a pretty bad breakdown on tuesday, i had moments where i could actually breathe. i don't know what specifically brought it about, and i'm not going to try and figure it out, but i am thankful that i had these moments, and i hope they stick around.