Unfiltered.

A new friend told me the other day that I shouldn't filter what I write...Bless you, Anne, but you might live to regret those words.
I won't.
I'm tired of regret and filtering, worrying that I'm going to make someone uncomfortable or awkward.  Life without my kids and with my surviving children  IS awkward and uncomfortable.  And just like the amputee that has to live without his or her legs by relearning every, single thing-

I, WE-all of us, have to do the exact same thing.  Except our amputation isn't something you see with your naked eye.  It's a cleaving of the heart, soul and spirit.  A literal ripping away of integral pieces of the heart, and shredding what's left.  It's bloody and it's brutal.
And you simply cannot see it.
But I can.  Every day that I look in the mirror and stare at the hollowed eyes that stare back at me now.  Eyes that used to smile when I did, but now only see.  No one tells me they're pretty anymore.  Because they're not.  They're dead kid eyes.  And those eyes don't smile.  No matter how hard you try, the smile just doesn't ever quite reach them.

I see that amputation- 

Every time my son bursts into tears because I said "listen up guys," because I forgot it was just him in the room and not all of the littles.
Every time my oldest child rips my heart to shreds when she tells me that I make everything about Mercy and Sam, and that "it's not all about them, Mom!  It's about us too!"
Every time I watch Charley hold those who are desperate to love her at arms length.  Because she is terrified of loving them back and then losing them all over again.

I SEE IT.

You know how they pick people to get new houses because they're sick or broken or been through something completely awful-like losing a limb, or a spouse, or getting blown up in war?

Is it ridiculous that I just want someone to pick us?  They don't even have to give it to us.  I'll buy the darn thing.  Just find it, furnish it, do some crafty and beautiful thing to create space in my house for the kids who live with Jesus and then hand me the keys.
So I can go home. 

And before ANYONE feels the need to remind me that my true home is with Jesus and nothing on this earth can compare, let me remind you that I KNOW THAT.   I spend every day waged in an internal, spiritual battle of epic proportions-because when you have children to die for and children to live for, it's freaking HARD.  But I have to live HERE, in this world for now.  And as much as I do daydream about that day when we're all truly home, together, in the arms of Jesus-
It's not my reality right now.
This is. 

So for now, I'll just spend some time daydreaming that the #propertybrothers are going to show up and fix it.

A broken hearted mama can dream a little, right?