May 12

I've spent the last hour trying to figure out how I feel about today, my eighth Mother's Day since Logan passed on. It wasn't a sad day, but I wouldn't call it a happy one, either. It was a day of MOM-lettered pancakes and amusing gifts and church and the cemetery and two loops around the Sports Park and an afternoon nap and dinner at CPK with a strawberry margarita that didn't leave me even the slightest bit tipsy. (And if you know me, you know that last bit is nothing short of miraculous.) It was all of those things.

And it was all of those things because of these people, these three young ones and the fourth represented by his precious Lambie. These people who made me a mother and a better person by pushing and challenging and aggravating and restoring and loving and encouraging me every single day for the past 14-plus years.

Yep, being a mother has broken me in ways I never imagined possible, but it's also given me a joy I can't explain. I'm stronger and weaker all at once; keenly aware of how much I need a Savior to carry me when the road is impossibly rutted and I can no longer navigate it on my own, but also aware that I can channel pain into positivity. That I can weather the harder days with the knowledge that good days will surely follow.

So after thinking it over more, I'd call today a peaceful day. A nice day. And a day for which I'm thankful for the five --including Adam, of course-- biggest blessings in my life.