I’ve had a difficult, emotional week. For a couple of reasons.

First, one I’ve already written enough about, but feel like writing more about. Rachel starting middle school. So far so good on the middle school front. Last night, I went to 6th grade open house to meet her teachers. I knew several of them already because she is on the same team Lauren was on in 6th grade, so she has some of the same teachers Lauren had. She also has the same band teacher that Brandon had, and who is Lauren’s jazz band director.

Rachel proudly showed me how quickly she can open her locker. All summer, whenever she would talk about middle school, that was the thing she was most worried about…being able to remember her locker combination!

In true Rachel “little miss social” fashion, teachers who weren’t hers and parents of kids I had never seen before were saying “Hi Rachel!” in the hallways as we moved from room to room. That shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did…I remember going to her kindergarten open house and being completely amazed at all of the teachers and even older kids who seemed to know her.

She wants to join some clubs…too many, actually, which again, shouldn’t surprise me at all…yesterday, she brought home a pamphlet with all of the clubs and their descriptions, and she had drawn little stars by the ones she wants to join…Clarinet Choir, Intramurals, Yearbook Staff, Computer Club, and Stream Team. I told her she can’t do them all and she doesn’t understand why.

The funniest thing about last night was the reaction I got from a few of her teachers. Even teachers who Brandon, Justin and Lauren didn’t have knew who they were, and Rachel is so very different from her siblings. And her teachers have already quickly figured that out in only 3 days!

So all in all, it’s been a good week for her, and some of my fears about her being in middle school are alleviated maybe a tiny little bit. I was still amazed at so many of the girls and how much older they seem than Rachel. Maybe that is only MY distorted perception since it is hard for me to think of Rachel as anything but “my baby.” I did leave there wondering how many days it will take her to ask me if she can wear make up though!

Okay, so on to my next emotional “thing.” I will preface this by saying that for some reason, Aunt Mary has been on my mind so often this summer. I had my little “breakdown” that I always have on Rachel’s birthday, and that must have triggered it, but I usually quickly get over it and move on. Maybe it didn’t help that just a week after that, we went to Olney, and it’s impossible for me to go to Olney and not spend nearly every minute I’m there thinking of her. But still, it hasn’t ended. I think she has been on my mind more this summer than she ever has been in the 7 1/2 years since she died. All summer, I’ve felt sort of melancholy about it, and wondered why, but that’s about as far as it went. Just wondering.

Then, on Wednesday, I went to Cathi’s sister’s funeral. It was very sad, and I felt so bad for Cathi. And every time the priest or reader would say what song we would sing next, I thought “Please don’t let it be ‘How Great Thou Art.’”

I love that song, but so did Aunt Mary…it was her favorite. It was played at Uncle Dan’s funeral, and again at her funeral…at the end when the family was walking out of the church. A year later, when I went to Aunt Marion’s funeral, it was played again. I’m ashamed to say I haven’t gone to church in a very long time, and Aunt Marion’s funeral was the last time I heard “How Great Thou Art.”

For some reason, I had a feeling on Wednesday that it was coming. Probably since it’s a common song at a Catholic funeral. I knew I would have a hard time hearing it. And I did.

As soon as I heard the first notes from the organ, I knew the tears would come and I wouldn’t be able to stop them. I normally enjoy singing in church. I don’t have much of a singing voice, but I like to sing, and I have always figured in church, it doesn’t matter if you aren’t all that great at singing because you blend in with everyone else, and no one notices that you really suck at singing. I didn’t sing at this funeral though because I forgot my glasses so I couldn’t read the words in the hymnal, and they were all unfamiliar to me.

Normally, I can sing all of the many verses of “How Great Thou Art” without the aid of a hymnal, but I couldn’t do it. I tried, but I couldn’t sing through my tears.

At the funeral, I sat with Deb and Stephanie and five ladies from the Angel Ball committee. I know they had to be wondering why I was crying so much, when I barely knew Cathi’s sister. No one asked me, but I was sort of wishing afterwards that they would have. It would have been nice to share my feelings about my dear Aunt Mary with them. Sigh…

Last night, I went into Rachel’s room to tuck her in, and noticed that a bedspread that Aunt Mary made was on her bed. Last fall, I painted and redecorated her bedroom and she has a new bedspread. But I also have a cross stitched quilt that Aunt Mary made that matches her bedroom. She switches quilts every once in awhile. Sometimes, the quilt I bought her is on her bed, sometimes, Aunt Mary’s quilt is. She hasn’t had Aunt Mary’s quilt on her bed in several months, probably since winter, so seeing it last night…kind of a shock. I wanted to ask her what made her get it out of the linen closet again, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.

A month or so ago, I wrote a post on the Share blog about the potholes of grief. About how you can just be tooling along in life, when suddenly, out of the blue grief hits. It may be a small pothole that only jars you for a brief moment, or it can be a larger one, that really jolts you and takes you a while to recover from. I wrote about how that often happens to me in my work at Share, and that when I once shared it with Cathi, she told me that it is my babies way of making sure that I was thinking of them.

I’ve been thinking of that a lot the past few days…wondering if Aunt Mary just wanted me to be thinking of her this summer for some reason. I don’t know what that reason would be. It’s been hard the past few months having her on my mind so much, yet at the same time, comforting. Comforting because I know she is still with me, in my heart, and she always will be. I guess I’ve hit a pothole. A big one, that has really jolted me.

I miss her. I know that I always will. And I hope that she knows that.