It is that time of year again. The time where birthdays, Mother's Day, and anniversaries converge and the feelings get extra big. To be honest, part of me has wanted to just escape from the feelings and the grief. To dive into the busyness of life and ignore it all. The feelings seem too big and too heavy, and yet all I want to do is remember every little moment. I've promised myself that as I remembered little stories of my mom and me together I would write them out and create a memoir of sorts. To soak in the love, the joy, and the sorrow. I haven't been nearly as good at following through with my promise to myself as I wish I was, but for tonight, I am here. 

We are planning a trip this summer to scatter my mom's ashes in the mountains - her favorite place in all the world. My emotions are all over the place when I think about it. It turns out that she has shared her love for the mountains and planted it deeply within my soul. Her favorite place in all the world is also now mine. I cannot wait to go there and wake up in the morning to the crisp mountain air, listen to the river bubble on by and see the majestic mountains. At the same time I wonder if I will love it as much without her there. And I don't know how I will leave her there when it is time to come back home. 

In 2019, shortly before she died we took a gigantic 17 day trip that we called our planes, trains and automobiles trip. It included seeing 100 family members and traveling all over the western United States. We knew that this would be the last big trip like this with Mom, and we were soaking up every minute. It was the bucket list trip of all time and felt practically enchanted. We saw all the typically elusive animals you ever hope to see in the wild, including black bears, grizzly bears, mountain goats, moose, elk, deer, bison and whales! Can you believe we saw whales??? It was amazing! 

As we were on our final leg of the trip and headed back home we found a last minute AirBnb in Thermopolis, Wyoming. While most of the trip had been planned down to the tiniest detail, complete with a laminated itinerary, this was one reservation that had not been made. We weren't sure how far we would travel that day, and figured we would just find a place along the way. As we started making our way back south we realized that we could probably make it to "Thermop" as mom called it, and the reservation worked out perfectly. You never know what you will get when you book an AirBnb exactly, but when we arrived we found a beautiful old west log cabin - something straight out of the wild west, except with a beautifully renovated kitchen and indoor bathrooms instead of outhouses. The cabin had the chinking between the logs, antique furnishings, handmade quilts and everything about it spoke of peace and rest. Even though it was fairly late when we got in, we all sat down to watch a movie together. None of us had seen the new Beauty and the Beast, so we cozied up together to just enjoy. We had been together with so many family members over the days we had been gone, but at that moment it was just us. After years of caring for mom in our home and being together so much, it was a perfect moment and the movie was beautiful. I cannot hear this song or watch this movie without thinking about mom and that moment snuggled up in that cabin.