Reunited

I had the great pleasure of returning to my hometown recently for a reunion of the church youth group I grew up in.  I was an awkward, gangly seventh grade girl when we started attending that church and over the next 6 years, my sister and I kept showing up every time the doors opened until I graduated from high school. It was home for me--complete with a family made up not only of my peers, but also a group of adult volunteers who would be a crucial part of 'the village' that raised this child. It's been almost 25 years since I left that safe place to start college.  I went back a few times over the years, but never for very long.  I got married young, at a few days shy of 21years old, and married life followed by kids meant I grew roots elsewhere and let the memories and most of the friendships I had formed there fade into the back of my mind and heart.  Not gone, but buried deep.  It was earlier this summer that one of the girls who had also been a part of the group put feelers out on Facebook to ask if anyone might be interested in a reunion.  I have to think that most people had mixed emotions about reuniting after 25 years.  I can speak from my own experience and say I felt a mixture of excitement, curiosity and nostalgia.  I loved those people and the idea of many of us being all together reminiscing, catching up and reconnecting in a more-than-Facebook kind of way was exciting.   I also felt a healthy dose of fear, anxiety and, at times (keeping it real here), just downright terror.  It's no secret that people want to look like they have somehow fought off gravity at reunions and I am no exception, but my most gripping anxiety stemmed from fear of having to share my story.  It's sad.  Really sad.  And I didn't want to be voted Most Likely To Bring The Entire Reunion Down With Her Sad Life Story (there actually weren't any elections held, but wouldn't that be an awful award to receive?)  I RSVPed anyway and made plans to travel back home with my sister and brother-in-law.  The closer the reunion got, the more anxious I got.  Days before, I was a basket case (in the privacy of my home or for my sister to witness).  I literally began hoping some kind of illness or homeowner's disaster would prevent me from going.  I even considered just not going and letting everyone fill in the blanks of why I canceled however they wanted to.  I got a good pep talk from a few of my closest confidants, reminding me basically that:  1. They would be supporting me and that  2. It was not all about me and that I was not unique in having experienced great pain and loss--after all, it HAD been 25 years-- so I put the whole thing in perspective and made the trip.  Once we walked through the door of the restaurant where the reunion was being held, I felt at ease and at home.  Inwardly, I was so relieved and so thankful to be over the hurdle of just getting there and I was thoroughly enjoying watching and being part of the multiple mini-reunions occurring all over that room.  The youth group was back together again and we all seemed to pick up right where we had left off.  A few people made reference to Dan's death when they greeted me and I appreciated them acknowledging him even if it might have felt uncomfortable or awkward.  Because the venue was reserved for 5 hours, it was possible to really relax and enjoy visiting and eating together.  There was also time to watch a slide show of pictures from way back when and laugh, remembering all the great trips we took together and how much fun we had.  Our youth minister, Mark, got up and was able to capture in words what our journey together so long ago meant to him.  It was a rare and wonderful opportunity for all of us to hear his heart and for us to have confirmed in our own hearts that all of those years were as important to him as they were to us.  It was pretty awesome.  We were now several hours into the evening and the fear had dissipated that I might crumble and cause some kind of scene by crying in public (which is, by the way, MY number one fear--for me, public speaking is cake compared to crying in public).  And just when I had completely let my guard down and thought I had made it through the night unscathed by a surprise grief attack, (insert ominous background music here)...IT happened.  I remember it in slow motion, like in the movies where something so bad is about to happen that it's played in slow-mo with someone always saying, 'NOOOOOO!!!,' while all eyes are on the trauma that is in the process of occurring. Mark wrapped up what he was saying and decided it was a good time to go around the room and have everyone tell what's going on in their lives right now. Gulp. He looked over to our table. Gulp.  He said 'Let's start with that table'.  Double gulp.  THEN he said...to ME....'Why don't YOU start?'.........PANIC! Are you kidding me?!? I am certain I either heard or said the slow-mo 'NOOOOOO!!!!' at this point.  I would love to tell you that I slowly stood up at this point and elegantly gave a moving synopsis of my most recent life events, concluded with an inspirational directive to seize the day, but that was not the case.  Not even close.  What I really did was awkwardly stand up on shaky legs, say 'I live in Fort Worth with my 4 kids' and then I lost it.  Horror of horrors, I started crying!  In public! (Disclaimer: I realize I have issues....I know what everyone would say to me at this point, 'It's ok to cry'--I realize it's OKAY, but I'd prefer not to do it in public.  I would even tell my kids it's okay, just not MY cup of tea). I quickly sat down and fumbled around the table trying to find one of those scratchy napkins to blot my eyes while at the same time, shrinking down to avoid the sympathetic eyes of others.  As much as I wanted to disappear right then, it didn't happen, so I sat there and regained composure ASAP.  Once my head stopped spinning, I saw a friend who had been sitting to my left earlier come back from the bathroom.  He had missed the entire slo-mo saga.  He was pretty puzzled and asked what had happened.  The conversation that ensued was the silver lining of that dark cloud of crying in public.  Because of my crying moment, I was able to start a conversation with this dear friend whom I knew had also suffered the loss of a spouse.  For him, the death had occurred several years earlier and he has been blessed with a loving wife, 2 kids and a new beginning.  I would never have started a conversation with him about our common losses, but I am so very grateful that an awkward moment for me turned into an opportunity to ask him some questions about life after life.  I don't regret crying.  There is only one thing I regret about the reunion and that is that I was not composed enough at that very scary moment to REALLY say what's going on in my life right now.  It might not have been moving or inspirational, but if I had the chance to say it without crying, here's what I might have said:  'I live in Fort Worth with my 4 kids.  They are my world. Although I will admit I am sometimes overwhelmed by the task of raising 4 kids alone, most of the time I embrace it and realize how truly blessed I am to have them.  Over 20 years ago, I met and married the love of my life and his name was Dan.  You guys would have loved him.  He was a great guy and an exceptional daddy and husband.  I miss him so much.  I wish he could have been here for this because he knew how important this group was in my life and how it kinda made me who I am today.   Knowing Dan, in his life and in his dying, also made me who I am today and although I wish he could come back to me, I like who I am today.  I believe that even back when we were kids in this group together, God knew the different parts of life He was preparing all of us for and I also believe he was using the precious experiences we had as a group way back then to prepare us for what we have encountered and what lies ahead, good or bad.  I consider it a privilege to be able to gather in a room with all of you and thank you for the parts you played in God preparing me for life.  This room feels a little like a 'great cloud of witnesses'.  I love you and wish you all the very best in life.  Don't be strangers.  If I don't see you again this side of heaven, we can catch up again there.'

Happy Mother's Day

Mother's Day this year is coming at an interesting time for me.  I say this because I've done so much thinking lately about what kind of mom I am.  I thought I had emerged from a fog months ago and even blogged about it, but after having come through the first year, I think it's only now I feel I really am seeing things a little more clearly and I'm able to honestly evaluate my parenting over this last year. Overall, I am giving myself some grace and saying that, given the circumstances, I did okay.  Basically, our ship sank and I was getting my kids into the life boat, intending to assess our situation once I could get myself into the boat.  I have been a mom for almost 16 years now and I would like to think I've grown in that time, but I am more aware after this year of how much growing I have to do.  When my oldest was a toddler, someone I really respected told me I should have lots of kids because I was doing such a good job--oh SURE, who couldn't do a good job with one very low maintenance girl with a sweet, cooperative temperament (so much like her Daddy).  I now realize she was just born that way and allowed me to pretend that she needed me to parent her (wink wink). I had twin boys and a singleton boy after my girl and although I love them with all my heart and they are good boys, it took all we had to outwit, outplay and outlast those guys.  IT WAS HARD!  As our family grew, my confidence as a parent shrank. With 4 different personalities developing (added to the 2 adult personalities already present in our home), parenting did not seem like so much of a slam dunk anymore.  As medical issues and autism crept into our lives, I knew for a fact that I did NOT have this all figured out.  I WILL give the Dan & Linda parenting team some props because I think we did pretty well considering what a full parenting plate we had.  We were a united front and truly worked together to give our kids the parents they needed.  We had our individual weaknesses, but where one would begin to fail, the other would step in and take over.  It was a well oiled machine for the most part with Christ at the center of it all because we knew we could do none of it without Him.  Obviously, since Dan died, I am left here with the responsibility of finishing this colossal task of raising our kids.  I am indescribably blessed with family who live minutes away to help me and they are the most amazing people--I have asked for so much help from them this year and they have gone out of their way to be there for me and for the kids.  They are a priceless treasure in our lives.  However, the parenting buck stops with me and at this point in our family's journey, I am now forced to reinvent myself as a parent.  This parenting solo thing has been one of the biggest adjustments in this first year without Dan.  Even on my best days of parenting alongside Dan, I realize now that I always had a back-up and I operated as only half of the parenting machine--in fact, Dan was such a great dad that I sometimes wonder if I was even half!  Being both parents is  E X H A U S T I N G.  No good cop for my bad cop--I have to figure out how to be both.  No one there when I'm at my wits' end to say "I'll take it from here, go take a break.". Maybe some people never have that, but I did.  I am sad to think of the impatience and frustration my kids have witnessed from me while I figure this single parenting thing out...sad to think of the times I have clung to control of my out of control environment at the expense of grace for 4 sweet kids who are feeling just as out of control as I am...sad to think of the opportunities I have given up to experience simple pleasures with my kids like a board game or a silly tv show or a lame knock knock joke because I had to keep the household running smoothly...no more.  No more dwelling on what I could have done better because I was, for the most part, doing the best I could.  No more feeling overwhelmed by single parenting.  I am ready to move forward, humbly.  I never was a perfect parent and neither was Dan--even with both of us here, we messed up sometimes.  I am thankful that through losing Dan, God is showing me weaknesses I don't think I would have ever seen otherwise.  If I can't see my weaknesses, I can't get stronger.  Most importantly, I want to show my kids that my weaknesses are perfect opportunities to let God carry me and grow me up.  That seems a little contradictory, but it's when we are empty that He can fill us up. So we've kept the life boat afloat for a year and now we're approaching dry land.  I am certain I have not made my last parenting mistake, but maybe I can make fewer and keep learning from the ones I do make.  Happy Mother's Day to all of the wonderful, imperfect, evolving moms I know! 

Big Tex, The Holidays and Spring

Ok, I will come right out and admit that the title of this post is all over the place.  All you type A's just stay with me and it will all fit together in a fairly neat package. It's just that I haven't posted in so long that alot has happened.   When I sat down to write this, I found a half-written post that I had started back in October when the State Fair of Texas was in full swing.  It has been almost six months since then, but I know why I never finished that post.  FIRSTS. I was overwhelmed with FIRSTS to the point that I really didn't have it in me to blog - only survive. Starting with the first State Fair any of us would attend without Dan, October kicked off a relentless series of FIRSTS.  The list continued with the standard firsts...Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's....it continued with our wedding anniversary on January 4th and my birthday on January 15th.  By the time February 8th rolled around (1 year since he died) I felt exhausted. I also felt relieved that we had survived all the FIRSTS.   I should offer a little explanation as to why Big Tex and The State Fair would even be considered significant and ranked among the other obvious FIRSTS.  I mean, it's a hot, crowded, expensive, smelly event with gross fried stuff everywhere and people pressuring you to buy a ShamWow or a hot tub or something else you never knew you needed until you got there, right?  Not for Dan! I will never understand the spell Big Tex had on Dan, but that man LOVED The Great State Fair of Texas. He had gone every year for as long as he could remember and he had seen every show and knew where everything was and it NEVER got old for him.  You could not go to The Fair with Dan and not enjoy yourself.  He was like a big kid there and once he had his own kids to take to The Fair, it was like a Lion King circle of life moment for him!  Really.  Not even kidding.  I must say it was kind of fitting that Big Tex burned down the year Dan died.  Almost like a tribute to the most dedicated fan The Fair had ever seen.  Dan had already been diagnosed when he took the kids to The Fair in 2011.  I couldn't go with them because I was working that day...regret...but I remember him being very emotional when they got home that evening.  He said it was the last time he'd be able to take the kids or go to The Fair himself.  I had hoped he was wrong, but, of course, he wasn't.   When The Fair rolled around in 2012, I felt the pressure to continue the tradition and take the kids myself.  I got all psyched up to brave it without Dan.  I was getting so stressed about it and I told myself it was because of the long drive and then parking and crowds and the expense of it and etc.,etc.,etc.  When I finally confided in a few dear friends about my near panic attack about The Fair, it hit me. I wasn't afraid or stressed out about the logistics of The Fair, I was afraid I could never make it the experience Dan had made it.  I knew my attempt to do The Fair would pale in comparison and I knew it would only make me miss him more.  I pictured myself walking around The Fair with the kids, trying not to cry, wishing Dan could be there with us.  Just the kind of Fair day every kid dreams of, right?  Then, one of my very wise friends said, "Who says you have to go to The Fair?"  Best. Advice. Ever.  Seriously - the thought that I was not REQUIRED to go to The Fair was so freeing.  I realized at that point that I could not possibly BE Dan.  I want to keep his memory so alive for the kids and for myself, but I am not required to BE Dan.  In fact, I can't.  I just have to be me and some of the great memories will be just that...memories.  We did not go to The Fair this time.  We survived.   That realization helped me through the holidays and all of the other FIRSTS as well.  They were hard, but not because I was putting ridiculous expectations on myself to make them wonderful.  I allowed them to flow naturally instead of trying to force them into being the almost perfect holidays minus Dan.  They were not perfect, but I found some sweet moments in all of them and learned the anticipation of them was sometimes worse than the actual FIRST. Now, jump forward and Spring is here again.  It has always been my favorite season, but I like it even more now.  It will always follow the hardest part of the year and it will always remind me that Winter does not last forever.

My Need To Over-Inform

It is no surprise to me or probably anyone else that I am experiencing a bit of an identity crisis.  Actually, I think crisis is not the right word...I'm not in immediate distress or panicking about it.  Maybe an identity inventory? An identity evaluation? Identity adjustment? I have a pretty good handle on who I am, but I am working on how exactly I fit into the world now.  Right after Dan died, I knew my title: Widow.  It sounded very strange at first and I was sure I was too young to be a widow.  However, it was one word that explained so much.  It almost wasn't even necessary to use that word because I was surrounded by familiar, close friends and family who knew exactly what had just happened and to them I was just me.  I have met new people since Dan died like my counselor or the other parents at The Warm Place (an awesome grief support center for kids) or people in Griefshare, but there's not a lot of explanation required there either.  New people are coming into my life now who never even knew Dan or what has happened and I am realizing my deep seated need to give them a clear picture of who I am.  Not just who I am NOW (single mom of four), but who I have been for the last 20 years (mom of 4, happily married to father of aforementioned children until his untimely death just months ago).  Let me describe for you what might possibly be the most awkward introduction I have ever made of myself.  We have new neighbors across the street who just moved here from North Carolina.  I noticed some activity going on over there after the house had been vacant for a couple of months, and it became obvious we were getting new neighbors.  I could see out my window some little kids and a young mom and dad walking in and out of the house, weaving through boxes and starting to get settled in.  When it seemed like a good time, I walked out to check the mail and waved to say hello.  The dad was the only one outside at the time and I approached their house to introduce myself.  We stopped in the middle of the street and I shook his hand, told him my name, got his name, asked about his kids and then (here it is) proceeded to tell him it was just me and my kids in our household because my husband had died 6 months before.  Poor new neighbor guy.  What was he supposed to do with that? Then his wife came out, got the same smile, handshake and uncomfortable info I had just given her husband.  These poor, poor people.  Some welcoming committee I am.  Fortunately, they are very sweet people and both said 'I'm sorry' and have since become my friends in a very short time.  I've even apologized to the wife for laying that on them in the middle of the road while meeting for the first time, but she assures me they did not consider re-packing the moving truck in search of a neighborhood with less open neighbors. We all went to the high school football game a couple of weeks ago and one of their daughters, a five year old, asked me why my daddy wasn't at the game.  I figured out that she meant my husband and I just told her that he had already gone to heaven.  She was a little confused, so I told her he was really sick and God took him home to heaven, but brought new friends into our lives, like her family, to help us.  This answer satisfied her, so she hasn't asked about it anymore.  I also started a new part-time job recently working with kids.  One of the first questions I was asked on the first day was "Are you married?" I answered without thinking with an immediate "Yes".  Then it hit me and I began to try to explain, "Well, I am, but my...um...my husband died...and so, I, uh, well...". I also corrected someone who called me MISS Smith instead of MRS. Smith and then realized I wasn't even sure what it was supposed to be....is it MS. Smith? How about The Speech Therapist Formerly Known as Mrs. Smith? Like I said, I have a need to be known and I guess I am not in a place yet where I don't care if people know how I got to where I am.  The thought of my new neighbors 'filling in the blanks' on my life without painfully accurate information would have driven me crazy. I'm not sure what that says about me, but I'm going with it for now.  I apologize in advance to the unsuspecting strangers who will be victims of my need to over-inform and I want to thank, in advance, those who stick around to see how it all turns out.

God And The Elephant

Although I've made reference to God in some of my previous posts, I thought it might be time to be really honest about where I am with Him right now.  I can't imagine that any death occurs without questions about and for God from those left behind.  I think we like to ignore our mortality to some extent, but death is the elephant in the room that tramples us into the awareness that we don't live forever.  I also think it's nice to feel like we have God all figured out and it's unsettling to realize we don't necessarily know Him as completely as we thought we did - even more unsettling (especially for us Type A types) when we realize we can never understand Him fully in this life.  It has a way of exposing the deepest recesses of our souls to bare what we truly believe and sheds light on inconsistencies in what we say we believe vs. what we believe when our world seems to be falling apart.  Sorry...I'm not trying to get all philosophical on you...I'll let you have your own questions (or not have any) and I'll just stick to where I am.  I have to start by saying that I don't believe that God has changed or moved away from me or punished me in any way in all of this.  I believe that God is good, all the time.  I still believe God is in control.  I still believe He loves me and my kids and has a plan for us.  I believe that because I am human and fallible that I can't be good enough on my own to have a relationship with God, but that Christ made that possible when He died on the cross in my place and for my sin - that's God's grace.  I believe that God can and will use this for our good.  I believe God sees, feels and understands my heartache in losing Dan and that He holds every tear I have cried and continues to hold me.  I believe that God's ways and thoughts are higher (way, WAY higher) than mine and that although I don't understand why He allowed Dan to die when and how He did, He can be trusted.  God illustrated this for me recently with a memory of one of my children from several years ago.  One of my twin boys was pretty sickly at birth.  They came about 6 weeks early and this little guy only weighed 2 lbs., 8 oz.  Feeding was a major challenge for him and he could not seem to gain weight despite Herculean efforts.  This struggle continued his first two years of life (which seemed like an eternity!) to the point where he was considered malnourished and needed some pretty drastic intervention.  It was then decided that he would have surgery to place a device called a g-button in his belly so that we could tube feed him and not depend on his ability or willingness to eat for his growth and health.  Although this basically saved his life, it was a painful ordeal for him and a challenge for all of us.  I won't go into detail here, but suffice it to say that kid went through so much - he's a fighter.  He had that feeding tube in for  t-w-o  l-o-n-g  y-e-a-r-s.  God brought the memory of all of this to my mind recently to illustrate, for my limited brain, the inability I have to fully understand all of the WHYs.  My child experienced a lot of pain which, ultimately, made him healthier - probably saved his life - it was for his good.  During all of it, his perspective was not what mine was.  I could have tried to make him grasp the big picture until I was blue in the face, but he was only two years old and although he trusted us to take care of him, he would not, with his limited perspective, have chosen that path for himself.  I might as well be a two year old when it comes to understanding why God let Dan die.  It hurts and I don't like it or understand it.  But I believe that His love for me is immense and that He can see the big picture.  Let me be very clear that I struggle often, even though I trust Him.  For weeks and even months after Dan died I felt so hurt by God and confused by what He was doing.  I didn't even pray.  Not because I was mad at God, but I had no idea what to say to Him. I felt like what was done was done and what could I say at that point? I was in spiritual shock.  I never stopped believing in God or that He was sovereign, but I felt so hurt.  I still struggle with prayer sometimes - understanding what God wants from me in prayer and what He does when I pray.  One thing I know is that I am supposed to pray.  Period.  So I do pray and I will keep on praying and searching for answers and for as much of God as I can comprehend while He has me here.  I want to have it all figured out because I am a prideful, imperfect perfectionist, but that's not how it works.  I will resign myself to being a child, striving to be childlike in my faith and obedience...childish and immature at times, but still a child. His child.

When I'm 64

In a few days, it will be 6 months since we saw Dan for the last time on this side of Heaven.  I started writing this when it had been 5 months, but summer consumed all of us around here with enough activities to suspend reality temporarily.  6 months is not a very long time in the grand scheme of things, but it can feel like an eternity.  I always think of it terms of if he were alive - before all of this, if Dan had said he would be gone for 6 months and we could have absolutely no contact with him....it would be excruciating...and, at times, it is.  Late spring and summer were full of those dreaded 'firsts' without him...Mother's Day, my daughter's 15th birthday, Father's Day, Dan's birthday, our youngest son's 9th birthday...all within the span of about 6 weeks.  We also took a trip to Colorado that Dan would've loved.   As one of our excursions, we somehow managed to get 12 people (that's counting friends and family who were part of our group) up and down what seemed like Mt. Everest.  It was actually only a small portion of a beautiful mountain in Colorado, but the round trip was over 6 miles (mountain miles!)  Let me tell you that it was not an easy hike, especially with my 4 kids.  They were troopers, though, and I know Dan would have been so proud to see them accomplish such a feat.  Here's my secret about the trip....I had brought Dan's ashes to Colorado with the intent to spread them on our hike at a place called Blue Lake.  It was the endpoint of our hike up the mountain and my friends who are familiar with the area and have visited several times said it was like a postcard. After seeing it, I'd have to agree.  I had been trying to decide what to do with his ashes and thought that taking them to a beautiful place that he would've loved would be a fitting tribute.  The day before the hike, my sister and I were riding in the car, listening to a mix CD that Dan had made.  The song 'When I'm 64' by the Beatles came on and I lost it.  It made me miss Dan so much and it reminded me that we will not grow older together.  He will always be 40.  My sister wisely suggested that maybe it just wasn't time yet to say goodbye in that way.  I was not ready even though I thought I was.  The longer he's gone, the tighter I want to hold on.  It might be hard for some to understand, but I think when the one you love is suffering and dies, among all of the initial emotions is a tiny bit of relief that their pain is over.  For me, that feeling is being incrementally replaced with wishing he was still here, realizing more and more what he will not be here for.  However, even as I write that, I'm reminded that none of us knows what we will be here for.  I think my task is to be right here, right now, right where God has me.  I'll figure out,in time, what to do with these ashes and these memories and these feelings.  God knows what I'll be doing when I'm 64....

In Their Heads

Would you like to know how my kids are doing? Most people would.  It's usually the question that follows 'How are you?'  The truth is that I would like to know how they're doing, too.  I wish I could spend a day or two in each one of their heads and really see what they're thinking....how they feel.  Sure, we talk and spend lots of time together, but I want to see all of this from their perspective.  They seem alright, but are they? Really?  When my youngest seems more angry than I've ever seen him over something that does not seem to warrant that kind of anger, is he thinking about why he's so angry? Can he even connect those dots between the out of control feelings he's having and the loss of his Daddy?  When one of the twins comes unglued because our schedule has changed and no one told him, does he think about how everything in his life changed just a few months ago and he has no control over that either?  When I attended all of those end of the school year award ceremonies, recitals and concerts, did my daughter think about last year's events when her Daddy was around to cheer her on?  When they have to endure the parenting moments I am not proud of, when I am not parenting with 'Love and Logic' but with fear and desperation, do they long for the balance their daddy brought to our parenting....do they wish I was more like him....or that I was him?  I don't know.  I do know this: we all love each other and there are still happy times.  Not exactly those 'all is right with the world' kinds of times, but pretty good.  One of my children (whose name will be withheld to protect the not so innocent) has told me some lies lately.  Mostly lies to get out of doing stuff he doesn't want to do (like shower or brush his teeth....boys), but lies are lies and I have a zero tolerance policy for lying.  I explained to him that when he lies I don't trust him and if I don't trust him, I need to keep my eye on him all the time, so he spent his entire day shadowing me.  Not in his plans to follow me around - cleaning bathrooms, folding laundry, loading the dishwasher, organizing my closet (I was way more productive than usual with my little shadow).  This was an interesting day for both of us - I thought it might be punishment for me, but in between the short lived pity parties he would throw for himself, I think we both sort of enjoyed being together all day.  Now don't get me wrong, he was very clear that he had other plans which were being ruined, but when he intermittently forgot about those big plans, he did things like offer to help me with whatever I was doing or chatted about things he would think of - we even found some old pictures in my closet of a vacation we took to Florida and sat in the floor of my closet looking at each one...by the end of them, we had the other 2 brothers in my closet, too.  Before you start thinking 'He's enjoying this 'discipline' a little too much', let me tell you that the clincher was when his aunt called to take the kids out for ice cream and (gasp) I said I needed him to stay with me because that was the consequence of his choice to lie to me...my mantra was 'lying leads to lack of trust which leads to lack of freedom'.  This was, of course, devastating and 'unfair' in his eyes.  Watching the others leave to have ice cream resulted in a flood of tears, anger, another long talk about lying, remorse and finally an unsolicited and sincere apology for lying accompanied by a better attitude (for the most part).  He was still anxious for his freedom and was surprised when the others returned that his sentence was not over - I had told him it was for the full day and I was sticking to it.  At bedtime, I needed to sever my new appendage, so I asked where he wanted to sleep (meaning on the couch with his brothers to watch a movie or in his own bed).  He hesitated answering and just shrugged his shoulders.  Although he never sleeps in my room, something made me ask if he wanted to sleep there (very unlikely I thought since I was offering him his first taste of freedom in 12 hours).  A huge smile spread across his face and he nodded enthusiastically.  So here he is, right by my side, reading his own book while I write about him.  I guess at the end of the day the most important thing I have to remember is that we all love each other and we miss Dan but we are still a family.  No matter how hard things get, we want to be together - that makes me feel pretty content.