February 23

On February 23, 1998- I lost my mother-in-law, Felicitas Guevara. It was a sudden, traumatic event. One that I don't remember at all. Not because I have repressed it, not because I have moved on in life, but because I have never met her. I have been thinking lately about how this specific date perplexes me.

the reminder is heavy now- March 6th- Fe's birthday.

It is a weird situation to have never known your second mother. To interact and intimately know her child, to be ONE with her child, yet never have seen her walk or smile. To call her family my family, yet never have heard her talk or laugh. Crap, I drive/own her CRV. I am so close to everything that was important to her, yet not close to her. I don't know how to react when I see family pictures and see her- she is a foreigner to me. My eyes stay fixed on her. Studying her every fearture- something that I feel everyone else wants to do but doesn't.

But as I look through those pictures more and more, and I see Erin and Alex navigate through life, I gain a better picture of who she was. She becomes more familar to me. She becomes my mom. The woman who has shown my wife how to act in public, how to brush her teeth in a circular motion, and how to make amazing pancakes. The most basic things in life, the ones that I enjoy experiencing the most with erin, mom taught her.

God has been so good to Erin. Her mother died nine years ago. I came into her life only six months after her mother's death. As one prominent figure in her life left, God filled that void with another, me. He doesn't always do that. And my presence certainly doesn't cover up pain or lonliness that e. has experienced. But I am so glad that God put me in this place. I am beginning to see the fruits of His work. How He drew Erin and myself to Him, to know Him, our Salvation. How he answered our prayer of Dad (Jim) meeting another woman, he married in 2002. How my own mother wants so much to be a great mom to e. How He has made me realize that God is not a santa in the sky - only giving us what we want because we deserve it. Light can illuminate an otherwise utterly dark path. He shown me the pain of life and also the goodness of Himself. I respect e. so much for what she has gone through. She lost her mother. and the more I grow with e, the more I realize that I lost my mother too.

To quote good ole Chaplin Bill:
"Life sucks but God is good, life really sucks but God is really good.