It’s 24 degrees in the laceName w:st="on">MotorlaceName> laceType w:st="on">CitylaceType>. The sun is shining, a rare occasion during these dreary Michigan winters and I squint. Wore those glasses so I could see this morning in favor of the shades. Silly me, clarity of street signs matters little when the blinding glare makes it impossible to see the car in front of you. The wind is that kind of icy cold that makes you wish you could bundle up in full ski gear ...

It’s slow, like the days when sleep has eluded for hours and your waking precludes the dawn as you watch the room slowly, oh so slowly welcome the morn.

There are steps and leaps, but none of the slingshot that has plagued me these last few months. The high looks lower, and I am still climbing. It’s a relief to skip that stomach dropping lurch to the top, even though the view is so ...

It’s funny in the worst, most awful way how the stark obvious can elude the person who is most ripe for the observance. We easily point it out in the silliness of life like the out of shape athletic trainer or the hairdresser with the bed head but when it is us, well, when it is us perhaps we gain an ounce of perspective on how things that should be seen aren’t always, if at all.

Sometimes it’s easy to come here and share life with you – and sometimes, well, I’m too busy living it. I truly hope that Joel’s legacy has become one of finding the gratitude and joy in every moment we’re given. That is what it has morphed into for me, and I can only hope that somehow in this space that is what I have passed on to all of you.

So ...

I have determined that gratitude is about as steady as a house of cards on a four legged table with three legs propped up by soda cans in the middle of a room of 2 year olds. Sometimes it feels like I spend more time setting everything back up than it does standing. And sometimes it is so simple, like if we sent the kids outside for ice cream and no one’s around, everything stands firm and level and there is ...

One of the most beautiful gifts my son gave me was this gaping open hole in my heart. Sounds all wrong, doesn’t it?

I have always had some capacity for empathy and sympathy. I have sat with friends who mourn, hugged those in need, and cried with the broken hearted. But I never lived through tragedy. I never knew how it felt to have the precious ripped from my life.

I’ve been struggling to write about what happened this weekend because SO MANY things happened this weekend. Those of you who have been reading a while also know that I fluctuate between writing styles quite often, and I keep getting pulled to several different ones to describe the duality of Cupcake ’10.

I finally figured out that trying to make it all work in one post was just silly, like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. You’ll get several takes on Cupcake ’10 from me; this is just the first one that demanded out of my swirling mind.

The snow is deep along the highway and its luminescence delays the dark. Dusk is extended as the miles roll past and I sit and listen to a previously unheard song.

“No amount of coffee, no amount of crying
No amount of whiskey, no amount of wine
No no no no no, nothing else will do
I've gotta have you, I've gotta have you.”*

And at that very moment I am missing my son and my husband so much the gaping hole in my torso could absorb all the Midwest. But I look at the women in the front seat and I think of them too. Because over the past thirty-six hours it has been so clearly shown to me that there is but one. But one Beth, and but one Sarah, but one Donya and but one Erin, but one Stephanie and but one of each of the women who filled the room and spilled their hearts when asked why they do what they do.

I am surviving this new life of mine because of weekends like this one. And just how the song references the fact that substitutes won’t work, these particular women are just the ones I had to have to make this journey survivable. So many remarkable people have shaped me and held me and shown up just when I thought I was alone. Every single one of them deserves credit for my survival, and more just keep coming. For many years I have been surrounded by friends of extraordinary caliber, women and men whose character stuns and whose lives inspire. Somehow, in the face of the death of my son, this astonishing legacy continues.

First I wrote to request prayer, to update the beautiful masses. Then I wrote to thank. Then I wrote for clarity. Then I wrote to spill out the toxic mess that threatened to overrun my heart. I couldn’t stop, so I kept on writing to the faceless internet, an addict with a fix aimed toward a few faithful souls.

But something happened to me that happened to every woman who filled my short weekend with such awe and joy. I stuck a single tentative finger into the amorphous mass known as the blogosphere and left a comment there. And then there and there and there, because I had begun to understand what encouragement those few sentences offer.  And even though I was broken, I knew that there was no hope in this life like hope offered to others.

And in a flood of the things that make up the best of women that nebulous mass started rolling it all back to me. In snippets of hope and encouragement, in 140 characters or less, or in one writer spurring on another, just the right women somehow appeared in my life and worked on my grief like a potter at a wheel, never leaving me dry or alone, always with a finger where I needed it, or a steady foot on the pedal.

Sitting in this dark minivan, tired and wishing I’d eaten less candy and more vegetables, it feels like the past few days are somehow the culmination of that miracle. That in the great big world of bloggers somehow just the right women, were in just the right place, to make just the right magic where we believe in what we do, and who we are. Where it was ok to come to breakfast with no makeup and eat a cupcake without apology. Where you don’t make excuses for your blog, and you can say that you aren’t sure if you should blog anymore at all. Where you can admit that validation matters and sometimes you want to give up.

Since Joel social events are extremely difficult, my anxiety is very difficult to control and I rarely know how much I will be able to handle ahead of time. I chose to attend Cupcake ’10 because I knew I would be in the presence of people who would never ask anything more of me than what I could be at that very moment. I can’t think of a bigger testimony to the beauty of these women than simply to tell you I was right.

*The Weepies, “Gotta Have You”

My mind is saying blog, blog, BLOG!

And my body is saying sleep, sleep, SLEEP!

And my life is saying work, work, WORK!

And my super cute doggie is saying snuggle, snuggle, SNUGGLE!

I think snuggling and sleep go together the best so I plan to do both in an effort to knock ...

It is dark, very dark outside and will be for a few more hours. He asks if he may turn on the light and the news and I nod, I won’t be sleeping either. Just a few minutes ago my eyes fluttered open and I lay perfectly still as I do every morning while they adjust to the dark and I figure out where I am. My extensive travel of late has formed this habit, and it is priceless, many a ...

I didn’t take many pictures this holiday season. Truth be told I didn’t really participate much at all this Christmas. Someday soon I hope to describe to you the myriad of emotions that stirred through my heart these last few weeks, it has been chaotic and difficult, to say the least.

But I still love the season even if I stood on the sideline this year merely toeing the line, so when Leo got home ...