Home is where the heart is

All the states we've lived in since being married--Utah, Oklahoma, Ohio, and Colorado

I saw these prints on Pinterest and thought it would be fun to print out all the places we'd been in the last eight years.

Four.

That's how many states we've lived in in eight years.  I had babies in three of them and we've had six homes.  That's a lot.   They all seem like home to me.  Mostly, I'm sure they feel like home because the people we love still reside there and I think the statement, "Home is where the heart is" is a pretty accurate statement.  My heart is in many places, with many people.


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Laila died exactly seven months ago.  It's pretty hard to believe it's been that long and it also feels like the longest seven months--like time has just stopped.

It used to be that I felt heaven, spirits, the premortal and postmortal existence was so abstract.  Of course I believed it all.  I'd heard all the quotes about how spirits are really just here around us but unseen.  I understood that we were spirits before and anxiously awaited coming to earth to be tested and that one day we would return to the spirit world.  I believed it but it just seemed so far off, and almost like a side note.  I almost felt as though this mortal life was the real life--the really important part of our existence.

Now my perception is altered and I almost feel as though this life is the unimportant part.  It just seems like an essential, but somewhat painful, step to getting what you really want.  Like getting braces on your teeth so you can have perfectly straight teeth.  Or (for those of us with unlucky genetics) like hours of exercise and abstaining from delicious sugary goodness just so you can have the healthy body you've always dreamed of.

Am I really comparing straight teeth and a healthy body to eternal happiness?  Well, I guess it's not a perfect analogy but it gets the point across.

I don't mean this in any suicidal way but sometimes I just wish this life would hurry up already so I could get on to the real task of living with my family forever.

All of them.

I know this life is essential and truthfully, if I was given the choice to end this mortal journey early or stay here I'd choose to stay here.  I don't want to leave the boys or Mike.  I'm here for the long haul (hopefully that means I'll live a full, long life).  It's just that honestly, I almost feel like a stranger in a strange land and I think it will feel that way until I get home.

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My heart is in two places--here with my boys and in heaven with Laila.  I can't wait until all of my heart can be in the same place.

It's nice that now with the advances in modern technology, I can pick up my phone and be just a dial away from from hearing from the friends and family I've left behind with all our moves.  Unfortunately, feeling close to Laila is not that easy.  It takes a lot more effort to communicate with her.  I'm sure with practice, and eyes and ears that are more in tune, communicating with her could come with ease.

In the meantime, Mike and I are off to the temple today where we will participate in sealings.  I can't think of a better way to feel close to her than sealing other families together on the anniversary of her death.