The Gift of Life

The Gift of Life

I love the connections I make on Instagram. I met April with The Happy Cupcake Blog through Instagram. And no, we have not met face to face {insert sad face}, but we do have a special friendship from afar. I recently asked her to be my first guest blogger on my blog with the them of a sentimental nature. Here is her post… you might keep a Kleenex handy! Hope you enjoy!

 

Hi I’m April and I blog over at The Happy Cupcake. I’d first love to thank sweet Brianne for the opportunity to guest blog on The Sentimental Mama, I’m honored to guest post and even more honored to call you friend!

When Brianne asked me to write on something that was sentimental to me: my mind rather drew a blank, I mean I do have things that hold sentimental value to me but at the same time I couldn’t think of how to write a whole blog post on them… until it dawned on me one day… life was what held the most sentimental value to me!

Yesterday, my husband, our (not quite) 7 month old daughter Bella and myself were almost in 3 car wrecks… the first was early in the morning, we were sitting at a stoplight when a woman came flying up and wasn’t planning on stopping! Bella and I were sitting in the back seat, her and I would have probably died or been hurt so badly that we would be close to death; the second time was later in the afternoon, my sweet hubby decided to treat us to Chipotle, and as we pulled into the parking lot a man was pulling out of his parking space, head turned the opposite way not even looking as he drove towards us, not super fast but still driving towards us not looking! Had my husband not started honking the horn he might have gotten seriously injured or worse; and finally the third was not even 30 minutes after the second… We finished eating, got back in our car and drove (across the street) to the mall. After strapping Bella into her stroller and started walking across the parking lot towards to door… as we got to the cross walk we had to not only stop suddenly, but back up quickly as well because a woman wasn’t paying attention and decided she was in too big a hurry to stop for the stop sign (and was also driving much more quickly than a person should through a parking lot) and almost ran all 3 of us over… Most likely we all 3 would have been instantly dead. I shudder at the thought… our precious little Bella in her stroller in front of me, my husband walking next to me.

To say I was seriously shaken emotionally and physically would be an understatement and in the past few days since, I have realized even more than I already knew, that the gift of life is the most beautiful gift in the universe. Life is a gift, so fragile and beautiful but that can be ripped from us at less than a seconds notice. Life can change for the better or for the worse so suddenly.

I remember one morning (almost 3 years ago now) waking up horrified at the nightmare I had just awoken from. A nightmare that in, my Grandpa who I was really close to was very sick and passed away. The Grandpa who I was named after (my middle name, Leslie) and  who I loved so dearly… but rather than call or text and say hi and tell him and my grandma that I loved them and was thinking about them, I just went on with my day. I was too busy, too wrapped up in my own little world and eventually after a few hours and days pushed the nightmare to the back of my mind. That dream still haunts me to this day, my husband is the only one who till now I have ever told about that dream.

About 3 days after that nightmare we got a call from my grandma… my grandpa had collapsed when they were shopping at Walmart and had another heart attack (he had one when I was little) but he was unresponsive and in a coma. This wasn’t like last time, something was different, he wasn’t coming out of it. He was only alive by all the machines he was hooked up to.

More than anything in the world I wish I could go back and do things differently. I would have called. Just so I could hear his voice one last time before I never heard it again. To tell him I loved him and how much I thought of him and how much he’d taught me in life and laugh when he called me handsome like he always did or when he world tease me about the lady bugs I ate when I was crawling around at 6 months old.

My family and I left a few hours after we got the call, driving all the way from southeast Missouri to Idaho in just two days. I will never forget seeing my grandpa laying there in that hospital bed, I just remember telling him how much I loved him and asking him, begging him please don’t go. He couldn’t move or open his eyes, but he could hear me, I just remember seeing the tears fall from his closed eyes, his only way of showing me that he heard me and loved me too as I hugged him and cried.

My grandpa was a great man, a minister most of his life, a wonderful husband to my grandma, a wonderful father to his children and the best grandpa in the world! He was the nicest most wonderful person you’d ever hope to meet and I never once heard him say an unkind word to anyone in my life. I can understand why God wanted him sooner than we were ready to give him up,  but I still miss him so much,  the ache and hurt is still there. I have a yellow rose from his funeral, which I’d have to say is one of my most sentimental possessions. And you know what? One of the most amazing things happened as my family and I were leaving his funeral. I looked down at that rose I was holding and on it… was a lady bug! It sat on there for about 10 minutes, then flew off into the sky! I love knowing that my Grandpa Bailey is in a better place and that he is at peace.

But now after I’ve shared some of my deepest, most sentimental and painful memories, you’re probably thinking “hey if this is a story about life then why is she writing about death?” Just hang with me, because I’m not through… 

One life reaching its earthly ending… but finding new life elsewhere. The life never truly ended, but continues in another place. 

Flash forward a couple of years… I’m now happily married to the love of my life and best friend… my husband and I have been joined in Holy matrimony and have started a life together…

Now flash forward a bit more… we find out we are expecting!!!

A life that has never existed before except in our hopes for the future was now a living person growing inside of me! A little life that (with a little help from God) my husband and I created with all our love and devotion to each other. As the months progressed we discovered we would be welcoming a girl child and became more and more anxious to meet her, our little Bella.

After being told at 28 weeks that she was way too tiny, due to the fact that I had terrible morning sickness my entire pregnancy and kept losing weight rather than gaining like I should have been, I was considered high risk for the rest of my pregnancy. I remember being so scared when I got the call that something could be wrong and being referred to a specialist. But in the end everything turned out alright and she ended up being a healthy size of 7 lbs 10 oz and 19 inches at birth.

We welcomed our little darling into the world that cold December morning and I have never felt so alive in my life! The feelings that rushed through me as I held her and looked at her for the very first time they are beyond description, the feeling was beyond words! All the love I felt, not only for our brand new baby Bella, but for my husband as well! Both my husband and myself felt that even though she had only been born a few short hours before it felt like she had always been there and been a part of our lives.

Ultimately, its life that I’m most sentimental about, living breathing life, everyday life, memories of life, memories of the lives of loved ones past, creating a life with my husband and bringing life into the world. I will never take another day for granted to tell a loved one how much they mean to me and I will never go a day without telling my husband and daughter just how much I love them! No day is an ordinary day because every single second of every single day has meaning… What will you do with your day today?

 

the happy cupcake blog

April Bondi is a twenty-something, full-time stay at home mama to the sweetest little girl Bella and happily married to her best friend. Southern raised, northern living, when April isn’t spending time with family, you can usually find her in the kitchen, blogging, photographing everything in sight with her Nikon, pinning, instagraming, walking, making their house a home and living life to the fullest!

 

Bre. Geiger