It's been way too long

It's been too long since my last post. I don't mean for that to happen it's just... well you know how life can get. It can get busy!

I'm doing good. I got a job at a preschool. I started in the summer and since then well, I'm just going crazy trying to get everything a busy family needs done. Being a mommy who works outside the home comes with new sets of challenges. Maintaining the needs of my home and family make it so hard to sit down at the computer and find time to write. There's always something that needs to be done or someone who needs attention!

I'm working as a preschool teacher for the school at my church. The great thing is Lorenzo, my almost 4 year old goes with me. It's the next best thing to being a stay at home mom! I get to make a little money and be with my at least one of my kids!

God brought into my life a great opportunity through this job. One of my students is autisic and I've always been drawn to these special children who seem locked within themselves. I really took a special interest in this student and the parents noticed and asked if I would be interested in taking training in something called Applied Behavioral Analysis. I jumped on the opportunity and have been doing online training videos and now give private lessons to this student.

I enjoy working with this student so much I now want to go back to school and get my degree in special education. The mother has said to me many times she thinks I should specialize in this field as she thinks it's my "gift." She said her son has shown more improvement with me in these past months than in the 18 months of special therapies and school he was in!

It's was amazing to me that my student's mother said that. My own mother always said to me that I had a gift and should somehow work with kids in need. She called it a special wisdom and said my nana Connors had it too.

I just know when I look into the eyes of a child with autism I cry out to God for help and mercy. My heart sings, asking my student "where is your soul? I know you are in there." Autism is trapping them, locking them inside a prision in their mind. It is my job to reach in there and help pull them out!

And so that is what I have been up too everyday. Helping pull this special child out. It's not an easy job, thankfully my student isn't violent but I have been bitten and it's physically very demanding. But it's so awesome to work so hard and then see the child respond and do something new, something you know they could never do before! To make a difference and get a chance to love a special child is really an awesome thing!

Someone asked if I have been working on my mother's novel. I'm sad to say I haven't done a single thing. It bothers me quite bad, I feel so guilty and have confused emotions regarding the subject. Am I supposed to be writing that story? And if I am supposed too and I'm not... well that just creates a lot more questions. Sigh.

Despite it being well over a year since my mother passed away, I'm still greiving terribly. The only way I can describe it is I feel like cancer stole something sacred from me. My sense of home and family have been ripped away and a hole is left there. Time will not heal that. Oh, I will adjust, what else can one do? But I know now I'll never be the same. And how can I be? Every holiday will remind me that it was supposed to be very different. My future, the way it was supposed to be was stolen from me.

We were supposed to have a life time of memories to make. Now it's like right in front of my very own eyes, a black hole opened up and ripped part of my happiness from my hands. As if through a fog I can see an older Claudia and her nana around the table for Christmas dinner and then it's like a vaccum comes and sucks that image away, leaving behind a whole lot that is never to be.

Now I'm left numb and scrambling to quickly redefine the meaning of a lot of things, before I lose too much time. Life is so quick and these kids I'm blessed with are little only once... Cancer has stolen my mom, but it's not going to make me have regrets with what I have left.

A very bright spot in my life right now is my relationship with my husband Javier. Financial it's been a tough year for us, but praise God I can report that despite those hardships our home has never been happier. I recently started back mountain biking. I used to compete along with Javier before the kids and had to drop that once I had them. But now they are getting bigger and easier to care for so Javier watches them while I ride. We load up the car on the weekends and head off to a trail as a family and then we take turns riding. It's been so much fun. There is nothing like flying down a trail on your bike to clear your mind. It's just me, my bike and the mountain! I'm so thankful to God my little family is intact and happy. Thank God for his mercy.

Whew, that got very long. I guess I should try and keep up on here better so I don't have to write a book when I come back on!