Comfort

Yesterday I had a sad day. In the grand scheme of things it was not bad but man did it get me down. It had to do with rejection and we all know how terrible that feels. When I first found out that I had been rejected I pushed it to the back of my mind because I'm a busy momma and I have things to do. Later in the afternoon however, when the quietness of the day settle upon me and I was alone I found the tears I had managed to hold back falling down my face. The little one was at her first day of school and the two older kids were playing ignoring the fact that I kept moving them out of my way as I swept and mopped the floors. Given their distraction I felt free to give into my emotion for a few minutes, the release felt wonderful and I knew it would help me to move on. I did not count on getting busted by the kids but it was almost like they knew something was wrong and were called to come fix it or help. My son was the first to walk in and he saw my puffy eyes and asked what was wrong. With out further explanation than I am feeling sad he swooped in with a great big hug and made a silly face in the process that I couldn't help but laugh at. After a few minutes he was assured that I felt better and he went back to playing. His 12 year old sister came bounding down the steps a very short time later and she could tell that I was sad. She asked me what was wrong and I told her that the things I had hoped would happen for us were not going to happen and that it made me feel sad. She gave me a hug and said, "you know it will be alright, right?" To which I nodded and explained that I had given my self 20 minutes to wallow in my failure and be sad and that I planned on getting back to cleaning and being my usual self. She was satisfied and sauntered off in the way that 12 year old girls do.

Once my 20 minutes were up I got back to work vacuuming the floors and tidying up. A short time later she called me into the kitchen to present me a cake in a cup that she made for me. "A little something to help cheer you up, you do so much for us I wanted to do something for you!" I was so surprised and comforted by the gesture. Years ago when I started this blog I wrote an article about how feeding my family was one way that I showed them that I cared about them. All these years later here she is presenting me with food, not as comfort  for my sadness (food itself never really comforts emotions) but as a way to speak the words she could not find. Words of kindness, hope, encouragement, and love. That is what a home cooked meal or dessert is, it is all your love put into physical form when words won't do your feelings justice. I needed the love and support of my family most yesterday and I got it in the form of a vanilla mug cake with Nutella icing, in my favorite mug adorned with photos of my family.