In Not So Many Days

I'm getting married. :)

At the end of the month. :) :)

Yay for me! Hehehe

Tiger proposed on our one year anniversary. It was absolutely perfect. I would go into details but I think those details are meant just for he and I. We'd be the only ones to get it anyway. Needless to say but it was magical just like everything else we do. He proposed by candlelight in the freshness of the twilight darkness on a deck over looking a river in our favorite wooded hiking spot. It makes me sigh happy sighs just thinking about it.

Our whole relationship has been a beautiful romantic fairytale story. Everyday I feel more blessed and Every moment we're together he makes me feel beautiful and treasured and cherished. I thought after the hell I went through with Ex that I would be shattered forever and yet, to my awed astonishment, Tiger has repaired every wound and every pain and mended every tender heart ache. I get to marry my best friend. When I first met him and this all started I couldn't imagine it all turning out like this. He made me fall for him and now I'm smitten. I'm gleefully and joyfully over the moon in love with him. All the terrible things before him has made me extraordinarily grateful to have Tiger in my life. Tiger and I are getting married in a Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints so not only will he be my husband but he will be my eternal companion. In our temples we are sealed together for all time and eternity as husband and wife and I believe that truth without any doubt. What a great feeling it is to know, to believe and to have faith in this ordinance and to know that this man that I love will be with me always.

Everything with him has been so wonderful. So wonderful in fact that I keep wondering when our life will hit its limit for happiness, but it just keeps getting better and better and I see no reason why it shouldn't. We've both had promises and assurances from Heavenly Father that we will have happiness and contentment in our lives as we continue to follow the teachings of His gospel. My life is a gift. The greatest adventures of my life are ahead of me. The adventures of being a wife, of becoming a mother, of growing old with Tiger and deepening our love for each other through every happiness and heartache our life together may bring.

I'm getting married in not so many days and I can hardly wait to get to the "and they lived happily ever after"

Miss M

I have been a real slacker with my blog lately. I miss it and I feel bad I haven't written in such a long time. But even when your life is heaven its still busy. Having Tiger here is absolutely fantastic. Its even more wonderful than I ever imagined it would be. But like I said Life is busy so I'll have to tell you all about it later. Sorry :(

Miss M

Heaven Makes Me Tired

Well Tiger has been a little over two weeks now and its been so great. I knew I would be happy if he were here but I didn't realize I could be this happy. The trip out there and back was great. I had a god time with Tiger's family. His dad likes me now so that made the trip even better. His dad didn't like me much before but once he realized that I would take care of Tiger and that his son really does love me he's been much better about the whole thing. The road trip back in the rental car was long but it was such a blast. We had a fantastic time together. We spent a day in Colorado Springs close to where I used to live and I got to take him to a few of my favorite places and we stayed with my aunt who lives in Colorado for a couple nights. The whole thing was great. We took our time and drove back at a pretty leisurely pace. It was great, greater than I thought it could be.

Its been fun setting up his apartment with him. I know I don't really live there but it feels like our home because we've both worked so hard for it. I spend all of my free time here even when he's not here. I only go home to sleep and shower. All of this makes me want to marry him even more than I did before. I hate going home at night and not being able to be with him in all the ways I want to. Its a very sweet form of torture but I love it. I love him. I'm just so happy. everything with Tiger feels like such a dream. I can hardly believe that this is my life that this wonderful fantasticness is really mine. Tiger is so great for me. He loves me so much. When I think I look the worst is when He thinks I'm the cutest. I think my glasses make me look nerdy and that I look awful with my hair up but he loves it. He loves everything about me. Tiger makes me feel so cherished. I really love feeling that way. Its sort of a new to me and I can't get enough of it. His love makes me feel whole again. He makes right all the wrongs and hurts I've gone though. This is my heaven on earth and its just getting better and better.

I thought I'd get more sleep with him here but I don't. I might even be getting less. :) I'm up late with him all the time and when he's not here I'm cleaning the place up and keeping busy and I'm always busy with him and going and doing. I'm tired. Heaven makes me tired but I couldn't care less I love it. I love him and I love having him here with me. Its wonderful. This is my life and I love every moment of it.

Miss M

Hold on Baby Here I come!

I'm going to Phoenix!! Tomorrow!!! I am sooo excited!!! Can you tell?! hehe I fly out Tuesday and then we're gonna head back to Illinois on Thursday in the rental car. I am so excited I can hardly breathe. I'm excited to see him again. I'm excited to go to Phoenix. I'm excited to kiss him. I'm excited to spend time with him and his family. I'm excited to help him back. I'm excited for my road trip with Tiger. I'm excited for lots of things but I'm most excited about the beginning a life with Tiger. Its going to be so nice to be able to spend time with him. Friday I picked up the keys to Tigers apartment from the landlord. Saturday the men of my church helped me to move all the furniture of mine that Tiger's going to use to his apartment. The apartment is still being remodeled a little so I couldn't set up or unpack anything because we had to put everything in the one finished room so they can finish the rest of the place with out getting everything dusty and dirty. Yesterday I packed all my clothes and things for the trip. When I get home tonight I have to finish packing my makeup and bath stuff.

I can hardly stand the excitement. Its almost tangible. This feeling is electric. Its sparking inside every part of me all the way into my fingers stemming from the very center of my being. Tiger is getting really excited too. This feeling is better than Christmas Eve. The anticipation, the hope, and the pure happiness of waiting for Santa is fantastic but this excitement is unreal. I was hoping that a busy day at work would keep my mind occupied but no. Work ended up being really slow and time is just inching barely crawling by. I feeling like I've been here forever. Tiger is getting off earlier than he normally does tonight and so when I can talk to him the excitement level is really going to go through the roof. I hope I'll be able to sleep tonight because my flight leaves really early in the morning tomorrow.

This is wonderful. I get to see my love tomorrow and all I can say is:

Hold on Baby here I come!!


Miss M

Full Speed Ahead!!

Tiger bought my plan ticket a little bit ago. I signed the lease for his apartment on Friday and we have our rental car reserved. And we've done a million other little things to get ready for this move. Things are really starting to move now. The pace is defiantly starting to pick up. This is really happening I can hardly believe it. By the end of April he'll be here living here in the same state that I live in. I will get to see him as much as I feel like. I'll have someplace to go at night and someone to spend my time with. He'll finally be here for me to shower affection on, to love, to serve, to cherish and giggle with. I've known that this was happening that this is really coming true but now I feel it. The excitement thats permeating from the very core of me is filling my life and my world with the most beautiful glow of happiness and bliss. I'm not just excited for my trip or our upcoming time together in the car having whats sure to be the best road trip of my life but I'm excited for everything that comes with him. Tiger is going to be not only my boyfriend but my fiance, my husband, my lover, the father of my children and he's going to be my best friend for the rest of eternity. He wiggled his way into my heart, ruthlessly making me fall in love with him long before I realized that I was even ready to fall again. Tiger is different than any other man thats come before him because not only did he make me fall in love with him but he made sure that my delicate heart had a soft place to land. Tiger ever so gently reminded me of the woman I used to be before hurtful people damaged me. I was damaged to the point that I barely knew who I was and not only did his friendship remind me but it revived me. His friendship alone was wonderful but now I get to be loved by him too. I get to know what it is to be happy when you're with someone. I get to live a life free of heart ache. It won't be free of trials or hardships but I know that I will never again have any doubts that I am loved or ever have my heartbroken so severely by someone who loves me. Tiger won't ever hurt me like that. So....

FULL SPEED AHEAD!!!

Bring on the LOVE!!!!!!

Miss M

He's Moving!

April is coming.

Those words mean that he's going to be here next month. It feels like forever but when you count the weeks, the days its not really that much longer. Tiger doesn't know the exact weekend that he's going to move yet but he said April. Even if its the last day of April it isn't too long from now. Last week we added him to my phone plan. Tiger now has a local phone number for here. He shopped for cars this week too. He's still figuring out whats what with car buying but he's just about ready to buy one. Tiger only has a couple more things to do and then he's ready to move. I'm going to start shopping around for an apartment for him in the next couple of weeks. That should be fun. I liked doing that when ever I've moved. I liked seeing all the different layouts and what things look like inside all these different places. I want to have the apartment set up and furnished for him before he gets here so that all he has to do when he gets here is just go home and go to bed in his own place. I think he'll really like that. I want him to be happy.

It's going to be a completely different reality when Tiger lives here. I'm nervous a bit but it'll be good, really good. I hope that he's happy here. I'm sure he will be but I wonder sometimes how it'll be for him. Its all going to be so new and different. A whole other life he never knew existed before. It'll be hard more than likely to go through so much change but its going to be heaven. Its going to be wonderful to have real life with him. To witness and be involved with all the mediocre, everyday parts of each other's life. I've never had anyone feel like so much a part of my everyday life as Tiger has and he doesn't even live here yet. I wonder what its going to be like when he does. I guess I'll have to wait till April to find out. I'm on the edge of my seat. :)

Miss M

Heartache and Happiness

This month has been one of the very best and worst. I usually have one extreme or the other and bounce back and forth. Never before have I had the most glorious bliss and exquisite sadness occupy me at the same time. Things have been so crazy that I have two unfinished posts that I probably won't ever attempt to finish.

I left for Phoenix the last day of January and returned on the 7th of February, a Wednesday, and on Friday, early morning, my dad went to the Hospital. On Sunday, in the earliest and quietest part of the morning, he passed away 10 minutes after midnight. My family believes he was waiting for the Sabbath because that day of the week always meant so much to him.

So as you can see its been an eventful month. A Crappy but Heavenly month.

I bought a plane ticket at the beginning of January with every intention of surprising my fella for his birthday. It lasted as a secret for barely a couple weeks if that. I couldn't not tell him and once I did he was so giddy happy that I was very glad I told him. He ended up taking that whole week off from work so he could spend all that time with me. Every moment I spent with him was wonderful. I had probably one of the best weeks of my life thus far. I add the thus far only because with a man like Tiger loving me life can only get better. And it already has in so many ways but that week was perfect, blissful, like the sweetest tasting manna from God. A gift that is nourishing to mind soul and body that is meant to be eaten slow and savored. I'm accepting that this is my life. Before now I expected the worse and believed I deserved it. My friendship with Tiger has shattered every misconception I've had about my miserable life. As we've grown in our love He's continued to prove that my ill fated destiny was a sham and showed me how I deserve to be loved and treated. So although I doubt I deserve this I'm beginning to believe that this is what my life will be like, a singing on the hilltop sort of blissfulness mixed with the silliest funniest best sort of cartoon, and the most legendary long lasting happily ever after sort of fairytale and romantically superb love story. Some kind of pure undiluted knock you on your ass sort of love potion has taken over me and I'm seriously doubting if my head will ever clear this pink tinted love fog. I'm happy and that in its self is worth sneezing about.

I left my dad in a somewhat stable state of ill health when I went to Phoenix. I made my parents swear to keep me updated on Dad and his health. They swore but they lied. My dad morbidly joked with me before I left that if he died while I was gone that he'd have them stick him on ice and wait for me to get back. He didn't want to ruin my vacation. Its strange humor but it was very sweet in a dad sort of way. My eldest brother picked me up from the airport and on the way home he filled me in on everything that had been going on with Dad while I was gone. The details don't really matter but he had wanted to prepare me for what I was about to see. He had deteriorated so much since I'd left that he almost didn't look like the same person. His skin was yellow because the cancer had spread to his liver. Everything they fed him only feed the cancer none of the food was getting to the rest of his body. He'd lost a lot more weight and his cheeks had sunk in. His eyes looked different darker and deeper. It was very sad to see.

He told everyone that he was waiting for me that I was the last piece of the puzzle that he had to have before he left this life. The first thing he had me do was report on my vacation and on Tiger. He needed to know that we would be together. The last conversations I had with my father were about Tiger and I. On the way to the hospital he told me that Tiger had his permission to marry me. Before he unable to speak or understand anymore I told him that Tiger had said that he was grateful for his permission and that he was glad to know he had it. He wasn't able to form words anymore but he smiled at me knowingly, sweetly, lovingly. He'd heard what he wanted to hear from me. Later when my mom was going through the arrangements my dad made for himself before he died she read the obituary he'd written my name as Monica "Tiger's last name" because he assumed that we'd be married by the time he'd pass. My mom was remiss to correct it.

As a family we had a lot of really good moments. Special one of kind kind of moments that happen in the silence when a family has to face something grave together. I wonder sometimes what things that my mom and my brothers experienced during that sad stretch of time and what they continue to experience. What moments and memories do they keep sacred. This man shaped us into who we ultimately became. He pushed and drove of to excel as individuals. The love he shared with our mother that we witnessed everyday taught us what it was to have a marriage and a love that would last for eternity, and he treated it as such, a sacred and beautiful relationship that will extend beyond this life. They had so much fun and happiness together. They just liked to be together doing just about anything. They would still hold hands and would call each other a few times through out their days when work prevented them from being together. We definitely know where his loyalty and priorities are. To his wife and to his family.

Its still hard to believe that he isn't here anymore, at least not physically. I miss him. I miss him the most when I think about all the things I won't get to share with him in life, my wedding, my children, just my life. I'm scared of the things that I will have to do without him. Those things that I relied on him for; advice, comfort, a good laugh, guidance, so many things. I miss his quiet strength and his sense of humor. Mom didn't really approve of our sense of humor because she thought them slightly inappropriate. Our humor, his and mine, were so similar. We laughed a lot together while my mom would blush which would just make us laugh more.

Tiger bought a plane ticket the day he died. He left midnight Monday and got in really early in the morning on Tuesday. The weather was starting to get nasty and every flight out of Chicago after his was cancelled. He just barely got here. It was really wonderful of him to drop everything to be out here with me. He said he wouldn't have done it any other way that I needed him and this is where he needed to be. Dad's visitation, funeral and burial all happened on one day, Valentine's Day. Tiger was by my side through it all. I did pretty good I didn't lose it till we were grave side. My second oldest brother dedicated the grave and I look around at all the shivering people surrounded by the white beautiful snow and then look at the casket and it all became so real. More tangible than it had been previously and it got to me. I felt bad sitting by the grave quietly crying while my dessert boyfriend stood behind me holding my hands and shoulders and freezing his Arizona butt off, but I needed the moment and he wasn't going to go anywhere till I was ready. So we stayed there for what felt like forever but was really only a few minutes. For some reason the image of the portly funeral guy with his black flat cap and pea coat standing guard over my dad till we drove away is an image that just won't leave my mind. I think his name was Larry. I like Larry very much for some reason.

Tiger was suppose to leave Thursday but all the flights were overbooked so he wasn't able to leave till Saturday. It was so nice to see him again so soon. I hadn't even been home a week when he flew out here for the funeral. Usually its a few months between visits. So I had two weeks of heaven with him. It made it even harder to say goodbye. He's decided to get it together and try to move here as soon as possible because he doesn't like being away from me. Its getting harder and harder for us to be apart. He'll probably move here some time in April. I can hardly wait. It'll be so fantastic to be able to have him here to spend time with as much as possible. I'll be happy to get a daily dose of Tiger in my life. All the time we've spent together just proves the fact that we're suppose to be together. He's my best friend and the the greatest love of my life. Although this month, and really the last two years of my dads cancer, has been full of heartache and sadness, its been one of the happiest times of my life and like I said before I have a lifetime of bliss to look forward to with Tiger. I'm glad to know that Dad will be watching all of this happiness unfold and that he's up there now teaching my future children to be extra ornery but also preparing them for this life so that when its time for them to be a part of this life they'll be ready. They couldn't ask for a better teacher.

Miss M

Life in Transition

At the beginning of the month I bought a plane ticket to Phoenix so that I could surprise Tiger for his birthday. I've kept my trip a secret from him until a couple days ago when he guessed that I was coming. So now he knows and now he's giddy beyond giddy. He's very excited to have me come out there again. I leave January 31 and I'll be gone for a week. I'm really excited. This will be my last vacation for awhile at least. I probably won't be able to go again until after my dad dies. So I very much want to take advantage of his reasonable good health and see Tiger again before I can't anymore. The idea that I'll be coming back to basically help my dad finish his dying process is depressing. I think I'll need this time with Tiger to rejuvenate my energy so I'll be able to do all I'll need to do for my dad. Right now I don't have much left for anyone. I'm grumpy and tired all the time. I don't want to spend any time with my friends and I don't want to be around people I just want to hide in my room and talk to Tiger for a little bit before I fall asleep. Everyone else takes too much effort from me to deal with them right now and I don't like that. I shouldn't feel like my friends are irritating but they are for some reason. This trip is very important to me. I'm glad that Tiger knows now. Its fun to be giddy with him. Everything else seems so hard and he makes life seem so easy and carefree. He always seems to know what to say to me or when to be quiet and endure the insanity that is me. Tiger does a wonderful job of reassuring me and loving me.

Life is changing in so many different ways. Each transition affords new oppurtunities for growth and new undertanding of whats to be learned from this life. I feel like I'm in the middle of a huge transition from the life I'm familiar with to the life I deserve. Its kindof scary.


Miss M

This post was originally meant to be much longer but lots of things happened when I was writing it but I thought I would post it anyway even though to me it's unfinished. 3/22/07

The End is Near

My dad had an appointment with his doctor today. It didn't go very well. He's lost 14 pounds in the last two weeks. The chemo isn't very effective and they won't give it to him right now anyway because he's losing weight too fast. They're going to get him a feeding tube. He's now also on some seriously strong pain medicines in the form of a patch and a liquid. They hope to help with quality of life but that there is no hope for any sort of remission at this point.

How am I suppose to react to that? How does someone cope with that sort of news? Its not even happening to me directly so I can't even imagine what my dad is going through.

Miss M