Time...

As most of you can tell by reading my blog I am not the most social person around. I speak when I have to, will say hello to my neighbors but avoid all small talk when possible and I keep my circle of close friends rather small. When I lived in the DC area I had a lady who lived upstairs from me that sold candy out of her house. She was known as the candy lady and everyone even her family called her Candy. She was always so nice and I had no problems sitting and talking to her. I even remember she would go out of her way to buy things for the boys for Christmas and their birthday. Though she would eventually move into an apartment around the corner, she always managed to make her way on my block because that is where her aunt and her cousins lived.

I remember after I had lil bit...it was time for me to go back to work and I could not find affordable day care for anything. I was talking to one of Candy's cousins and telling her about my issue. A few hours later I get a knock on my door and Candy was standing there offering her baby sitting services to me. I thank God that she came to my door step to help me because I started my new job that Monday and I had no where to take my then 6 month old baby.

From there she went from sitter to family. She took care of my baby for all of her natural born life. She helped me with her when no one else would and she did this for 4 1/2 years. She was like a mother to both my daughter and I. Lil bit had Christmas here and at her house...the last Christmas gift consisted of a whole bunch of toys, a bike and a beta fish....times when I was sick and could not care for my baby she took her until i was well...she took really good care of me and my baby. I knew if there was no one around me that I could count on I could always count on her.

So, finding out that she had passed away is most heart breaking to me and lil bit right now. To Lil bit she was her "other mommy" and she called her mommy.It was funny how I had spoken to her last week and how we had made arrangements for me to drop Lil bit off for the weekend. I usually take Lil Bit on Friday nights but last Friday night I couldn't. I had not wash her clothes, had not packed her a bag, and I was not feeling good...Friday night...I simply just did not have the time to do everything. So we agreed I would bring her Saturday afternoon...3 AM Saturday morning I get the news that she had passed away...leaving behind an 18 year old daughter, a 4 year old little girl who loved her as a Mom and a 32 year old who desperately needed a mother and accepted her motherly love.

With everything that has gone on with the devastation in Hati, a colleague of mine having passed a few days prior to Candy my spirit is so unsettled. You think that you have time to see people and say the things that you should say but often don't. You think you have time to mend fences, extend olive branches and basically get your shit together but in essence you don't...

Though I have said thank you when dropping my child off and picking her up; I have never truly THANKED her. She was a huge part of our lives and we loved her dearly. I pray that God rests and keeps her soul for she no longer has to fight with her illness any more. She can be free to do all the things her severe asthma would not allow for her to do. I am trying to take solace in her no longer having to suffer and struggle but it is hard none the less.