Five years ago today…I was preparing to say my final goodbye to my mother. It was a day quite like this one – sunny, blue skies – except there was a slow motion quality to everything.

Five years later…it is still surreal. I heard her name being called at Mass this weekend and for a second I was like…”hey that’s mummy’s name.”

Grief does not get easier. All them books on it…they lie. Who feels it, knows it. And I’m learning to live with it. I’m learning how to be happy in a world that is forever changed. I’m learning to live all the lessons she taught me.

I would not be the woman I am today without them. And as painful as it might be to admit this, I would not be who I am today, if she were still here.

…every Monday, we post seven positives from the previous seven days of the week as a reminder of what we have so that the week starts out on an upswing. There is much truth in the belief that happy people attract good things, so it is important to start the week out right. Sometimes it’s the more grand, but other times, it’s the simple things.~ Key + Arrow

7 for Seven originated at Key + Arrow and I have adopted the practice and it has really changed my life in positive ways. My 7 this week is all about the woman who God chose to create me. I love her. I miss her every. single. day.

Thank you for giving me life. Thank you for being my first love. Thank you for teaching me how to let go of someone I love. Letting you go was the hardest thing I have ever had to do.

Dear Mummy, thank you for introducing me to God. It is this faith that gives me the strength to move forward in joyful hope.

Thank you for showing me how to be strong. Around the time we decided as a family that mummy was not going to do any more chemo treatments, I asked her what was the one lesson she learned from her whole journey with Ovarian Cancer. She said to me that having cancer, taught her how to be strong. This from the woman who raised three children on her own, during a recession, cleaning people’s houses to make ends meet. I have so much respect for what she calls “strength”.

Thank you for my sister and brother. This journey would have been super boring without having them to blame things on. Thank you drumming it into our heads teaching us what is really important. Thank you for a childhood that may have lacked “wants” but was full of the things that really mattered – Love, plenty laughter and a mother who cheated to win against her own kids at board games. Yes folks my mother hated losing…to her children.

Thank you for allowing me to bathe in the rain! I’m a hardcore pluviophile and proud!

Thank you for all the support and encouragement.

I want to make you so proud. I want when people meet me that they see a bit of you too. I want them to know that the woman I am today was because you worked hard, you sacrificed so that I could get here. I am so grateful for the time I had with you and I hope to live a life where time with the people I love is always my number one priority!

I will pay attention to the little things today. Those little things, the mundane details that make up all the blessings in my life as I move through this day still so full of promise. By sowing these seeds of faith and gratitude, I can truly carry with me and reap the rewards of “positivity + balance + bliss” throughout the days ahead and well into the week ahead.

Thank you for reading, I appreciate you! This is me blowing some glitter and confetti on you because you’re super blessed to have received the gift of another 86,400 seconds today, to spend any way you desire.

Make those seconds count!

I love hearing from you…what are you grateful today? What made you smile? Feel free to share below!