Leave the bathroom light on.

Since Amanda has been here, I am at once both sorrowed and positively gleeful of how much she really does seem to be like me. I hate that she feels such despair. I sigh at some of the things she so assuredly believes is true about life because I know that she will see things much differently as she gets older. I hate to tell her that when she gets older she will find that its not near as bad as she thought...its far, far WORSE!

There's not one demon behind that rock, Dear Sylvia..there are ten.

Or are there?

It makes me cock my head to the side in deep thought when I think about how Amanda was as a child. She had her own room being the only girl for so many years and was like me as a child with an assortment of dolls and animals she truly believed depended on her care. After years of stepping on matchbox cars and legos, I was delighted to fill my little girl's room with miniature but usable versions of the very tools I used. Tools that I myself coveted of my own mother. By the time I was done, her room was a little homemaker wannabe's dream. She had a doll crib with a satin blanket. She had the cool doll stroller that converted from a baby carriage and into a baby carrier...just like the latest real version I had from Walmart for Zachariah. She had the whole she-bang. Walker, playpen, high chair, you name it, she had it all in one child sized bedroom. Not only did she have everything a little girl could possibly ask for her DOLLS, but she also had the cool Little Tykes Play Kitchen complete with coffee pot and a toaster that popped plastic bread.

As I sit here in my room across from my daughters I am wondering how much my version of this world resembles God's.

So whats with the laundry, Lord? Laundry MUST be a part of your job because I just can't get away from it! What am I supposed to be learning here? That it's just a part of life that our dirty laundry gets mixed in with freshly laundered Island Fresh Gain undies? Are you sitting up there CONTENTED listening to me prattle on and on to myself about my little world like I used to listen to Amanda talking to her tiny plastic babies?

Lie to me, Lord. Don't tell me that it's not near as bad as it seems that it could be worse like I think to say to Amanda.

Tell me that everything is fine. Tell me that it's all good and there's nothing to fear. That there is nothing to be afraid of. Tell me that all I have to do is try to be like you and make toast. Everything is fine.


Wow. I swear I didn't try for it to come out that way.

Peek-a-boo! I see you!

I am mad at myself for not doing what I told myself to do what I needed to do. I have found I'm no better than anyone else when it comes to doing things that are good for me or good for someone else. I wish someone would read this and hold me accountable. Ha, ha. In all this craziness, I find that I do respect that person who is in the mirror, Amanda. You put Michael's song on and wanted me to look at myself and forgive the person who would be staring back at me. I think it's the other way around. I want her to forgive me. One day soon, I hope I will be able to look her in the eye and say, "I am sorry I hurt you. Please forgive me."

We talked today about the signs. All these little flashes I get lately remind me of when I had been away from my own mother for several years and went back for a visit. I found myself in the garage going through some boxes of stuff she didn't know what to do with. The first box had a book in it I recognized from my past. I happened upon that box quite accidentally. I was walking by and out of the corner of my eye saw the familiar but unique binding on my beloved Nancy Drew novel, "Up the Down Staircase". It was the first novel I ever read and I was instantly enraptured by Nancy's adventures. Nancy was my hero. Everything about her was just "SMART". My mother was a Nancy Drew fan and had several of the books to start my collection and I had been very proud that I had first release original copies of the first three books in the series. Now, as I excitedly reached into the box to pull out my long lost friend, it dawned on me how much more valuable the book was now. I started digging through the box and although I know I was looking for the rest of my books, I found myself gleefully pulling out all sorts of mementos from my past. The deeper into the box, the larger and odder the pile of things next to me became. A pile of things that would have looked like junk to a stranger, but was an absolute treasure to me becasue it was a manifestation of everything that made me who I am. Not very much of it was anything the world would have even bothered to stick into a box to save but that piece of hardened dough in the shape of a christmas tree that still had the green sparkles I glued there as a child on it brought a gasp of delight from my chest and made time stand still. While sitting on the dirty floor in that garage I was instantly transported to a world where Santa Claus was real and summer lasted forever.

Now that pile is not something you can really see. Little flashes wonder are coming back to me faster and faster. A part of a song. A line from a book. A quote from a movie. The message of an old TV commercial. In the mess of my present world, when I want to scream out "This can't be my life!!!" I find myself looking across the desk at my daughter. Our conversations about the obvious disaster are peppered with the pop ups of my mind and I find myself laughing out loud at a joke only I truly understand. Or do I? Sometimes I find Amanda laughing too because she saw what I did. A landmark or sign that we both recognized as real. Just as signs for a city while driving on the highway get more frequent the closer you get, perhaps we are seeing signs that are pointing the way home.

I think God has a marvelous sense of humor.

Amanda. I wonder if God has a popcicle stick with a little paper circle glued to the top with a face drawn on each side.

Truth or Lie. Yes or No. Happy or sad?

Perhaps the journey is not even close to as difficult as we make it.

It's pretty basic:)

The Rocks Are Singing.

Most certainly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.
John 12:24


The Sound of Heaven, the sound we could SEE, has fallen to the ground and died. Michael Jackson you are resting in the ground...........but you will heal the world. Like you said, We havent seen anything yet. I love you. More and more and more and more. Sing it loud. Sing it clear.

It's Written All Over Your Face

I'm excited this morning. Amanda, my child, heard my voice and walked out of the ashes and came to me. I know now after we've talked that she came because the message she heard was "mother needs help". It sounds to me like she wasn't really hurt at all in the wreck, just pretty shook up. That's how everyone was in our van accident. I remember that awful silence after we hit that tree while I was waiting for the voices of my children to respond to my call.

We have talked so much this morning and I have more clues and so much digging to do and I'm aware again of the time and I need to put first things first. I have thought to do what I'm going to do when I sign out of here. And now I know that just like starting this blog in the middle of the natural disaster of our lives, that it's the right thing to do and I just need to do it. Now.

There was a mother once who's child was lost. Rather than put the child's face on a milk carton or take the precious time to put his picture on a flyer and nail it to posts everywhere, she had a different idea.

She took a picture of herself. She went in every place she could and she hung the picture of herself. She she went into dark bars to hang it on the bulletin boards and she tacked it on posts in wide open spaces. Where ever she found a spot, she hung a picture of the face he would recognize. On the back of it, she put her phone number..CALL HOME. One day, the child ran into the face he knew so well and finally was able to find his way home.

Now I realize a vital part of my dilemma. While I realize that my children are still out there, I am painfully aware that I am too hurt to be certain I am even the answer to their rescue. I am shaken to the core to realize that I am just as lost as they are. I see now that my children are already doing the same thing everyone does. Trying to make the best of things and make a home of their own.

Don't they know Momma's looking for them? And oh my good lord, is anyone looking for ME? I do think that that is what is hurting me so badly. I'm lost. I'm lost! IS ANYONE LOOKING FOR ME?

I think I am. I think that's who I'm really digging for. I asked amanda to read this today. The miracle of accidentally finding this on the first page of google was WIERD. No ads, no driving traffic. I accidentally typed "mommaslost" into the SEARCH engine for crying out loud! And found the familiar Dont Forget Momma page with the familiar lighthouse that Donna is known in cyber space by and the byline "watching mommma work" and I find another clue. The address of this damn thing is 'forgetmomma.blogspot.com' Forget Momma, Find Donna. I am a mother. I am the object of a GOOD man's love. I am Wilson. I'm someone's lighthouse. Most importantly today, I'm lovingly referred to as "Toaster". The person who calls me that name has been my gravity, my compass, and my hiding place...........the very things that God has been to me all this time. He's a quiet man and has very real views on things in general yet we don't share the same beliefs. Over the years, he became my best friend when there was no real reason for us to even become friends because the things we have in common are not things that can be named..it's more a sense. Having a conversation with him can be frustrating because we just simply have different life experiences on things that make it hard for us to agree. Yet we agree on one thing.......i love and trust him unconditionally and I believe he feels the same about me. In our silent communication is the reality of our profound relationship. I came to know him so well when he came to me for what I have come to find is both the greatest and the worst thing about me. That .............something I can't name that's in myself. I have asked him what exactly it was that brought him to me. When he met me, I was in full ME mode. Yet, just like the compass that speaks nothing but duly point the way, I realize that just in his being true to who he is, unwavering, he simply accepts my crazy notion that I believe he's my compass and he's pointing the way to where I need to go.

Amanda has caught the fury. I'm not alone. She is digging right now while I type! Finding clues, finding things familiar, recognizing truth. I feel encouraged. I'm not crazy or SHE IS TOO!

I'm going to listen to my heart. That's the first clue she gave me in a song. Amanda we need a place to put the clues. It's going to look a mess, but just like a mind map, we might be able to SEE a clear direction that will validate and back up what we probably know we need to do next. I need to make Wilson a Face Book page. I know it sounds crazy when ther's so much to do! Help me? All your clues are going in there, and mine too. Lets try to put the puzzle together. I'm so unsure of myself. But you're here.

Time to find wilson!

Please don't climb up there like that.

I'm feeling so imbalanced. I don't have good days and bad days. I have good moments and bad moment. Things seem to be coming together and then my brain wanders off into wild oblivion and I'm doing off thinking about a thousand different things at once and am frustrated that I can't be doing them because I feel like I should be. Logic tells me its possible to do it. Logic tells me I should do it one step at a time. I wish I was more organized. Where is God? Doesn't he see the mess I'm in? I keep moving to keep moving. I feel like I'm losing my grip on my already feeble hold on reality. School has been closed today due to a violent storm last night that I slept through. Kids are running around and I their voices frustrate me because I am already hearing too many voices in my head. I know I am very injured and need to be attended to myself yet I am painfully aware that I am the only medic on the scene. I know I'm not a professional. I'm all they have. I don't want to cause panic in my fellow victims and I'm even more afraid of seeing how badly I am hurt too. I feel otherworldly as if I was out of my body and looking in at the whole thing. My mind wanders to the van accident we had many years ago. I have a vague sense of memory as I see myself climbing up that cliff with blood gushing from my body as I frantically looked for my children. I remember how I was the only one seriously injured yet it wasn't until I was informed that my knee was destroyed that I was unable to walk. This place is a disaster. I can't stand to look at it. It is so overwhelming I have to fight the urge to escape from it. I realize that I am as I return to to my computer. I escape into my monitor disgusted with myself but comforted. I wish I could run away from my mind but there too I am too overloaded to move. As bad as it is, the thought keeps recurring to me that everything is OK but it. I don't feel OK. I feel sick. I don't know where to start. I have to start somewhere. I cave once again to the crazy urge to dig. I dig. My thoughts now wander to the World Trade Center. I see them digging through the mass of rubble. I hear their voices in my mind as they frantically throw things aside hoping to God it wasn't a loved one's arm. The questionable pile of things that looks like something important looks almost identical to the pile of rubbish. WHERE IS GOD? I keep digging. Searching. I need help. I look to the skies and the silence is deafening and terrifying.

Whos going to clean this up?

What a mess this is! I look around to see who is going to clean up this disaster. This is a pig sty!

Ha. Oy vay. Pig sty. I am so weary and paranoid that I am hesitant to talk to anyone and ask for directions even from people I once was certain knew the answers. Are the signs all around me? We talked about pig sties. Here we go again. I start doing something and my brain scatters. Am I delusional and deranged or am I being divinely directed? My mind drifts constantly as I search with desperation for answers. After nearly 20 years of believing words credited to Jesus Christ more than I believed that the sky is blue, I no longer am sure how to discern what I have always already accepted as fact. I suppose it's interesting to note that it's NATURAL to look for signs when one is uncertain of where they are or where they are going. Someone has to know the truth. I am lost in the middle of nowhere with three kids. I Its the Million Dollar Question. Do I call a friend? Take away two answers? Or ask the audience? Well there is only two answers, the very few friends can only answer me with their opinion so why don't we ask the audience. The intenet! What did that rebel pirate that people either love or hate say about it? "The Internet Is Always Right" is what it said. I read that manifesto and I'm telling you, there is truth in the words of The Pirate that sounded an awful lot like the God I thought I knew too!

Right now, my path is so strewn with proverbial mental rubble I can't even move let alone go in the right direction. However this is exactly the kind of rubble that if not properly contained and disposed of is the spiritual equivalent of Chernobyl. Like one knows to favor a leg that is broken, I am keenly aware of a toxic chemical spill in my brain that is contributing to the confusion. I need to learn what exactly it is so I know to know how to prevent further devastation. I am contaminated and it devastates me to realize that in my quest to save us all, my very person is capable of poisoning everything I come in contact with.

The urge to search is overwhelming. Doesn't anyone understand that there is STUFF that needs to be done? I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS!

I have to dig. I need answers. I have to find out the truth. What is the answer? We have come full circle. That is the very question I asked the ceiling a lifetime ago and actually think that God answered that question personally.

Once again, the light bulb goes on. It happened again only this time I don't trust myself at all and I am tired of going around in circles.

This morning I think I see glimmering on the horizon. I have so much to do. I don't know if that glimmer is the beacon of hope, another train coming to finish me off or just a mirage in the desert. But like a man that is dying for a drink, I am gravitating towards it.

My head has cleared enough to realize that I am not used to being in charge. There are decisions to be made. I'm exhausted to the core but I have to keep looking. I'm so desperate for relief I am torn with trying to decide what is the best way to go? I feel like I'm running out of time.

Stay and dig? Walk towards the shiny thing that seems to be calling me? Stay. Go. I feel insane and insane feels normal. I don't know what that means.

God help me.

It is time.

What on in heavens name are you doing?

For many months now, I have been sitting alone in a corner trying to figure out what the hell happened to my life. Finding myself hundreds of miles away from the destruction of my home with half of my children missing in action has jolted me into a near stupor. How in the world did I get HERE? This is not what I had planned at all. I don't recognize the face that peers at me from the mirror. I'm not sure who it is and I don't think I trust her at all.

With everything I've ever believed in, stood for, counted on and loved yanked as if they were weeds from my soul, I am near mad with some sort of compulsion to find what I lost. There are no ruins for me to dig through, there are no people to ask and the God that I lived for was either dead, pissed off or nonexistent.

I think I'm lost.

How long have I been the one lost? I thought after the divorce that perhaps God had given me a second chance. I thought I was finally given the wings to fly.

We have all heard that where God closes one door, He opens a window. Always optimistic, I spread my wings in faith and took a leap.

I flew smack into a pane of glass of the only window I saw.

With the stars still circling around my head I am having a hard time surveying the damage. Suddenly it looks much worse than I thought and absolutely nothing is familiar.

I think I might be suffering some strange sort of emotional amnesia. Where are the rest of my kids? I have three that I realize I pulled from the wreckage, but who am I and who the hell is in charge? No, no, no, I demand a refund. This is not what I signed up for. I don't know what went wrong or who's responsible for this mess but I don't want it. No way. Take it, no backsies.

Yet here I am. Whoever I am. And here they are. Three young people whom I understand are my children from another life.

I check the calender. It's May. I see that no one is going to pop out and yell "April Fools!" and lead me back in time. I can't go back but I can't go forward. I'm stuck. I am frozen solid like Lot's wife when she looked back at the destrution of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Breathe. I feel myself breathing in and out but the air smells strange. Move, Donna. I force myself to move but don't have the strength to go far.

I sit. I sit in this one place and I give into the compulsion to dig. What in the world am I digging for? Looking for remains? Fossils? Trying to get to China? Maybe I'm looking for all three, I don't know. I want to go home. The harsh reality that home is really wherever I hang my hat startles me.

Home is where Mom is. A magnet with those words hung centrally on my refrigerator for years. When I think about of my older children who are still wandering around in the darkness, these are the words I try to force those words into the atmosphere just like I was God Almighty hovering over the formless and void earth. Let there be light. Home is where Mom is.

I want my mommy. Please, Mister. Will you please take back home? I'm very, very lost. I'm scared out of my mind and I'm so terribly cold. Help me.

I pinch myself. I'm awake. It's cold in here. It's dark. Where's God?