Half Full, Missing MorMor, Baseball, and Apple Pie

I am aware that our blog often (not always, but often) comes across as presenting our family/life as all glossy and happy-happy and smileys and rainbows. The honest to God truth of it is, I feel that we have an incredibly charmed life. Yes, we work wicked hard (don't know why that 'wicked' thing seems appropriate here, but somehow it does). Yes, we have our tantrums and meltdowns and fussy-phases just like everyone else (or, I guess, I assume everyone else does?!). Yes, it all feels like it just sucks sometimes. We of course have our failures, we have rejections, we have setbacks, we lose, we flop, we feel like total rejects, our kids act up and drive us crazy and make us wonder how on earth we'll get through the next twenty years.... yes, of course. But from my perspective, those things are just to be expected --- part of the complexity of richly layered living. We have not had major catastrophic losses. We have never had devastating health problems. We have not had to deal with life-altering tragedy or crisis. Braydon and I are soulmates who found each other early. And we're very driven people who are determined to make our life wonderful. We have a daily commitment to making it work. We found two twin boys who are the perfectly right match to be our children. We have a baby who is --to us-- like an angel. From our vantage point, it really is just about as good as it can get. We wouldn't want everything to be smooth around every edge. We wouldn't want the road to have no curves. We wouldn't want the dullness of too much peace and quiet. Our days are full (overflowing). Our life is crazy (truly). We feel extraordinarily blessed. We give and give and give, in all sorts of directions. And we receive and receive and receive, in so many many ways. We see our glass as more-than-half-full. And we're unapologetic about that. Because, from where we stand (and we believe we've seen enough of the world to know...), it is. We also know enough about the world to know this: we are privileged. And therefor: we're not whiners, we're not complainers, and we don't have a lot of tolerance for privileged people who are. So, I'm not going to whine here. And I'm not going to complain. But, man, do we miss MorMor. She left on Friday. Our weekend was about as splendid as any weekend could be (we had so much fun having a family weekend with lots of home time and lots of outings just the five of us)... but we miss her when she's gone. Oh, do we miss her. We miss so many things. Just two of them are baseball and apple pie. As cheesy as it sounds, it is for real. She plays baseball with the boys for hours on end in the driveway. She makes apple pie with them/for us. She grounds us with her steady presence. And then, just as quick as she comes, she's gone. And we're back to the five of us again. We're a happy five-some. Our glass is more-than-half-full, even without her. But, oh, how we miss her when she's gone.