Have you ever had one of those feelings? I'm sure you know the ones I'm talking about. It's the one where you know something is wrong but just can't put your finger on what it is.

Rachel had always been a warm and caring person. From the time I first met her after she and my father started dating right up until the last time she called on the phone. Before I had moved in with my now husband, she always made sure I had a roof over my head, even when she and my father were temporarily apart. She accepted me for all my faults and showed me how a stranger could become a friend. She did it all with a kind of ease and flair that I doubt I will ever live up to.

That last phone call I remember clutching the phone as if for dear life. She wanted to hang up ... needed to go. All I could do was repeat over and over, "I love you." She was insistent I say our traditional goodbye because she thought it was so cute and wouldn't go until I had said it. Finally I broke down, and with a great agony I said those words she needed to hear. "All of us love all of you." My heart was breaking and I had no idea why. I had this longing to remain on the phone with her as if it was some kind of lifeline that I didn't dare let go of. But with that last phrase she said she loved us too and hung up.

I got the call the next morning. She had passed away quietly in her sleep. She had been home, where she wanted to be. She'd been tired of the hospitals and the doctors and was insistent that if she ever went back, then she'd never see home again. I knew that's the way she had wanted it to be. She had been home with the man she loved, surrounded by memoirs from all the people she cared so deeply about. She had been comfortable in her own bed and not some stiff hospital bed with tubes and wires everywhere. She had gone quietly in the night just as she had wanted. She was finally at peace.

I made the arrangements to travel back home for the funeral. I can't say the trip was easy with two little ones under the age of four in tow. But it was worth the 12 hour drive. I stayed with my father who seemed to need the house full of people. he was so angry at Rachel for leaving him. All he could manage to say the first day we were there was, "How could she do this to me?" Then he would painfully recount all the plans they had made together ... the trips they were supposed to take, the house they were someday going to buy ... all of it. "She should have cared enough to stay." SO angry. There was no reason behind it, but then there never is when someone is hurting the kind of hurt that a band-aid just can't fix.

Rachel's daughters came by. We talked about some of the goofy things their mother had done, and how she would care "too much" sometimes and not let them lead their own lives. We talked about a day about 4 years prior.

Dad was still in Texas at that time. He was with my sister for a bone marrow transplant. It was before he and Rachel had gotten married. I'd had nowhere to stay, so Rachel had opened her home to me and I was staying with her for a few weeks until I could find a place. I came home one day and Rachel wasn't sitting in her usual spot at the dining room table. Her car had been out front, so I knew she should be home.

"Rachel?" I called out as I closed the door behind me. "Raich?" There was no answer. I headed up the stairs and found her curled up in the bed. I held her hand lightly and called her name again. There was no response. "Rachel!" I said louder this time. I shook her shoulders, but there wasn't so much as a grumble.

I'd had no idea what to do. I called one of her daughters with panic in my voice. "There's something wrong ... I can't wake her up!" She calmly told me to call the paramedics and said she would be right over. I immediately hung up and called 911. The ambulance was there in under five minutes and paramedics tracked an amazing amount of mud in considering how dry it had been outside. They took her to the hospital ... the first of many long stays since then.

Her daughter that was about my age, the one I had called that day, gave me a hug and told me, "Thank-you. Thank-you for giving us a few more years with her." A few more years just didn't seem like it had been enough. I had moved too far away to have spent enough quality time with her. It had just felt like she would be there forever. She was so much more than just a step-mother. She had been my friend, my confidant, almost a sister ... she had always been there for me. I loved her so much!

That was more than four years ago. And every year as it nears her birthday, I have a hard time making it through the days. How many times have I nearly picked up the phone to tell her about something one of the kids have done? How many times have I longed just to hear her voice just one last time. Then I remember the last call I spoke to her. I don't remember if I had ever made it a point to tell her how much I loved her prior to that call ... but at the very least, that one last call I told her "I love you."

Many of us have very good reasons not to work on our writing. In the past couple of months I have had more reasons not to write than reasons to sit down and write. The topmost of these is that I have started taking online classes to get a degree in communications. Once I finish this degree, I will then be taking classes for a second degree ... this one for a doctorate in education.

Between schooling, the holiday season, and my myriad of other projects, the only writing I have made time for is schoolwork. I have to admit ... this is not what I had pictured at this time last year.

I had not pictured my husband attending school, or me taking classes right beside him. I had not pictured a holiday season so busy that it would take three days after Christmas to recover enough to breath. I had not anticipated that my other projects would be consuming what valuable other time would be remaining after everything else in the day had long gone to rest.

I am of a determined spirit for this upcoming year. Rather than make a resolution that I know I will end up not following through on, I have boldly gone where few others have dared to tread! I have come up with two anti-resolutions for the upcoming year.  And if I break these, there will certainly be no hard feelings ... if I keep them, then it's all that much better for me.

After having a multitude of children, I am not as tiny as I used to be.  As a matter of fact, I am close to 100 pounds overweight, and that's after losing nearly 60 pounds already. So this year's first anti-resolution is that I will not get down to a weight of 100 pounds. Quite frankly, with my build, if I did manage to get down to that weight, I would look like a walking skeleton. So I am determined to follow through with this and not lose that much weight.

Also, with a clan the size of ours, travel is not the most convenient thing. I mean there are places I might like to go this coming year. Among them are England, Maine, North Carolina, and Kansas. But this brings us to my second anti-resolution. I will not go to France this year. I'm sure France is lovely, but can you see anyone dragging four children under the age of 8 someplace that far away? And none of them even have a clue as to how to speak French. They would be completely lost! England ... well at least they can speak the language and since they know our friends who live there, it wouldn't be as bad. But I am absolutely determined not to go to France.  And if I should happen to find myself there anyway? LOL ... I guess that would mean there were some odd circumstances to have it come about ... definitely a story worth writing.

So, for this coming year, I wish you all the best with your own anti-resolutions.

Live, Laugh, and Be Well!