Everyone has been talking about things they accomplished the last year. Goals they set their minds to and accomplished. Most have their resolutions and goals set for 2020. A fresh new start to not only a new year, but a new decade.

I have a few things I look forward to accomplishing this year, but before I can look forward to a new year I sit back and reflect on the decade that changed me. The decade that I married my husband and started my short career. The decade I learned more about myself and what I truly was made to be. It was the decade I became a mom and my life forever changed. Every decade here on out wouldn’t be the same. I would live for someone other than myself.

It was the decade that dropped me to my knees where I physically couldn’t breathe and felt the worst heartache any parent would ever feel. It was the decade I had to reteach myself to live again. It was the decade that taught me to live intentionally, love more, laugh often, forgive others, give back and simply be kind because you never know someone else’s story.

It was the decade I raised three children and buried one. I moved across the country, found myself yet to only completely lose myself too. It was the decade I questioned my faith and I questioned forgiveness.

Everything I once knew and was raised to know a decade ago was really put into perspective this last decade. 2000-2010, I lived at home and was in school. I was taught manners, love, to be kind to others, give back to the community, be there for others. I was taught everything I needed to know to grow up and be a respectable, caring compassionate adult. That decade prepared me in many ways for the future, but the last decade truly taught me that life isn’t what you always dream it will be. No matter how much you plan your future, how much you pray, or how much you try to live intentionally, things will not always be picture perfect.

Although the last decade had many many highs. Becoming a wife, a mother to three beautiful babies, buying our first home, taking our first family vacations and so on.

It was also the decade that brought out a side of me I wish I never have had to see. It brought out many weaknesses in me.

I fell to my knees on a hospital floor barely breathing. I walked out of a hospital without my child I took in. I stood beside my son, and said my last goodbyes. I too died a little that day inside.

I sat around a kitchen table with a funeral director and planned a funeral for my child. I picked out his casket colors, spoke the words I wanted typed out in his obituary. I picked out the flowers that would sit in the funeral home as family and friends supported us in the most darkest hours of my life. We moved out of our home and never went back. I drove to a cemetery often to visit my first born child.

I learned that husbands and wives grieve differently. It changes your marriage in many ways. But it’s possible to still be there for each other and never give up on one another even through life’s most difficult moments.

The last few years of this decade was never something I thought would happen to me. I lived through it. It was hard. It’s still hard and it will always be hard. But I lived it. I survived and I will continue to live for my two precious babies Earthside. They have been here and loved me during the times that their mom felt like she was literally hitting rock bottom. They may have saw tears, yells and just udder sadness, but they loved me through it.

This decade made me a mom, but it also made me a better mom. It made me realize what’s important in this life. It made me realize time is precious. Memories are all we will have left at the end of each day. Make memories. Enjoy the moments.

This next decade, I know I will learn and grow more as a mom. The last decade made me a mom. It changed me as a mom. But I will forever be a mom. This next decade, I hope it teaches me to have more patience as a mom. To feel less anxious as a mom. To love even harder as a mom. And to simply be the most present mom in my children’s lives.

Here’s to a new decade of many more firsts. More valuable life lessons. More memories to be made, and more opportunities to give back, love and be there for the ones that I love.

Bring it 2020.