I am emotionally spent.

I haven’t had a week like this one in… well, I don’t know when this has happened before, but it probably has.

Monday I went to spend some time with my hairdresser.

While I was there, she told me about how her 70 year old father was found in his house last week, passed away.

He had been gone for 10 days while his mentally ill wife continued to try and feed him, but couldn’t.

Heartbreaking.

Tuesday was my normal day, which I am so thankful for now.

Wednesday I attended a work meeting.

All of the speech therapists work at different schools, so it’s nice to get together to visit and see each other’s faces every once in a while.

Except when we got there, we were told that our 73 year old colleague, who had more life and energy than all of us combined, had passed away the day before.

Again, heartbreaking.

Because she wasn’t done living yet. She made that known every day.

She was the part of our team that traveled from school to school, visiting all of us and making us smile.

She will be missed.

Thursday, I embarrassed Michael at school.

Well, embarrassed isn’t the right word. I mortified him.

And I felt awful.

He was in line with his class and I walked by and ruffled his hair and sang, “I lovvveeee youuu.”

We’re a sarcastic family.

We joke around a lot.

I expected him to push my hand away and say, “Mom… quit!”

But he didn’t.

He put his head down and started quietly crying.

He didn’t feel well, and my actions sent him over the edge.

I pulled him into the nearest classroom and apologized profusely.

I promised him a bottle of Coke with lunch.

In the end, I let him go home and rest.

(And the next day, none of his friends mentioned the incident.

Either they didn’t notice anything, or they forgot to tease him about it.)

I went back to school for one more group of students and had to stop teaching for a few minutes because of a loud helicopter right over the school.

I later found out that helicopter was taking a little boy to the hospital.

He went to kindergarten in the classroom next door to Jack.

He wandered away from his house and was found in a pond on the golf course next to the school.

It was our small town’s first drowning ever.

The worst thing to happen since our incident last year.

And I can’t stop thinking about it.

Friday, I had a doctor’s appointment for the back pain I have been having.

It was confirmed that I have the same genetic spinal diseases that my Grandmother had.

And my Dad is dealing with now.

Thankfully, my good health should keep these diseases from causing me to end up like my Grandmother, who was confined to a bed in pain for the last three years of her life.

Or my Dad, who is out of work and in constant pain right now, looking at back surgery.

I am unplugging for the weekend to be with my family.

To celebrate that I have parents to talk to, even if it is just on the phone.

I’ll be enjoying time with my kids, because some are without theirs this weekend.

We’ll be making cookies for the firemen and women that responded to that horrible call Thursday.

We’ll go swim in the pool and run around the backyard, because I can. And they can.

And I’ll be thankful that I’m alive and well, even if it means having back pain.

Because back pain is a small trade for all these amazing things going on around us that we get to enjoy every day.

So go.

Here’s your reminder.

Enjoy. Every. Day.