Two weeks of....

It's been nearly two weeks of whirlwind everything, and the wind has finally ceased, and I'm looking around, wondering what has happened.

Somehow I got it into my head last spring that I was going to bring back my old friend Cathi Lam.mert, of Share, to speak at my local hospital. I was very excited to do this; I love the talk Cathi gives, I love being able to spend the donor's money on the idea that others will be better cared for in the future, and there is this small piece of me that enjoys having something to do that stretches beyond peanut butter sandwiches and that small red potty.

Of course, the work I do with my program I started is really what does sustain the part of me who is an adult person other than a mother, and I do feel like I have a job, although I don't often feel that I have the resources (both financial and physical) to put the work that I'd like to into it. But somehow, with this vision of bringing Cathi back the stars aligned and within our first conversation it became apparent that there were two days in October where the big conference room at the hospital would be available for me to use and where Cathi was free, and so we grabbed it, and signed, and it was set.

So this entails a great deal of publicity, in theory, registrations, sorting out who wants CEUs, ordering food for each seminar, collecting donations for those who work outside of our region of service, reserving tech equipment, assembling parent panels, more publicity, brochures, reminders, e-mails, more e-mails, and a whole lot of time.

During the height of this organization in late summer, about 6 weeks before the program, my dear friend at the hospital who serves as my liason to everyone had to go on long term sick leave. Which left me, absolutely, alone to manage all of it.

I need not go into the details of patching together the three days of childcare for three different children in two different schools, and the nursing baby who had never, ever been left without her mother. But we figured it all out, and we all survived.

And over 150 people came to my program, and I proudly stood at the front of the room and told them that I'd made this, that I had created this program and brought Cathi here with funds we'd raised together, my little group, and I didn't just feel like I was doing this, I was doing it.

All I ever wanted was for Charlotte's life to matter to someone. I have to say that doing this work just makes my heart absolutely spin and glow and burn, because she absolutely is creating change in people, through the work I do. What a relief to know this is true. That it has happened, and that it will happen.

And that is why I have not posted in two weeks. Now, I begin to dig myself out of all the things that did not get accomplished as I was sifting through 45 new e-mails and reading Pajama Time with the other hand.