Cebastian went to his first cub scout camping. It was also Isabelle’s and his first time camping. I made a video of Cebastian making a fire with his dad. You can tell by some of my comments that if I were stuck in the middle of the wilderness, I wouldn’t even know where to begin.

I wonder how personal bloggers handle this.  You are writing something that happened in your life, and it involves someone else.  What do you do? Use his/her name, a pseudonym, or just an initial?

Before, I used to use the person’s actual name.  I thought, “Well, his name is pretty common, so who will figure it out?” Believe me, people did.  I learned the hard way that the best way to have anonymity (to a point) is to just use the person’s initial.  It reduces the amounts of people emailing you about the person asking tons of questions, and you do not have to deal with the person getting upset.  Yes, occasionally people will figure it out, especially if they know you or the other person. However, you can always feign ignorance.

I want to know from others.  How do you handle it? 

We read many books on grieving, and talked to different clergymen.  One thing that we loved is planting a tree, bush, or flowers for Kristine, who passed away on January 26, 2010.  We waited til spring had arrived before doing it.  It was a very wonderful feeling to be putting life back into this Earth in honor of our sister who had left it.  My mother, sister, and I are also going to start a site in honor of my sister, and to help others who are suffering the way that she was.  When I finish the site, then I will discuss in more detail what that is.

Here is the video that we made of us planting a yellow-rose bush for Kristine:

Here is the Flickr set that I created: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dcfemella/sets/72157623886065546/

True friends are during tough times because they will stick with you no matter what.  If you need to talk, they are always there to listen.  If you need a hug, they are there to give you a big one.  If you want to laugh, they are the ones who will tell a funny joke.  There are some people who get that, and those that don’t.

Two of my problems is that I am too nice and want to save the world.  You are probably thinking if that is really a bad thing.  It can be because people will take advantage of that. I’ve come to realize that there are some people who are not really my friends. I look at the people who genuinely care about me. They ask me how I am, and it’s not usually an ulterior motive to ask me about things. This past week was a rough week for me, and I realized that the people who stuck by me are the ones who always have.  It was genuinely to ensure that I was ok.

When I was watching “Kell on Earth.” She said that there are people who are constantly asking her for free advice. They call with the pretense that they wanted to check up on her, but in actuality, it is to ask for freebies. It is that way with some people in my life. I think about all the free advice I have given out, and I think, “Damn, I could have made thousands of dollars.” Enough is enough. I am no longer going to be dishing out free advice over and over again, especially when I don’t get anything in return.

It’s like one of the coolest people, who I am lucky enough to call a friend, said to me, “You have to take care of yourself, and think about how to feel better.”  It’s something that my sister always said to me as well.  She always thought that I was too giving, and I needed to learn to be selfish.  They’re right, and I’m going to start being more selfish from now on.

There are days when I can wake up and feel ok for a bit until a memory triggers something inside me, and I get the feeling of sadness.  There are days, like today, that even before I even get out of bed, I feel this weight that makes me want to stay in bed all day.  I don’t know why that is.  I have a theory: Involuntary memory.

Involuntary memory is something that is connected with the French writer Marcel Proust. In his famous book,”Remembrance of Things Past,” Proust talks about how a smell, sound, touch, or taste can take you back to something that happened in your past. It might even invoke a memory that you had forgotten even existed. I think that is why I sometimes wake up feeling like something is weighing me down. There was something that touched one of my senses and triggered a past memory of my life before.

I know that eventually I will wake up every day and not feel any pain.  However, at the moment, it’s all I can think about. I wonder what it was this morning that I encountered that caused this.  I guess it really doesn’t matter.  All I know is that this is part of mourning, and that I will accept this feeling.