no drumsticks for this quirky girl....

Tonight T.J., the kids and I decided we wanted to make ice cream sundaes. I told T.J. I would run up and get the ice cream at Krogers. His response was "Why don't you just go to UDF?" simple question really. It is closer, it is more convenient and I would have saved myself 15 minutes, but I can't go. The truth is I haven't been to UDF in almost 9 months. The last time I went was the night Austin died. I can still picture the ice cream on the table as I answered that phone call. See it dripping to the ground when we came back home that night. It may be superstitious, silly or just dumb, but I will never run up and get ice cream at UDF again.
I know there are so many things about me that T.J. will never understand, no matter how well he knows me. The UDF thing is just like so many others that I have grown up with. The reason why I threw away the sweater I realized I had worn to both Emma and Connor's funerals....I would never want to be able to wear it again, God forbid. Or the reason why I have never owned nor used a large glass measuring cup. My brother got sick in one just like it the night he got sick before he died. The same reason why I have never eaten (nor have my children ever eaten) a drumstick...the last thing Mikey ate that night. I know it may seem odd, we all know that me going to UDF, Mikey eating a drumstick or my sweater did not cause the series of events that preceded or followed, but it is just the thought.
Grief is such a process. There are so many things we have no control over, especially when dealing with grief. These little superstitions are a way to make me feel like I am doing something. I have spent the last 30 years and 11 months fully aware that I wasn't allowed to have drumsticks and I have never seen a problem with that! I don't think I have missed out on much with one ice cream cone on my list of no's! A few have been passed down from my Grandmother and coined as "bad luck", some from my mom and others have been created in my own head, but all of these things are a part of who I am. I have thrown clothes away, stopped buying specific groceries and even gone different ways to get somewhere because of this. How we deal with our grief makes us who we are. I guess when you speak nicely of someone we would call these traits quirks! Quirky....maybe that is what I am....