Missing Meemom...

Life without my mom is difficult to say the least. I miss her dearly and still have that horrible crushing sensation in my chest when I wake up and realize she is not going to be a part of my day. I do not want to make my life about surviving without my mom and I am sure in time it will stop being that, but right now I am just holding on. My days are falling into a routine which is a good thing but for some reason makes me feel trapped. Perhaps because life with my mom was anything but routine!—we did a million things on a whim or simply to say that we had done them. My mom really lived and when I have moved on to the next part of my journey I want my kids to smile and say the same of me. Throughout her entire life, my mom made things fun for us girls and it is not until now when I look at my own children that I realize she did it for her own happiness as much as for ours. On rainy days she used to strap on roller skates and we would take a few spins around the dining room table, never giving a thought to the scuffs on those beautiful hardwood floors or the last minute camping trips when she would throw a cast iron skillet in the car and we would be on our way! My mom did these crazy things because she knew that her daughters would find it fun and exciting, the idea of an adult just throwing caution to the wind. Although she taught us to be responsible, self-sufficient and considerate she made sure we knew that life was meant live.

My children are starting to come to the realization that their grandmother is not coming back. The questions about Heaven are more frequent and more detailed. They want to know where their grandmother is and why she is not returning. These moments are intense and border on impossible. I hate to look into my children’s beautiful eyes and see the comprehension of death and all that it brings. I can’t think of anything more painful than watching the look in Connor’s eyes as he comprehends. I see his eyes well up and his lip quiver and I know that he understands and is trying to adjust to such a loss.

Yesterday was a very warm Sunday afternoon and I brought the kids to play outside while James was grilling. Usually, James will be outside grilling while I finish odds and ends in the kitchen and the kids play in the living room. For some reason, since my mom died that ritual just seems unacceptable, so I hustled the kids outside to play while I sat on the patio with James. During our conversation James opened the grill and managed to get a face full of smoke that made his eyes tear. Cadence wandered over to ask James why he was crying and he told her that he had a little bit of smoke in his eyes and that made him cry. Satisfied, she went on to ask about an old scar that he has on his neck from a surgery performed when he was treated for thyroid cancer several years before we met. It has always been there and is fairly noticeable, but for some reason Cadence never saw it before this day. “Daddy, where did you get that scratch on your neck?” she asked. We explained about the scar and how it was just a mark left from having a booboo fixed and then watched as she thought this over. “Did a doctor do that?” she asked with “doctor” sounding like “docker” in her little voice, and when James told her yes a doctor had fixed the booboo for him she looked to me. “The docker didn’t fix Meemom.” I smiled sadly at her and explained that sometimes people are too sick and a doctor just can’t fix it. The thought of my mom missing her granddaughter growing up made me cry once again for the loss. Cadence looked at my tearing eyes and asked simply, “Mommy, why are you crying?” I told her it was because I missed my mom and she looked closely into my eyes and asked “Do you have a little bit of Meemom in your eye?”

I guess I do…

Chicken soup in heaven...

A bit of time has passed since my mom’s funeral and each of us is trying in our own way, to go back to our lives and make them as normal as possible. This is no small feat as my mom was such a huge part of everything we did. Dana and Dan continue to make renovations to the house they shared with my mom and my mom’s brother and sisters have headed home. James has gone back to work and I have put my children into daycare for the first time in their young lives. I chose a facility down the road from my office on the recommendation from a coworker and lucky for me she was right about how wonderful it is. My kids fell right into the routine of daycare life but it was a bit more difficult for me. James is out the door before 6 am and home around 8 pm, leaving me with breakfast and dinner and all those things before and after. I think I am doing okay with it and only screamed myself hoarse 3 days out of 5 that first week and dinner was mostly take-out. The next week got a bit better and the screaming was replaced by hysterical crying after the kids went to bed and before James got home and dinner stepped up to home-cooked frozen dinners.

The weekends seem to be the most difficult for me. I miss her the most on Saturday mornings when I would have talked to her on the phone for an hour before I got the kids dressed to swim at her house where we would talk for several more hours. I know that I will miss something about her each day and the ache I feel when I think of her being gone will never go away, it will just become a part of who I am, just like loving her is a part of me. The kids still ask when they can go to see her and I can feel the tears burning the back of my throat as I explain to them that Grandmom is in Heaven now and we won’t be seeing her until it is time for us to go there. Connor always asks if she went to Heaven because of the booboo in her brain and that is when the tears fall; big fat drops full of anguish because little boys shouldn’t know about these things. Those are the moments that I have to leave the room while I sob and beg God to please give her back.

My mom taught me that every event in your life is an opportunity whether it is good or bad is up to you. I try to use that advice when my brain won’t let go of the suffering. Although she handled it with strength and dignity, this disease forced my mom to suffer her worst nightmare before it took her away. It was a harsh thing to watch and those are the images that come to me in the dark when I cannot fall asleep. I can see her thrashing legs, her body twitching in pain as the disease ate away at her nerves and I can hear her voice slurred and breaking, asking Dan when she thought us girls were out of the room, why this was happening to her. Each time these thoughts come to drown me I remember Dan caring for my mom, I think of how wonderful it felt when I realized that for 26 years of her life my mom spent each of her days with a man who truly loved her; surrounded and loved by her daughters and grandchildren. My mom knew what she had while she had it and I remind myself that this is the lesson I need to take away from the nightmare. I need to focus on my own wonderful husband, the man who is beside me whenever I need him but always allows me to lead when I feel I must. Our beautiful children who we have come to realize are far more intelligent than we could ever hope to be, are the gifts that keep me going. When my mom was alive I would watch her with my children and think that they were born just for her. She loved each and everything about them. When I was mortified that Connor started telling anyone who would listen that his “pee-pee was getting bigger everyday” my mom simply laughed her wonderful laugh and said “Jodey, relax, men have been bragging about their pee-pees for hundreds of years” or when Cadence decided sleeping at night just wasn’t for her I could always count on my mom to come out in her pajamas after midnight to ride around the neighborhood with me until Cadence fell asleep. Thank God for the 2am Taco Bell drive-thru! It is a difficult thing to be outwitted, outlasted, and outplayed by your children but my mom always said “If both kids are in the car when you put it in drive you have faced and won half the battle.”

Tomorrow is the Fourth of July holiday and we still be having our annual cook-out at Dana’s house. We decided it wouldn’t be right to just ignore the holiday so we toned it back a bit and decided to forego the fireworks. Dana managed to get the pool clear by following my mom’s directions, throw in as many chemicals as it takes to get rid of the green and then have it tested so that the tech can tell you to run the filter continuously because you have too many chemicals in the pool. It works for us! I know it won’t feel the same being at Dana’s house without my mom but I can’t imagine being anywhere else. I love to see my kids with Dan too. During my mom’s illness they missed him as much as her and it feels good to see them playing and to watch him enjoy them. He walks us out to the car when we leave and tells the kids “I’ll see you later” just as my mom always did and I watch his eyes fill with tears as I start to pull away from the curb and the kids yell “I love you, Papa Dan.” It will be our first holiday without her but in all honesty the pain will be the same as any other day. We miss her and holidays don’t make that any better or any worse. Every place I go holds a memory of my mom. It makes it difficult some days to even run to the store for milk but again, I can’t imagine being anywhere else. Remembering my mom is never a bad thing and I know that as time goes by the images of her laughing and smiling will come before the hospital scenes. I am sure I will be able to talk about her to my children without choking on the words; I really need to be able to do that because my children deserve to remember her, to know that she always shined, she bought her dogs Happy Meals from McDonalds when she thought they looked sad, she never said no to a person in need, she loved and she really lived.

At the dinner table last night Connor asked how he could bring his bowl of chicken soup to Heaven without it getting cold. He explained that it wouldn’t help Grandmom feel better if it were cold. I explained to him that he didn’t have to worry because Grandmom didn’t need his soup in Heaven, because no one ever gets sick in Heaven. My heart ached as I watched his tiny mouth curve into that brilliant smile and he said “Then I bet Grandmom is the most fun person in Heaven, because she sure was when she was here!”

My God, how I miss her…