My mother's daughter...

Tomorrow my son will be five years old. I made arrangements for his party at a karate school near my work, it is my first official birthday party. Usually we just have cake and ice cream with the family but parties like that seem to emphasize the fact that my mom is missing. I shopped for Connor's gift and party favors alone one Friday afternoon while the kids were still in daycare. I ordered the food and cake without my mom and realized that this is how my life will be moving forward. I keep telling myself that I am upset because my mom is missing all this, she is not here to see her only grandson turn 5 and she would have loved it so! In those moments when I am truly honest with myself I admit that I am more devastated over the fact that I don't get to see my mom seeing Connor turn 5. I have lost something so wonderful and most of the time I try to be thankful that I had it at all, but lately I have been failing miserably. I just want my mom back, I want to scream at someone, anyone and demand an answer to the question, "Why did she leave me?" I know how childish that sounds and all I can say is that I am her child and being 36 years old doesn't mean that I miss my mom any less than my 3 year old daughter misses me when I am away from her.

Death is what it is, the emotional reaction to it is the part that gets me. Since my mom's passing I have become afraid to do things that are totally unrelated to her death. For example, I don't want to go to the grocery store by myself, I did it a million times while my mom was alive but for some reason it is hard to handle now. I guess it has to do with the fact that if my mom was alive I knew in my heart that I could call her if I didn't want to go alone and she would go along for the ride. It is really difficult to move forward without that cushion in life. I force myself to do all these things alone because I know I can't stop living nor do I want to. I have even gone to restaurants and had dinner alone with my kids which is not something I ever did. I guess it was a personal challenge I set for myself. It was actually a lot of fun, talking to my kids about Connor's birthday while we ate pancakes for dinner. I have gotten into the habit of writing down the really great stuff I do with my husband and children so that I never forget what I am living for. They say having a child is making the choice to allow your heart to live outside of your body, mine is split in two and still lives on. In the beginning of our marriage James and I would always say to each other "You are the love of my life, my future" and I never realized until now how true that is. James is most definitely my future. He is the person who is only concerned for me, I won't say he is my soulmate because I find that to be such nonsense. Marraige is never easy and the whole soulmate concept makes it sound like a walk in the park. James is not my soulmate, he is simply the man I love and trust, the man who shows me the path when I am lost and remains calm in my storm. He smiles at my clumsiness and believes that his life would not be complete if me and the kids weren't a part of it. These are the things I am living for because my mom didn't raise a fool and I keep moving forward because she didn't raise a coward either.

I miss her every moment of every day. I find myself posting messages on her Facebook account because it actually feels like I am talking to her. Silly, but true. I am sure I will visit that page tomorrow to share the fun of her grandson's 5th birthday with her. I will share with her the details of the party favors I bought alone and describe the cake that Connor agreed to after I spent 35 minutes explaining to him that he couldn't have a picture of my friend Jill! If my mom were alive i wouldn't have to tell her these things because she would have been by my side experiencing them with me. Sometimes, I just close my eyes for a few moments and pretend she has just gotten a few steps ahead of me and she will be there waiting when I finally catch up. It is a nice thought in those brief moments and when I open my eyes again I can feel her all around me. So again, I take a deep breath and step forward...

Anger makes the best speech you'll ever regret...

This morning I had to wait for a man to jog through the intersection before I could turn into the daycare center to drop off my children and it made me angry. I could feel my blood pressure rising and could hear myself yelling inside my head. I actually thought about nudging him out of the way with my car!--Okay, I didn't give that thought any serious consideration but the fact that it came to mind makes me worry about my own mental status.

I miss my mom and I am so angry at the world because she was taken from me, from my children and my family. She was my friend, the person I could call when I was upset about something stupid and now I don't have that. I know it is not fair to wish her back to a body that couldn't keep up with her spirit but dammit, I want her back. I will never call someone Mom again in my lifetime and that seems to make something inside me very dark and very irrational. I don't sleep at night anymore because I can't get past the images of my mom in that stupid hospice or being poked and prodded in that awful hospital. I know that my mom's death should not be about me, it should be about her. I can tell you what an amazing woman my mom was but I will never be convinced that you fully appreciate the fact. My children are young and they miss my mom dearly right now and I pray that they always remember her. They are so beautiful and so innocent that I want to know how God could take their grandmother! My mom lived with cancer for 10 years and never needed any form of treatment but along comes this disease that takes her within months, leaving me without her and clouding my memories with pain and anguish. She was the glue for us and now I watch my family fall to pieces and although I hate to say something so petty, IT IS NOT FAIR! Who the hell makes these decisions? I don't think they looked close enough at my mom, they didn't realize that this one woman held together an entire clan of people. Somebody overlooked the fact that we needed her before they snatched that strong, vibrant woman away from us.

There is something about laying awake in a dark room that makes you feel utterly alone even if someone is beside you. I try to lie still so as not to wake my husband but sometimes you think that tossing and turning may help you escape the terrors that your mind relives in that empty darkness. Since my mom's death I have realized that I can function on 2 to 3 hours of sleep a night and still get up and make it through my day. I am up by 5:30, showered and dressed by 6 when I wake the kids to get them off to daycare. We are out the front door by 6:45 and I am sitting at my desk by 7:30 if Cadence doesn't have a meltdown when I drop her off. Last week she cried as I went to leave and when I promised to be back after work to pick her up she screamed that Meemom never came back. Seeing so much misery in her big eyes, so blue like my mom's, makes me want snatch her up with her brother and run away. The pain always finds you and then you have to deal with the idiots that tell you it gets easier. That is the biggest load of bullshit I think anyone ever put to me. It doesn't get easier, it just becomes a part of you and you learn to hide it and tell people you are doing better. Basically, you lie to them so that they can move on with their lives. My mom would be truly disappointed if I didn't move on with my life, she would be sad to see me trapped in grief over her and other than my precious family that is the only thing that keeps me moving forward instead of stepping back or dropping out completely.

You cannot lie to everyone in your life. Some people just know you too well to allow it and others you let in by choice. My husband James knows me very well and he knows my anger despite the fact that I never voice it to him. He is sweet enough to let me have it for now and tells me I have the right to be mad because my mom's death is infuriating. At work, there is one coworker who is the person I have let in by choice. She always listens when I am teetering on the edge and she managed to not look alarmed when I shared my desire to sick my minivan on an innocent jogger. She actually manages to make me laugh with her sarcastic humor and makes me feel like something clicks inside. In a lifetime there are very few people that will share each nuance of your sense of humor. For the most part you can get people to laugh with you at the classics, but it is rare to find that person who is amused by the dark side of your humor. I have found Jill and the mean side of my humor exists pleasantly with hers. We tend to be amused by things that might make others look on in mild alarm and we always seem to find ourselves announcing that we are going to hell for whatever sarcastic comment hit the spot at a particular moment in time. I can see in her face that she is concerned for me and I know that she is upset by my pain, but she always does me the favor of dropping a witty, sarcastic line rather than boohoo me. I guess most people would take that opportunity to regain their composure but I always use it to vent the effects of my mental breakdown. It works for me and I am always thankful to Jill for being the person she is.

Jill shares stories of her mom with me and I love to listen. She is wise enough to appreciate her mom and lucky enough to consider her as her best friend. Hearing Jill speak of her mom makes me remember the wonderful times I had with my mom and it makes me realize that I would never change a single moment with her. So, I guess that jogger this morning can thank Jill and her mom for the fact that he didn't get his skinny butt run over by a minivan! And I will continue to thank Jill for her witty, intelligent sense of humor and I will thank her mom for teaching her daughter the perfect blend of sarcasm and compassion.