Loss: 5 years later

I have had this draft sitting in blogger for weeks.  It is not for lack of thought that I haven't started.  The thoughts that will eventually give life to this post, they are always there.  Some days dancing in my memory, most days completely paralyzing me.  It's the words that I struggle with.  Every time I sat to begin, I just couldn't.  Couldn't find any words to make sense of this day and articulate how I feel.  So here I am.  It's the night before a day I dread and I sit here trying to dig into my  brain, my heart, my soul to give words to my thoughts.

At 2:08pm today I will have endured 157,766,400 seconds on this planet without the one person I was sure I could never live without.  My mother.  I was with her when she died.  I held on to her with an absolute certainty that as she took her last breath, mine too would be sucked from my insides.   I am in utter disbelief that I am still here, 5 years later, writing this.  Alive.  Breathing.


I know everyone says their mother is the best.  But mine?  Really, you guys, mine *was* the best.  Ask anyone.  She was selfless. encouraging, strong, sensitive, gentle, patient, tolerant, kind, generous, attentive, warm, loving--so loving--brave, and honest.  An angel among us.  She had a soft voice and gave the best Mom hugs EVER.  She could heal with one single touch, one glance.  I can still feel her hand stroking my cheek to wipe away my tears.  As I sit here writing, rivers of emotion pouring down my cheeks, I can honestly imagine her here doing just that.

As much as I can feel her presence and remember her, I don't allow myself to go to this place often.  I am physically aching.  It's weird.  When I get really upset I get a real live ache in my bones, concentrated mostly in my hands.  Probably only my mother and Paul would understand it's reference, but I've been known to cry that my hands hurt when my heart is heavy with sadness.  And right now the pain is almost crippling.

I feel bad sometimes that I don't allow myself to do more than skim the surface of my grief of losing my mother.  I have her pictures everywhere.  See them everyday.  But only every so often do I really look at them.  At her.  It is still just too painful to see her face and know that her memory is all I have left.   I have voicemails saved of her voice on a disc in my strong box.  Each time I listen to them I fall to my knees.  But I am so grateful that I have them.  I have little video of her, and though I've only attempted once to watch some, I am devastated that I don't have more.  Just to see her in the flesh- laughing, tucking a stray hair behind her ear, even just sitting drinking her coffee and writing out checks--I wish I had all those little moments.

It's sort of ironic, really.  My coping with her loss and how differently I dealt with the loss of my father.  My dad passed away when I was 10.  He was never sick a day in his life and had a seizure one night, later to be diagnosed with a Glioblastoma Multiforme brain tumor.  A death sentence basically.  He survived 9 months before I watched him die.

I was pretty much obsessed with death and dying after that.  My young mind was constantly looking at pictures of him, writing stories and poems about him, watching the 20 seconds of grainy 1987 video I have of him where he says my name just once.  I think I was afraid that if I didn't rememeber I'd forget.  With my mom, I think I'm afraid that if I don't forget I'll remember that I am surrving without her.  I don't know if that makes a sherd of sense to you guys, but it is exactly how I feel.  In my heart and my mind it is not okay to be living here without her.

My obsession with death and dying birthed my anxiety at a young age.  Go figure, right?  I mean a total text book case of paranoia that I would become an orphan.  I had panic attacks at school and missed out on dozens of sleepovers b/c I was terrified that something would happen to her.

My mother was only 42 when my father died.  My parents were high school sweet hearts.  He had loved her since she was 15.  I can still remember the night my father died.  My mother was so strong.  She kept herself together for my sister and I.  She was broken inside but was a rock for her kids. After my dad died, she never dated.  Never remarried.  My sister was 10 years older than me and living out of the house.  So, essentially, it was just her and I.  She devoted her life to me.  Her world revolved around me and mine around her.  We were best friends.  Not a day ended without heaing her tell me she loved me.  Not a night that I didn't thank God for blessing me with this angel woman to call Mom.  She told me before she died that I saved her life, that I was the reason she woke up every morning.  She survived the loss of my father because she had to for her children. 

Losing her was like losing a limb.  Or 4.  And although she got to be a part of much more of my life than my father, it isn't enough for me.  She didn't see me walk down the aisle and get married, sadly passing 8 weeks before my wedding.  She wasn't there to help me though my darkest days of struggling with infertility and loss, when she too stuggled with both.  She wasn't there when I held my daughter for the first time and she isn't here for me to tell her "I get it."  I finally have an understaning of how crazy she was about me.  How she would have sacrificed her every happiness, her last breath for me--Her child.  Her baby girl.







Not many nights ago I sat in the dark nursing my sleepy Lainey Lou.  I wanted to freeze that moment and touch every square inch of her from the tips of her toes to the crown of her head.  Because I was-- am--just so consumed by this incredible love for her.  And I get it now.  How much I was loved.  I miss that.  Yearn for that only-a-mother's-love kind of love.  There is no subsitute.  And I know we're all guilty, but when I see or hear people complaining or griping about their Mom, I just want to lay into them about how lucky they are to still have her.  So go, hug your mom.  Call her.  Tell her you love her.

Elena Jospehine, my  baby, is named after my mom, Elena Jo.  Everyone called my mom Lou, though and we often call Elena, Lainey Lou.  It just fits.  What a love affair these two would have.  I can breathe only in knowing that every day with her is a day with a piece of both my mom and my dad.  Their legacy lives on in her.  I cannot wait to tell her all about them.

D & L (my parents, Don & Lou)

Angels watching over me...touching gift from my dear, sweet Summer.

Loving her Nana and Pop-Pop

So today, though I am sad that I cannot be surrounded by family and tending to her grave as I normally would, I am vowing, for my own daughter, not to sit in sorrow and wallow in my grief.  That is the last thing my mother would want. Not sure where the day will take us but if my Mom had her say, we'd soak up some sun at the pool, eat some 3 Musketeers, and share lots of hugs.  Sounds like a good day to me.

If you have made it this far, I want to sincerely thank you for allowing me this forum to open my heart.  I needed this. 

Much love...xoxo