Acceptance?

9 weeks and 2 days.  Yes I am still counting.  I still haven't accepted the fact that I have lost you Mom.  I want to.  Trust me I do.  I think that if I can finally accept it, I can begin the healing process.. no?  Maybe?  Maybe not.  Is this shock?  Could I possibly be in shock still, 9 weeks later?  Is that even a thing?  I'm going to have to google that.  I just miss you so much.  I miss you well, I miss you even sick.  Your physical presence.  Your smile.  Dammit everything.  I need you here.  It hurts to not have you here.  This has been he most horrible year of my life and I just need you.  YOU.  Mom everything has gone wrong and I just don't know how much longer I can hold on without you.  I feel like everything is falling apart.

I waited weeks to feel your presence and even though these days suck without you.. I have felt you Mom.  Last week.. when I finally made things right.. you knew I needed that.  You were behind that.  God I am so grateful and thankful.  Then yesterday, when I found myself in the same predicament as I was in 15 years ago with you... and you never let me live it down.  You laughed about that for years.  There I was again.. same situation, same doctors office, same shot in the ass.  All I could do was laugh because I knew you were laughing your head off at me!  I waited so long to feel you.  Thank God I have finally found some of you around me.  Yet, the tears still come.  Almost daily.  I can't talk about you without getting choked up.  Especially to Dad.  He took me to the cemetery last week.  He knew I was struggling.  I thought if I went.. I could accept.  It didn't work.  I think it actually made me worse.  I wouldn't tell him that of course.  It's his place.. his comfort.  He cares for you there.  Me, I had to hold back with every inch of my being not to dig you up and hold you.  It didn't feel right.. me there sitting by your grave.  I should be taking care of you.

Then there are the day to day struggles.  The just living life and trying to put one foot in front of the other.  My "give a damn" is busted Mom.  I simply just cant do everything that I use to.  Quite frankly, I don't know how I still fit in a day what I do.  Maybe it is your last lesson in strength that keeps me going?  Is it you Mom?  I feel like I am letting people down.  I feel guilty for a few.. and then I just don't care.  When I have to cancel plans or respond no to an invite.. it bothers me.. but I just can't do it all and I really don't FEEL like it.  I am grateful for the people that have stuck with me.  My friends.. certain family members.. who don't hate me for it and still stand by my side.  The countless texts from people that I hardly get to respond to because I am just too damn busy or just don't feel like it... and yet those people still text me.. and love me. 

I keep finding pictures.  I look at them... suck in my breath and say, "Can this be?"  It's like I have to sit here and force myself to remember those last days to believe that you are gone and yet when I think of them.. I can't possibly believe I actually lived them.  "Wait. I did that?"  I did.  It's fuzzy and so clear all at the same time.  Oh Mom.. I just hope you are somewhere pretty and safe.  I hope that your pain is gone and that you are happy. ...

My head is spinning

 

I came across this picture today and it made me catch my breath.  This picture was taken almost seven years ago.  It was the day after Layla was born.  We were so happy!  Thrilled to have a healthy baby girl after everything poor Hannah went through as an infant!  Look at you!  So beautiful!  Four generations right there.   It was only seven years.  I truly believe this is what you would look like today if you didn't get sick.  I look at this picture and think, "How can you be gone?"  You had so much living to do.  You should be here, Mom.  I need you here.  I hate everything about this stupid disease.  What it did to you.. To us.  Did you know?  Did you know this is what you had?  I wanted to tell you so badly!  Selfishly, I wanted you to know so that we could talk.  I wanted to say things to you while you understood.  I wanted to hear things in return.  Your ring broke today.  Thankfully I was able to find the stone.  I'm hoping it can be fixed easily.  I feel naked without it.  I've worn it every day since you left.  I'm lost mom.  Truly lost without you.  I really would do anything just to have a conversation with you.  I know I'm almost 40 but I still need your guidance.  There are so many things I want to ask you.  Nothing feels right without you.   I love this picture of you because this was the mom I knew.  Always so pretty.. stunning...those pants.. how you loved those pants.. they said so much about you.   I miss you mom...  I don't want to do this without you.  I feel like nobody understands.  It's like everyone expects me to be my old cheerful self.  No one knows how to handle me.  Friends call and ask why I sound down and I get so angry.  Why do you think I sound down?  It's only been 6 weeks.. and every moment is still consumed with missing you.  I feel like I want to scream at them.. MY MOTHER DIED!  Don't they get it?  Don't they understand?  Life didn't go back to normal for me.  I am still trying to maneuver these new streets without you.  Nothing feels right or normal and I am not sure if it ever will.  I miss you so much Mom.  Please send me a sign... I love you.. always and forever.

62 was just too young

 

Mom-  it's been 6 weeks since you took your last breath.  I can't believe 6 weeks have gone by without me seeing your face.  How is this suppose to get better?  Where are you?  Can you see me?  Are you ok?  I look back upon those 6 days and wonder how on earth it all happened.  Did it really happen?  How did I function because functioning now without you is so hard.  I keep looking for signs and can't seem to find any.  I have nightmares not dreams.  I'm not at peace with this.  I look through my phone pictures and see you and I can't help but be angry that you are not here.  You were my buddy... Sick and all.  We'd have a tough day and then you'd give me that look and we'd end up dancing in the kitchen.. Happy.  I'm so grateful for those times but I wanted more.  We should have had more.  I miss you so much it hurts.  I feel like everything I do is with thoughts of you.  I took the kids to the library today and found myself searching for a book.  I pulled one out and saw the title and picture and took it because it reminded me of you.  I'm sitting here looking at it wondering if I'll be able to open it and read.  The only thing I've read these days are books about grief and grieving.  No matter how you spin it.. It sucks.  Period.  I can't fall asleep at night because I keep thinking of those 6 days and I feel like I'm getting repeatedly sucker punched.  I'm operating in zombie mode.  It's like I'm forcing myself to be okay on the outside while my insides are falling apart.  Then there are those fleeting times where I feel happy.  With the kids... About the upcoming school year... Then those moments pass and I feel it all over again.  I went back to photography this week.  Quite frankly because I need the money.  I have no energy or desire but I'm trying.  I'm trying to do the things I did before you died yet nothing feels right.  Work at the office sucks.  You should be there.  You were always there.  Nothing is right without you!  I'd do anything to have you back even just for five minutes.  I just need to talk to you.  Feel your hug and see your face.  I'm still in disbelief that this happened.  That you're really gone.  I remember everything about you.. Your mouth, your beauty mark, your birthmark on your thigh, your hands, your nails....how can I never see these things again?  God I hope you are happy and safe and somewhere pretty.  Please just send me a sign.  I love you Mom.  Always and forever.

3 weeks and 3 days

It's been 3 weeks and 3 days since my mother took her last breath.  3 weeks and 3 days.  It seems like yesterday, it seems like never.. none of it is making sense in my head.  I am struggling.  I miss my mom.  Is she really gone?  She can't be gone!  Yet this hole and aching in my heart tells me she is gone.  Where is gone?  I don't understand.  It wasn't suppose to happen like this.  I knew we did not have all that much time, but it wasn't suppose to happen like this.  Not yet!  She was never suppose to be sick in the first place.  How did this happen?  Why did this happen?  I spent 6 days trying to soak in as much of her in as I could.  I held her hand, her heart.  I brushed her hair and washed her face and kissed her a million times over.  I'd snuggle in the bed with her and just soak her in.  I knew this was the end and I wanted to soak all of her up to get me through.  It's been 3 weeks and 3 days and I miss everything about her.  Her touch.  Her scent.  Her eyes.  Six days of soaking her up didn't even get me through one week... how am I suppose to get through more?

My mind keeps playing tricks one me.  One second I believe it.. the next it's not real.  Then when I think about the reality of it, I feel the loss all over again.  And over again.  And over again.  Like I keep getting sucker punched. She's gone.  She's not coming back.  I find myself making deals with God to bring her back.  Bring her back sick.  I don't care.  I'll take care of her.  I'll move her in and care for her.  Just to see her face and feel her touch and let her know how very much I love her.  Everywhere I go in my house I am reminded of her being there.  Being there in that house when we were younger.. happier times... and being there sick with me on the days we spent together.  Caring for her.  I keep getting these flashbacks of everything.  Childhood memories... the latter years memories of caring for her sick and then those last 6 days.  I can't get them out of my head.  I watched her die.  I never truly thought about her actual death.  I guess I always assumed she would just close her eyes and pass.  That is not what happened. 

And yet time does not stop.  It should.  The world keeps going and people keep on living their lives.  Back to work, back to household chores and duties.. back to life... except my life feels nothing like before and I just want to scream!  I go through the motions.  Care for the kids, work, activities.. I feel like I am in this fishbowl and everyone is just watching me and expecting me to be fine.  Fine because they don't know how to handle me if I am not.  So I try my best to act fine.  I am not fine.  I am crumbling and broken.  I want to cry at the drop of a dime.  I want this to be a nightmare.  This can't be real.  She's my mom.  I need her.  I feel like I have mono.  Everything hurts.  Physically hurts.  Getting out of bed in the morning is a chore.  I do it... but it's a chore.  Showering, makeup.. some days I do it, some days I don't.  I'm operating in zombie mode.  I can't sleep at night because all I do is think of her.  Those 6 days.  If she knew how much I loved her.  How much I appreciated her.  Why couldn't I have told her when she was well enough to understand?

During the sleepless nights I find myself googling "heaven".  My faith is supposed to comfort me.  It doesn't.  Im trying.. really... but I am not comforted.  Heaven is suppose to be beautiful and peaceful.  Yet, it is just our spirits.  How do I hug my mom when it's my turn to be a spirit?  How do spirits hug?  I just want to hug her.  I don't get it.  Im pretty sure I left my mom at the cemetery.  6 days of touching her warm hands... never leaving her side.. taking shifts with little or no sleep... to then leave her.. not warm... in a cemetery.  How can this be?  It doesn't make sense.  I'm trying so hard to believe that she is ok and at peace and happy in this space unknown.  But the truth is... I am so scared of the unknown.  I hate the unknown.  If she could just tell me she's ok.. and it's beautiful... I feel like I could have some acceptance of this.  I just simply can't accept that this happened.  This really happened.

I sleep with her robe over my pillow every night.  It's so soft.  I feel like a child who can't sleep without it.  I'm afraid to wash it.  It still smells like her.  Like those last 6 days.  It makes me sad and brings me comfort all at the same time.  I use her lotion and wear her ring and think about her every second of every day.  I am frantically looking for an "I'm ok" sign from heaven.  A penny.. a butterfly.. something.  Anything.  I obsessively listen to 70's lite rock because I can hear her singing every song like she did when we were kids.  I can hear her voice literally singing.  Is she the one playing these certain songs for me?  Is it coincidence?  Is it her?  Is it me just trying to make some connection and really there is none?

3 weeks and 3 days... where do we go from here?  God, Mom... I just miss you so much!

Missing Mom

Is it even possible since my mother is still technically alive?  But I do.  I  miss her so much and have come to the conclusion that I lost my Mom 2 years ago.  The new woman, is just a shell of what was once there.  A delicate, fragile, sad shell of what once was a vibrant, talented, energetic, sophisticated, funny, beautiful, caring woman.  I miss my mom.  Three months ago I somehow made the transition of learning to love this new woman called "Mom".  The past 6+ years have been filled with auto pilot and taking care of her in a way I never thought I would have to at this age.  I managed to push those feelings down and just go.  Many times in those past 6+ years I would get frustrated with mom for not knowing how to do certain things or for yelling at the kids even though I knew it was the disease and not my mother doing those things.  Try telling that to your brain when she's screaming at your kids for doing nothing wrong.  I am no longer frustrated.  That frustration has vanished and been replaced with pure and utter sadness.  I miss my mom. 

This whole process of grieving someone who is still technically alive is so consuming and painstakingly overwhelming.  My mind keeps wandering back to the days when I could see her smile and hear her laughter and listen to her laughing her pants off about some prank she played on a friend or some mischief she and her friends would get into.  Now, only a handful of friends visit her.  I miss hearing her curse like Mikey because it was so unbelievably funny coming out of her pure and innocent mouth.  I miss hearing her voice and I miss hearing her advice.  I miss her smiles.  I miss how stressed she would get before the gazillion dinners and parties she would put on and I miss seeing that look of accomplishment when each and every event was a success. I miss her hugs and I miss her always telling me that it was all going to be alright.  Now that's the sentence I say to her on a daily basis.  "I'll take care of you Mom, you're safe.  Don't you worry, I am here."  I didn't want this job at this age and I'll never understand why God gave it to me.  I'll never to the day I die understand how this dreadful disease can be placed on a family and how you are supposed to find the silver lining.  This disease is a slow torture on both the victim and the people who are helpless in all aspects.  It takes everything but most of all it takes your heart. 

Consuming;  The best way I can describe the constant thought process that runs through my mind almost 24 hours a day.  Excerpt

  She's so skinny.  She's so skinny.  She'd go nuts if she actually knew how thin she was if she was in her right mind.  Is she going to keep losing weight?  Is this how it is going to end?  Will we have to watch God take her piece by piece just like we have these past years?  Organ by organ?  Abnormal echo cardiogram?  Is that it?  Is that how we will "lose" Mom?  Silently?  How much more time is left?  When will she stop walking?   God does she know how much I love her?  Does she know that here I sit, in her same shoes, raising three children and trying to hold down a full time job while developing my passion for photography.. does she know how I appreciate her?  I never told her then.  I never did, did I?  And here I sit realizing that she did so much for us and we expected so much and she just did did did.  Why didn't I tell her?  I wish I could tell her!  Always sacrificed herself and her happiness to make Dad and us kids happy.   She did it all and she did it effortlessly.  Always perfect.  Straight A club president  The kids... dammit the kids will never know how full of life she was.  They will only know this sad shell of a woman.  The sick Nonnie who has no rememberies.  But she's going to get better Mom, right?  Sure darling, she'll be okay.  NO NO NO she wont.  She's dying dammit she is dying and there is not a goddamn thing we can do about it but sit back and watch while she takes pieces of us with her.  Dad.  What are we going to do with Dad?  A broken man.  I've never seen our rock so broken.  He's crumbling.  He's angry.  He now walks with his head hung and his shoulders rounded.  Weight of the world.  He can't fix this.  It kills him that he can't fix this.  His eyes aren't happy anymore.  That was what I always loved about him most.  His happy eyes.  They are gone.  His tears.  They sting our hearts.  How are we going to get him through this?  I have to be strong.  I have to be the one to hold it together.  I can.  No I cant.  Am I going to sleep tonight?  Probably not.  Here comes Layla.. she's going to see my tears.. hurry up get it together. 

 

 

 

The days are getting harder and harder.  I am trying my best to spend as much time with her as possible.  It is hard now that the visiting has to be done at her house.  The kids have a tough time.  It's only going to get harder and the thought of it sends me into panic attacks.  I don't know how much time is left, but my heart and gut keeps telling me there isn't much.  So our time is filled with cuddles and reassurance that I won't leave her and that I love her.  A  million times over. 

 

 

My biggest regret?  Not telling her how much I love her and how I appreciate everything she did in my life to make me the person I am today.  She was a one woman show with my dad working so many hours when we were kids.  I have so much adoration and appreciation for the way she plugged through and raised us.  I wish I could have said this to her when she understood.  When she could hear my voice.  When I didn't have to say it with tears and regret.  Her beauty will always shine bright in my heart and when all is said and done.. I will dig deep and find comfort in knowing that she is present in me.. because she made me the mother I am today...

 

I love you Mom.  I miss you Mom...  Happy Mother's Day Mom... and ... thank you...