To post or not to post....

I debated on whether or not to post this - it's not an uplifting or positive post in the least. But it's real and I think it's something that not only I struggle with; my relationship is not that unique. So I'm posting this - the ugly is real and painful but you deal with it and move on. I'll post how this was resolved later on. This was written yesterday.

Apparently, being sad because I have to celebrate my 40^th birthday without my mother is not acceptable to some people.  some people being the man I live with, the man I chose to spend my life with, the man I intend on spending the rest of my life with.  Granted, I was not a happy camper yesterday and I don’t do a very good job of hiding my feelings so I wasn’t all sunshine and happiness on the outside; when he started to sing to me in the morning something about being the Birthday Girl I said “I really don’t want to talk about my birthday, unless you want me to cry” which was the truth, I was on the verge of tears as he sang.  But still.  I shouldn’t be made to feel like it’s not allowed to feel the way I feel, and that’s how I was made to feel yesterday.   I was made to feel like my sadness, my difficulties, my grief were insignificant and that I ruined the day for everyone else; I should have sucked it up and been happy for the sake of everyone else around me.  I “rained on everyone’s parade” is what I was told.  What parade??  There were no plans, no party, no anything.  There weren’t even flowers or wine.  So what parade was rained out due to my bad mood is totally unknown to me.

What do you do when people don’t understand why you are grieving the way that you are, and they react in a negative way?  Everyone’s journey is different and no one deals with things exactly the same way; someone else may have celebrated yesterday because they were still here and because their loved one would have wanted it that way.  Someone else may have drunk themselves into a stupor so they forgot what day it was altogether.  But I chose to just be however I was going to be, and how I was was sad.  I was just sad.  Sad that I wouldn’t talk to her, sad that I wouldn’t hear some stupid joke about still being here and how it was better to be 40 than 80 and that when she was 40 she had just had me and to hear the story of my birth again and how ironic it was that my daughter was also born on her due date at almost the same time I was (just 12 hours earlier). It’s not like I sat on the edge of my bathtub with a razor in my hand, looking longingly at my wrists all day, I was just sad.  I don’t expect people to understand it, I really don’t.  what I expect is respect for me, for my feelings and for my process and what I have to go through to get to the other side.  But how do I get someone to just be respectful, to not take it personally and to be supportive?  That’s all I wanted – support.  Comfort would have been nice too.  But instead, he backed off to the point that I felt ignored, I felt insignificant and ignored. He never offered to hug me, he never offered to hold my hand, he never even offered me cake – cake that he had bought but thought I wouldn’t want since I was upset.  I didn’t even get wine!!  I should have been given wine, damn it.  When did grieving for the loss of someone you loved become a personal insult to those around you? When did grieving become unacceptable??

I don’t even know what to say to him tonight.  The last words I said to him last night before I tearfully went to bed were “I shouldn’t have to apologize to you because I’m sad”, so tonight should be interesting.

Tomorrow has come too soon

I am dreading tomorrow. As the day has moved forward and tomorrow has gotten closer, my mood has fallen further and further down the proverbial toilet. My dad, I'm sure, will want to come over tomorrow and its the last thing I want. I would like tomorrow to just pass with no acknowledgement. No candles on a cake, no happy wishes. I would actually like to go to the cemetery tomorrow and cry. Right or wrong, it feels like that's what I need to do. But I don't think I'll be able to do that.

Birthdays should be about the person who's birth is being celebrated but too often it's about everyone else. It's about the party, who bought what, where to get a cake. Even if the birthday girl doesn't want to celebrate, if everyone around her wants to, she's expected to just go along and be happy. Even when she's crying inside and waiting on a phone call that will never come

My time away

We got back yesterday from Florida with his family. I think Emily had a great time; it was so nice to see her with her cousins, playing and coloring and running around. She's the smallest one, except for an infant, so it was hard for her to keep up all the time but she did a pretty good job of it! And her grandparents just adore her, which is also nice to see.

They made me feel so.....I don't know. So much a part of the family on this trip. We were all together one night at his sister's house and his other sister and his parents surprised me with a birthday cake. All twenty-something people surprised me, stood around the kitchen and sung Happy Birthday to me. I almost started to cry when I realized it was for me; at first I thought it was for his brother in law's birthday, which was last week. But it wasn't. And for them to do that, especially now...this year....I can't describe what it meant to me.  They have welcomed me with open arms and this just made me feel like its official. I am part of them and they are a part of me.

The 25th was the five year anniversary of my best friend's passing. I can't believe it's been so long. That's how I know this will all be okay. I know how it feels to cry in the food store or the Target because you see their favorite cookie or ice cream. I know how it's feels to cry every time you see their picture, knowing you'll never see them again. She went too quickly, too early. Donna was 35, and in a horrible car accident, so it was different. But it was still too quick, came out of the blue, and I feel that void still. But, I don't cry as much. I don't cry every time I think for her. I don't randomly cry over Milano cookies. I still cry sometimes, especially when I need her to. It's her the most. So I know that I will still cry for my mom. I know that I will stop crying all the time, randomly, like when I see her coffee creamer or think of her with my daughter. Eventually, I'll smile and laugh again. I'm not quite there yet, but I guess this is a work in progress, a journey, and this trip is far from over.

Maybe I'll start keeping score

No idea why but I just thought of my mom’s voice saying “hello, sweetheart” and I started crying.  GOD what I would do to actually hear her voice again, with that Brooklyn accent that sounded like she moved out of the city 4 months ago and not almost 40 years ago, although I guess I should stop that counter now that she is no longer here.  I wasn’t even thinking of her and suddenly I just thought of her walking through my office door, saying that.  What I would give for her to do that right now.  (and of course I’ve run out of tissues…damned allergies) 

This is the stuff that really sucks – the sudden pop-ups of memories, thoughts, ideas, things that make me remember that I will never hear her again or see her again.  It can happen at any time (I was just reading a business requirements document), at any place and it can be of anything.  What in the hell made me think of that??  I have no idea but I did and now, I have to work on not crying and not looking like I’ve been crying for the meeting I have in half an hour with my department and my boss.  GREAT.

I know I could, technically, hear her voice if I wanted to.  I have that voicemail saved from my birthday last year and I could listen to it if I really wanted to.  But I can’t.  not at work at least.  I did once, or at least I started to but had to stop after the first few words.  I can still hear some of it in my head and it just brings back the tears and the lump in my throat that has become way too familiar. 

I was so happy that I hadn’t really cried today, at least not very much.  One brief moment, one tiny memory changes that in an instant and I am now battling myself to stop thinking about it, to stop hearing her voice in my head so I can stop crying.  Brain-1, Me-0.

A vacation from myself with some queens

Last night, I took a vacation from my brain.  Rob and Emily were in FL and I was alone in the house with the remote and the tv and some Ben & Jerry’s.  I watched RuPaul and it was fabulous.  That Queen is amazing; beauty, talent, humor, all wrapped up in a package (pardon the pun) that is actually a man underneath it all. She is prettier than me and that’s okay!  She is gorgeous inside and out; such a positive role-model for anyone, really.  I don’t think you have to be gay or a drag queen to take what she says to heart – if you can’t love yourself how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else??

Sitting there, with my ice cream and newly manicured nails (another indulgence I took part in last night), watching those queens dress up straight men as brides to be on my tv allowed me to relax for the first time in days, weeks maybe and it was awesome.  There’s really no better word to use than that.  I turned off my brain and focused on the drama, the make-up, the glitter and the lip synching and it was a beautiful thing.  To just sit, alone, in a quiet house without being disturbed by screams of “MOM” or requests to change the channel because I’m the only one that wants to watch this show, was exactly what I needed after my weekend of sorrow and game-facing it for everyone.  I’ve been told at least a handful of times that you have to take care of yourself in times like these; not easy to do when you have a family to take care of and a job to do.  But last night I did, and I am thankful for it today. 

I haven’t recovered from the weekend; last night was helpful but it wasn’t magical.  There was no fairy waving a wand around, making everything happy and jolly again.  I wish that fairy had come to visit (although she would have been SOL in the ice cream department).  When I think about Sunday, or my impending milestone birthday, it makes me sad.  Very sad.  Staring at her empty chair on Sunday, trying to process the fact that she wasn’t going to sit there, was hard.  Harder than I can really put into words.  As reality hits me that she’s gone, I get back on the rollercoaster of emotions again.  It feels like it was yesterday that I stood in their bedroom, picking out her jewelry for her to wear in the casket and knowing that she had to wear the locket that I gave her for a picture of Emily – then having to pick out that picture and put it in there, knowing I would see it around her neck as she lay in that casket; it feels like I was just sitting by her bedside saying goodbye.  It doesn’t feel real every day and I almost wish that it did because maybe it would be easier to deal with if it was in front of me every day.  I think I’d be much farther along if my brain would just let me deal with it head-on instead of this pussyfooting around bs.

Celebrating the First Time Without Her

I thought that her birthday would be harder and Easter would either be just as hard or maybe even a little easier; I’m not overly religious, neither was she, so I didn’t think Easter would be harder. But I didn’t guess-timate on that one all too well.  I knew it would be hard, but I didn’t think it would be like that.

Being in her house, without her but with all of her misc. stuff was hard. Really, really hard.  I found myself sitting at the dining room table, while Emily played with a plate, just staring at her empty chair with the place setting in front of it.  My dad put it there and I think he will for every dinner we have there.  He doesn’t want her to be gone, no more than the rest of us do; there were times that I thought she was going to come around the corner from the kitchen and complain about how my dad put the forks on the wrong side of the plates again.  I found myself choking back tears more times than I can count.  Her empty chair, her tea cup still in the dish drainer next to the sink, her clothes on her side of the bed that haven’t moved since she went into the hospital and have (I think) multiplied as my dad has gone through things, her books, her movies, her glasses, a piece of mail with her name on it.  Yesterday just made me feel the emptiness of the void that has been there since she hasn’t been here; it felt bigger and more empty being in a place that she used to be in every time I was.  And that sucked and continues to suck today, and I guess it started on Saturday and just kept sucking until right now.  I had a bright spot in the weekend – a very nice date night with my significant other and no toddler, which was a very nice distraction from the crap that was the rest of my weekend.

Her birthday could have been worse, I guess. Standing in front of her ‘drawer’ with my dad and my sister, looking up at her name and years, remembering them putting her casket in there that holds her body.  I’m sure this is morbid but I wonder what she looks like now. There was a time when I knew what she would look like no matter how much time had passed, but that all ended a while ago I guess.  If I see her again, I hope she looks the way that I want to remember her and not the way that I do remember her.  That’s not a pretty picture.  My dad sees her sometimes, sitting on the couch watching TV with him.  I hope it’s real and I hope she is with him; all this time I have wondered why I haven’t felt her with me, so maybe that’s why.  She’s with him, watching over him, because he’s the one that needs her the most right now.  I get it, I do and I don’t want to be selfish but man do I wish she would toss a little my way, too.  I miss her so very much and I want her to see Emily SO much and to just see her, or to know that she was there – anywhere – would be a great comfort.  And right now, some comfort would be nice to have.

Today is the day

I wish I could say that I was in a good frame of mind but I'm not. I've already cried in my closet once today and it's only 9:40am. I should be putting the finishing touches on her birthday party, calling her and wishing her a happy 80th, hearing her say things like "well I'm still here" and "it'll take a lot to get rid of me". She always took pride in still being here.

This sucks. It just does. I miss her. I don't want to do this today, I don't want to sit at the table tomorrow at Easter dinner without her and I definitely don't want to do my birthday without her. This really really sucks.

Facades

I’m starting to feel….stressed, I guess for lack of a better word.  My mom’s birthday is two days away, Easter is three days away, my birthday is 10 days away and in between there is a trip to Florida to see my in-laws.  A trip that I really don’t want to go on.  Typically, I’m planning what I’m going to wear and I’m getting exciting and I’m checking seats and all that stuff because I can’t wait to go, but this time is just bad timing.  Really bad timing.  Somehow I’m supposed to come off of a weekend like this upcoming one, get on a plane and put on a happy face for Rob’s ENTIRE family – well, pretty much is entire family minus his kids from his first marriage.  His two sisters, their significant others, their children and their children’s children AND his parents.  Somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 people all together.  That is a lot of people to put up a façade for.

It’s interesting to me that, as the one that is grieving – as the one that lost her mother just a little more than three months ago – I’m the one that’s expected to put on a happy face and pretend that all is well; don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I think I should be catered to, that’s not it at all.  I’m the one that has to act like I’m okay, even though I will have just celebrated what would have been her 80^th birthday (a day that, although she probably wouldn’t admit to, would have been a big deal…she always said she would outlive all of us and every birthday was just a testament to it so this year, it’s not only sad but a tiny bit ironic).  I have to go do the big family thing even though I would prefer to be with my own family, or alone, so I can mourn what we have lost this year. I’ve lost more than just a mom – my dad isn’t who he used to be, I don’t think any of us are the same anymore.  I have gained a family, I really have; they have been wonderful to me and I know that I can call them at any time, for anything and they will be there emotionally and/or physically.  But – as wonderful as they are, I lost MY mom.  Not the mom that has adopted me into her existing family, but my actual mom, and that’s a pretty big deal.  When I say it’s been three months it sounds like it’s such a long time – but it feels like yesterday some days.  I just hope that they can respect that next week.  I hope that they can respect that I have just celebrated a birthday that really no longer exists, since the person it was for is no longer aging and is no longer here to blow out the candles on her cake; I hope they can also respect that I will have to celebrate my birthday in just a few days – my 40^th and my first without my mom – and that is a hard milestone to face.  I wish I could say that Saturday will be a day of remembering the good times and laughing at all the silly, funny, and probably semi-annoying memories we have of her but I don’t know if we’re there yet.  I think we are more prepared to stand at her grave/’drawer’ as she would say, put flowers there – carnations, as they were her favorite – and cry. 

Freakin' Tired!

UGH I am tired today.  it’s a combo – not a happy meal, a cheap-ass combo that you really don’t want but it’s the only available option that you can afford – of things.  I think I overdid it yesterday with the caffeine and sugar, in an attempt to stay awake after not sleeping the night before I screwed myself into a rebound/detox situation today from all of that stuff.  Lovely.  And that is something no one tells you – grief and the act of grieving is freaking EXHAUSTING.  No one tells you that. No Social Worker at a hospital warns you – or at least she didn’t warn me when I told her there was no “discharge plan” for my mom, no person that asks how you are gives you the heads up, no one.  I am beat and I am here to tell you that you will be exhausted from it and the things you do to try and survive it or make it better – eating a whole pint (or quart – whatever works, no judgment here) of ice cream before bed, eating chocolate all day, sucking down a bottle of wine with dinner, blah blah blah will all exhaust you, too.  It sucks the life right out of you and it’s your job on this journey to find your strength, find your energy, find the will and ability to get out of bed in the morning without killing yourself in the process. You didn’t interview for the job and if given the choice, I would bet dollars to donuts that no one would accept this job or this trip, for that matter (even if I won this through Ed McMahon and Publisher’s Clearinghouse, I would toss it right back at Ed, pop his balloons and close my door).  This morning, I said at least once “but I don’t WANNA get up” just like a little kid does when woken up for school.  I was so freaking tired this morning, but I had to get up.  I have to get up every day and take care of my daughter, get her ready for school, get myself ready for work and get us both to our destinations safely. That’s my job.  And that’s one that I can’t quit or, sometimes unfortunately, get fired from.

There are days when I have to peel myself out of bed, almost literally.  Those are the days that I want to spend under the covers, alone, away from the world.  Those are tough days, to say the least.  But no matter how hard it is, I do get out of bed and I get on with my day because I know that I have to.  I know that if I let the grief control me THAT much, I will lose.  I will lose myself, I will lose the battle that I fight every day to stay civil and sane and ‘normal’ – whatever that is.  I don’t know if people still look at me like “oh, poor thing, her mom died” or if they look at me and think  “God, she’s still upset?? Get over it already.”. I don’t know and I don’t care; if I’m having a bad day because my mom is dead, they will have to deal with it and I have come very close to telling people why I’m in such a crappy mood on those days – people around me should consider themselves lucky that I can and have bit my tongue on a number of occasions.  But it’s under my control as to how I deal with the bad day.  I do my best to be ‘normal’, although I do fail miserably at it sometimes, and I try to acknowledge those bad days and I sequester myself as much as I can so I don’t get myself into any trouble.  No one tells you that you have to put yourself into a proverbial cave in order to get through some days without landing yourself in the pokey or in your bosses office, whichever one would be worse depending upon your situation.

Yesterday did not suck!

Yesterday, although it started before the sun was even contemplating coming up, was not too bad.  I don’t know how I remained conscious and that state seemed in flux all day long – whenever the caffeine wore off things got hazy and my desk suddenly became an inviting place to lay my head– but as of right now, I’m feeling not too shabby about yesterday as a whole. 

I think Monday was my first opportunity to really think about and process the memorial on Saturday and what it meant to me.  It brought me back to when my mom died and that hurt. That hurt a lot and I didn’t expect to feel the way that I did; I need to talk to my sister because she hasn’t been to the cemetery since the funeral and we’re supposed to go this Saturday for her birthday.  My sister needs to go before then so she, too, can process what it feels like to see it so finalized up on the wall.   I was alone in my office yesterday, thankfully I have a door that closes for those times that I need to cry a little bit, and I was able to deal with the feelings that hit me like  a ton of bricks.  I wasn’t prepared to feel the way that I did; I don’t think I’m any better prepared today.  But I’ve discovered, on this journey, that I need days like that where I just cry.  I am sad, sad through and through, and I can’t hide it.  I have to cry in order to get through it and to get past it as well as I can.  I hate it; days like that suck the energy out of me and when I am with other people, I am horrible to deal with.  I try to not speak harshly but it is hard some days, it really is.  Challenges are one thing, but this whole experience….I don’t know.  I’ve always heard that God doesn’t give you more than you can handle; most days, I believe that there is a God or something like the idea of God that I was taught in my 12 years of Catholic school.  If that’s the case, God must think I am herculean because there is no way a regular human being can go through what I’ve been through in the past three or four months and come out unscathed.

Grief changes who you are, there’s no doubt about that.  When my friend from college died, it caused all of us to get closer and to hold onto each other a little tighter; a hold that really hasn’t loosen much in close to five years.  Grief reminds you of how precious life is; in my case, I lost both Donna and my mom with little to no warning. Donna died in an accident so there was no warning there, just the phone call.  My mom, I knew she didn’t have much time but I didn’t think it would be so short.  Grief has made me look at my own life and how fragile it is, the life of my dad, the life of everyone around me that I love, and I hold on just a little bit tighter to each of them so that they know how important they are to me and that I would be devastated if I lost them, too.  I hug my daughter constantly and I am always telling her I love her; she’s too little to remember it years from now, should something happen to me, but I want to instill it in her now so that when she’s older and able to retain the memories of us hugging and cuddling, she’ll have it to look back on when I’m gone and she’ll know I loved her and appreciated her for all that she is.

Navigating the journey

Grief, in and of itself, is very isolating.  Regardless of if someone you know has gone through the same exact thing, everyone’s experience is different.  How I view things, how I handle things or feel about things, is totally different than my friend who lost his father less than two months before my mom passed or my friend who lost her mom when we were 22.  Grief makes you feel very alone.  No one can ever really, truly understand your pain or what you endure every day.  No one knows what you feel when you look at a calendar and see your loved one’s birthday, anniversary, your own birthday, other events like holidays that you shared with them;  no one else understands just how it feels to see your loved one’s name, date of birth and an end date on a head stone.  No one else will ever really understand what it feels like to be in your shoes.  Grief makes you feel like you are alone in a sea of people who don’t or can’t see you, who you really are, and the pain you’re in every day.  You can go to counseling, you can go to group therapy sessions to listen to how other people are doing it and going through ‘the process’, but everyone’s journey is their own.  I may decide to toss a letter into the ocean to try to communicate with the other side, while someone else may choose to throw themselves into work so they can pretend the death never happened.  Everyone is different – I like ketchup and mayo on my cheeseburger, someone else may think that’s disgusting –this is a process that is individualized at its center.  No matter what I say to someone, they don’t really know what it’s like to be in my head and in my world every day.  It’s a process that you have to work through on your own and, although there are resources some might find to be helpful, in the end everyone dictates what they do along the road to make it as bearable a trip as possible.  For me, the journey has been a dark one with little spots of sunshine along the way; today, I feel like I lost my map and I’m just meandering around, lost, not sure of where to go next, feeling like I’ve seen that metaphorical rock/tree/bush before.  This is just a repeat of what I went through and I thought it was a part of the journey that was over, but apparently I’m just traveling around in a circle. (You know that part of the movie National Lampoon’s European Vacation – “look kids – Big Ben!  Parliament!” that’s my life right now.)

A Memorial

Saturday, I went to a memorial service with my dad. The cemetery where my mom, and brother, are buried holds a service before Easter and before Christmas. I feel bad for the Jewish or Hebrew families; I hope they get their own services. I think what I sat through was overly Christian and not even close to non-denominational, which was what I was expecting.

Her name is on the crypt now; it's a good & bad thing. It's good to have it done but its also that confirming visual that you, or at least I, don't want to see. We sat by her for the service and I kept envisioning her sitting next to me; they served coffee, donuts & cookies but apparently they used to serve sandwiches so I could hear her in my head saying "crappy donuts, where are the sandwiches? They used to have this (insert sandwich description here) but oh well, I guess just eat this donut" -said with this scowl on her face that was almost comical but mostly annoying. I spent most of the service trying to not look at her name; it just made me want to cry more than I already was.

There was a female minister that spoke, very heart-felt words, and clearly that was the purpose of her sermon. She spoke about her own grieving process for her daughter and her 20-year old grandson. She said the words that she says to get through it, and wanted us to repeat them although I couldn't do it through my tears. She said "say their name - if I had know our time together was coming to an end and I would never hear your voice again, I would have cherished your voice more....if I had known that was our last hug, I would have held on tighter. " it was very hard to hear those words; it was if she was speaking directly to me. When I left my mom's hospital room that night, I thought I would see her in the morning. I thought I would hear her voice, see her face and crazy hair, hear her tell me she loved me. But I was wrong. And I wish I had known because I would have stayed a little longer, I would have been more patient and I would have been....I don't know, more attentive and maybe I would have acted more concerned instead of leaving because it was snowing and I didn't want to drive home in it, get home too late to put my daughter in bed. How many nights between then and now have I done that? Gone home to my family, snuggled with my daughter, looked at her as she slept peacefully in my arms. I would give one of those back in exchange for one more night with my mom. I only had one last night with my mom, being able to have a conversation. I wish I knew then what I know now.

The Bitch is Back

From my own observations, it would appear that I am turning back into the uber bitch that I was a few months ago.  I have no patience and I don’t know why; where the little bit ran off to, the little bit that I got back probably only about a month or so ago, I wish I knew.  But I just can’t keep my temper under any type of decent control these days.  I yelled at Emily this morning because she got mad that I wouldn’t let her run around in the grass before we got in the car; we were already running late, I told her no once, I had to pick her up to put her into the car/get her off the lawn and I yelled once we were in the car because she was pitching a fit. She’s a toddler, fits happen constantly but yet I couldn’t hold my tongue and I yelled and then felt guilty and horrible for doing it just moments after the fact.  Yesterday it was because I took away her crayons.  She threw one at my head, after I told her two or three times to not do it.  I think it was an attention getting act but it doesn’t matter why – she did it and I told her if she did the crayons would be taken away.  Well that caused the end of the world to come, now didn’t it? When she wouldn’t stop whining, I yelled.  Did it do anything at all for either of us?  No. Well, nothing positive.  I’m fairly certain that it made the tantrum last longer which really wasn’t the result I was looking for when I raised my voice.  When did I become a mean mommy??

Augh, I hate myself like this.  I really do.  I had started to get myself back – I was able to laugh and smile and let some things roll off my back again like I was able to do before all the shit hit the fan – but now that ability seems to have left the building and is nowhere in sight.  I hate when I get upset for no reason at all and then, moments later, I realize that I lost my stuff and yelled or got snippy over something stupid and then I feel guilty; this morning I felt like such a horrible mom (and still feel like one over an hour later).  Like the toddler tantrum; she’s going to tantrum when she can’t get her way and I know this.  I should have given my typical speech (in a lower and not so mean tone), “I’m sorry you’re upset but you can’t go and play in the grass because we have to go to school.  Mommy told you we had to get in the car and that we needed to go to the car and get off the grass.  You didn’t do that so I picked you up.” And just let her cry/whine it out until she was done.  But my insane control freak kicked into high gear and went nuts – I yelled to get her to stop crying, which never works but that’s why I did it.  I got so frustrated, so fast, that I just yelled because I felt like I had to in order to gain control. That’s what happens when, even if I don’t know it, I feel like my life is out of control.  Which, apparently, I do right now.  She’s gone, there’s nothing I can do about it; no matter how angry I am or how sad I am, I can’t bring my mom back.  I’m sad and I can’t change it; my mom is dead and I can’t change it.  My dad is sad and cries all the time and I can’t fix it for him.  I just want everyone to be okay again and we’re not, and I can’t change it.  I hate that I can’t change it.  It’s my job to come in, figure out what needs to get done and then do it so everyone else can be okay and worry only about themselves while I do all the work and all the worrying for the whole bunch.  It’s what I do.  No one, to my knowledge, except for maybe Rob and at least one of my closest friends worries about me.  I’m independent and reliable and they know that they can lean on me; I don’t lean on anyone. I’ve always been like this for as long as I can remember.  I don’t know if it’s just who I am or if it’s who I was raised to be. But I wish I could.  I wish I could just go home and cry on his shoulder or call up a friend and cry but that’s just not who I am. I’m trying to get better at it and not choke back the tears when he says something that just makes me want to turn into a human fountain.  But usually I cry alone – in the car, in my office (although I try to avoid that whenever I can), in front of her grave.  I’m sure that I seem aloof or standoffish these days, and it’s only because I’m just so sad and I’m stuck in my head alone, trying to sort out how to get through all of this.  I know that I will, I always do, but it’s just a matter of how and when.

There’s this part of me that, after seeing her name up on that wall on Saturday, feels like she died all over again.  A part of me is in total denial (although, does it count as denial since I’m admitting that I’m in denial?  Huh….), and seeing her name and her birth/death years just makes it real.  Seeing the numbers there, under her name, brought me right back to the day I stood there with my family and watched them wrap up the coffin and put it in the crypt – or drawer, as she affectionately called it.  Her name being up there makes it permanent, for lack of a better word.  Real.  Visual.  Affirmed.  Official.  She’s really in there, I didn’t just imagine it all, it didn’t happen to someone else.  That’s my mom’s grave where her body is.  I don’t know if other people experience this when their loved one’s grave is marked by a headstone or some other marker; it’s like now, there’s no way to ignore it and there’s no way to deny it.  It happened, she’s gone and what you’ve got left – in my case – is a slab of marble in a great big, empty hall to talk to and to cry to.  And the memories of a time when you had so much more than that.  It all happened so fast and I wasn’t ready for it to happen when it did or how it did – yet another stab to my control freak core.  I sat by and watched, trying to control what I could and trying desperately to handle all that was going on around me that was totally out of my control.  And here I am, yet again, feeling like there’s so much out of my control and so very little under it that I don’t know what to do with myself sometimes but just sit and cry.

Letters to the sky

I’ve heard that, if you write a letter and burn it, it’ll get to where ever its supposed to go – the universe, heaven, whatever.  I’m willing to give it a try if it helps to make me feel just a tiny bit better. These days are hard, harder than I think I anticipated.  I didn’t think that it would start weeks before her birthday; I guess seeing the date on the calendar get closer was enough to start it off.  I thought the week of, or the week before would suck royally but it’s been the whole month, really.  Oh well, I guess I can mark April off as “Month of Much Suckage”.

I started writing the letter to my mom yesterday – I think mostly out of frustration and sadness, but partially for selfish reasons.  I just need to clear my head of all the things I wish I could say to her but can’t.  it’s so hard to suddenly not have her here.  Imagine that, someone you love is taken off to a far-away country that you have have never seen, can’t find on a map and there are no pictures of so you can’t imagine what it’s like for them there.  You don’t really get to say good-bye, either; they’re just taken from you. You can’t call, you can’t email or text and you can’t send a letter to an actual address because you don’t know where they are exactly.  There is  no way to communicate with them, you just have to somehow trust that they are okay and safe and happy and they are with other people that they know and care about who have also been taken there.  Sounds like a movie.  But it’s not, it’s reality.  I want to tell her to not be mad at me because I did what I did out of concern for her; but I know she didn’t see it that way.  I want to tell her that she’s missed and I wish more than anything to know that she’s okay and that she can see us – some sort of signal or sign to say that to me would help me more than I think I can accurately express. I am keeping my fingers and toes crossed that I get something from her on my birthday.  It’ll be a hard enough day to go through without the annual call from her; if I don’t hear from her on that day, I don’t think I ever will.

Today is just a sad day and in 9 days I’ll celebrate what would have been her 80^thbirthday, and I’m just  not ready to do it yet.

Opening an envelope of pictures

Last night I found the envelope of pictures from my mom’s funeral that I took to London with me; for some reason I opened it and started looking at them.  I thought that I just needed to do it; the reality is that I should probably do it more often. It’s strange, I can’t really remember her face and it feels like she’s been gone for an eternity – to the point that it feels like she was never here to begin with, which I really can’t explain at all.  Maybe it’s because it feels like she doesn’t exist anymore, maybe it’s because my brain doesn’t want to remember her face because that will make it harder, I don’t know.  But looking at those pictures, some from my wedding, some from my baby shower and from the hospital when Emily was born, made me remember her face and made it harder to feel like I was “okay” (for lack of a better word).  Daily, I struggle with keeping the grief at bay.  Some days it’s not too hard, as long as I don’t think about her. Some days it’s next to impossible to keep it away.  And the images I have in my head, those with her in them, are fuzzy.  I can’t really see her face and it’s hard for me to hear her voice in my head, too.  She still had the Brooklyn accent as if she had just moved out of the state; we’ve been in Jersey since I was an infant so her and my Dad’s voices are pretty distinct to me.  I can’t really see or hear her and I don’t really get why.

I’m afraid that, when I do finally see her face in my head that it will be too much and I’ll cry and cry and I won’t be able to stop.  Days like that scare the crap out of me.

Recently I’ve been debating, toying with the idea of seeing a psychic.  I know, a large part of me thinks that whole thing is a bunch of crap and none of it is real. But, there is a small part of me that wonders if I could actually get something from it and that’s the part of me that is grasping at straws.  Just to know that she was okay, that she could see us and that she’s with us would be so wonderful and helpful for me to know.  I’ve been waiting and looking for signs from her and still I’ve gotten nothing.  Friday it will be three months, which I can’t believe is possible because that sounds like such a long time, and I still haven’t gotten any inkling that she’s here which is hard.  Very hard.  It’s hard to one day have a mom and then suddenly within days feel like she’s just gone.  I felt it in the hospital and I still feel it now.  I felt stupid sitting next to her bed, talking to her, because I was talking to a body that was empty.  She left long before everything got turned off and her body stopped working.  She was responsive for one day after being placed on the machines, which I think was her opportunity to communicate with us and let us know that she was still in there. But as soon as she was unresponsive, which was less than 48 hours later, she was gone. It all went so fast – 19 days after we found out what was possibly wrong, she was gone. 9 days after she was admitted into the hospital she was gone. I just wish I knew that she was okay and in a safe place and not trapped in that hospital because she doesn’t understand that she died and she’s wandering the halls….oh I watch too many ghost hunting shows, I really do.

You Just Do It

Today I wish she was still here, just to be here for the day-to-day stuff.  Rob and I keep talking about buying a house, and I know that no matter where we lived or what type of house it was she would still find something to complain about – the color of the kitchen cabinets, the size of the rooms, the layout of our furniture.  And I think he’s starting to consider getting married one day; I know that no matter what type of ring he bought me, she would find something to complain about – the size of the stone, if it wasn’t a diamond I know that would be a huge issue, how he asked me, the setting.  My sister and I are, largely, going to make Easter dinner. Granted, if she was still here and well enough she would do it so there’d be general complaining about the stove, the oven, the pot that she uses to make potatoes in, and how my father sets the table incorrectly.  But if she wasn’t well enough to cook everything, I  would hope that it would be much like Thanksgiving – she appeared to be grateful for the help, so there wasn’t too much complaining at least not to our faces.  Which was nice.  And I wish she was here for Emily; she learns so much so fast, and is always doing or saying something new, I wish she was here for it.  Emily learned about dinosaurs at school last week and has started to randomly yell one of our names and roar at us, sometimes chasing us around. And it’s awesome and I wish she could see it.  My dad did, which is good.  Just wish I knew that she did.

I think about how I went through the days that followed her passing away – telling people, going to the funeral home, picking out her clothes and jewelry, picking out pictures, my own clothes. And sitting through the funeral and wake, looking at her in the casket and not really being able to comprehend that person that was in there was my  mom. It didn’t feel like it was my  mom until it came time for them to close the lid and never look at her again; to me, that was just a body now, she was gone.  I don’t know how I did it.  How I did it and how I’m still here to tell the tales of it with some semblance of sanity; there were times when I just didn’t know how I was going to get through the next 10 minutes, let alone three months. There were times during the wake that I thought to myself “please, don’t let another person come in that wants to tell me that my daughter was the joy in my mother’s life” because I busted into horrible, ugly tears every time someone said that to me. I often wonder how people did it; my best friend did it when his father died two months earlier, I have other friends who have done it over the years.  And I guess the answer is – you just do.  You pick yourself up, and those around you, and you do what has to get done because what the hell else are you going to do?  You can’t just sit there, staring at a wall, as your parent’s funeral is going on.  You have to be there. You have to see people, call people, dress appropriately, pick out the right flowers and the right music.  You have to do something to make yourself feel like you are doing one last thing for that person because you will never really be able to do another thing for them and that realization, when it hits you, sucks hard and hurts even harder.

Do they serve Ben & Jerrys in the psych ward?

I’m still pretty angry and upset today.  Unfortunately, it seems that’s how it is these days.  I have a few good days, and then when one bad day hits it hangs on for a bit to make things interesting.  Yesterday, I felt alone.  Very alone.  I had no support at home because Rob wasn’t here, and I have no support at work because I am a department of one.  I had to come to work yesterday, even though I was up at 3:50 and my toddler really should have stayed home and gone back to bed.  I have no back-up at work and yesterday I had none at home.  And he didn’t ask me how I was, if I needed anything, or even say he wished he was here to help.  Not once.  I ripped into him for it and he emailed me an apology.  When did we start believing emailed apologies were acceptable??

I will say that I have some of the most amazing friends though so regardless of how much of an asshat my boyfriend was/is, my girlfriends are the best, were there when I needed them, and I am truly blessed to have them in my life.  They came to my rescue and continue to do so whenever I fall, they stood beside me and held my hand at my lowest points so I knew I wasn’t alone and so I had a hand to hold when I was ready to get back up off of the proverbial floor on which I had turned into a (not so proverbial) puddle.  I am never without a hand to hold a shoulder to lean on because I have these women in my life; in that regard, everyone should be so lucky.

Today, I may not feel as alone as I did yesterday but I am still pretty angry.  And not just at him, although I will admit that a pretty large portion of my anger is pointed in his direction.  I’m angry that it’s the 3^rd of April and it will be her birthday in 16 days, less days than we had between the time we knew there was something wrong and the day she died.  Next Friday it will be three months.  This Saturday, 12 weeks. If she hadn’t died, we would be in the throes of planning her 80^th birthday party; I would be taking RSVPs and ordering balloons and food.  I’m not doing any of that, which sucks and makes some days harder than others.  I handle the day to day generally well because I don’t have anything staring me in the face, reminding me that I am mom-less.  I ignore the shirts that I have that were once hers, even as they sit on the side of my bed still.  I ignore the times when I go to call the house and I have to select “Dad” instead of “Mom and Dad” in my phone.  I ignore it as best I can because it’s the only way I can get through some days; as her birthday, Easter and my birthday approach I seem to have a harder time handling the memories and the thoughts of her and really, any mention of her can bring tears to my eyes lately.  It’s hard to go through this time of year without her here.  They say the first one is the hardest, but that doesn’t make going through it any easier.  Rob thinks I should see a therapist.  I don’t need a therapist, I need my mom back.  And I need to be allowed to grieve however I need to grieve; I’m just not sure how that is exactly and I think I need to figure it out on my own; it’s my journey, not some therapist in an office’s journey (I don’t need a tour guide, thanks).   How do you know what to do and if you’re doing the right things now so that you’re okay later?  Barnes & Noble doesn’t have a “What to do when your mom dies” section with all of the answers clearly explained in one small, short series of books.

I just wish she was still here, you know?  It’s not that we had a great relationship; I didn’t call her just to chat it up or update her on a great pair of shoes that I saw.  We weren’t all that close in the grand scheme of things and I hope and pray constantly that my relationship with my daughter is a thousand times better (and healthier) than what I had with my mom.  But bad or good, I would give just about anything to have that relationship back.  I know that it’s better that she was the one to go first; had it been my dad with her left behind, I don’t know how we would have managed. She couldn’t drive, she had no idea how to pay bills, she wouldn’t have taken care of the house at all, and she probably would have only eaten ice cream all the time.  I hate to say that it’s better it was her and not him, sounds cold and callous.  But it’s the truth.  I didn’t want to lose either of them, but I thought losing him would be harder for me than losing her.  So I guess that would mean that when it’s his time, I’ll need to reserve the closest padded room and accompanying white jacket that ties in the back for a good couple of months.  I wonder if they serve Ben & Jerry’s in places like that.  If they don’t they should and I will make that request with my reservation.

Today was such a craptastic day...

Today sucks.  Sorry for the negativity right off the bat, but it does.  I have been awake since 3:50 this morning since Emily woke up and decided she didn’t want to go back to sleep. And I’m angry and frustrated and just emotional because I feel like I’m alone.  Alone right now because I’ve been up since 3:50 by myself, alone because I had to peel my daughter off of me in order to leave her at school – while she turned red and started bawling her eyes out because she was exhausted and just wanted to be with me (if that doesn’t make you feel like a shitty mom, you have no heart or soul), alone because I have to decide whether or not to go with my dad to an Easter service at the cemetery the week before my mom’s birthday and it’s only my decision and no one else’s, alone because when I told Rob about Emily this morning he offered not one word of support to me but said “aww, something must be wrong” as if the only one that needed sympathy or empathy was the little person who can’t explain why she was awake in the first place.  And I’m angry that it seems like everything has gone wrong today from that moment at 3:50 to right now. I had to clean up the yogurt that she spread everywhere – twice – this morning, I had to deal with her melt-down because she was so tired and didn’t want to get dressed for school, I had to clean up the refrigerator from some melon that partially exploded all of my carton of eggs, I ran out of my regular hair stuff and discovered that I bought the wrong stuff yesterday, I have to train a class today on very little sleep and very little to no patience, I woke up with a killer headache and no will to get up to deal with her let alone the rest of my day, she tossed a bunch of bath toys all over the bathroom that I had to clean up.  And tonight, oh look, I get to go pick her up at school and take her home – alone – and deal with her (she who will surely be super cranky) until bedtime and then when I go to bed I will spend the night hoping and praying that she sleeps until I get her up. Today just sucks and there is nothing that will make me happy.  It would be nice to hear some encouraging, supportive words from him today but I am not holding my breath for that miracle to arrive.

I don’t know who’s Cheerios I pissed in but clearly, I have angered someone for this type of thing to keep happening.  Every single time I have something important to do at work, especially lately, she wakes up in the middle of the night or nice and early in the morning and messes me up.  (Not to mention that she slept through every night that I was away, which wasn’t what we expected at all.) I can’t be a stay at home mom, for a number of reasons, so if someone/somewhere wants me to be and this is their idea of persuading me to do it, you are barking up the wrong tree!

And on days like this, when I’m exhausted and frustrated, I am more emotional than I care to be.  Just the thought of my mom brings me to the brink of tears.  Anything that goes badly or goes wrong, like cleaning up the yogurt two times this morning, brings me to tears.  I know that there were a few other things that happened this morning that made me cry, I can’t remember what they are since I was barely functional at 4am, but right now I’m sitting here with tears in my eyes because of my mom.  Nothing specific, just thoughts of her.  Just thinking that if this is HER messing with me, which wouldn’t surprise me, it would be proof in my eyes that she’s mad at me for all that I tried to do FOR her before she died. But she didn’t think of it that way. She saw me as meddling where it wasn’t my place; she told my sister that I should have just called the neighbors to tell them she was sick because I had called everyone else. I called two doctors when I found out her weight was down to 96 or 93 pounds (the number was so important then but seems irrelevant now).  But that was wrong of me to do as far as she was concerned and she didn’t talk to me for about a week or two because of it. And I’m sure she thought I was behind the hospital admission. And now, who knows.  Maybe she thinks it’s my fault that she’s not here; maybe she knows that I was the one sitting on the couch that day with my Dad, saying “she has to go, she has no real choice, I will get her there one way or another if I have to physically pick her up myself” the day that she was refusing to agree to go the hospital.  I was the one that told the nurse that we were ready to do it, order the morphine; I was the one that told my dad and my sister time and time again that this was the right thing to do.  I was the one that sat there, on the side of the bed that she was facing, as she took her last breaths.  So maybe she does hate me. Which is just a fantastic thought to have about your dead mom.  It was bad enough that, while she was alive, I always knew my sister was her favorite but to know that it could have carried over to the after-life even after all that I did and all that I endured for her, just hurts like hell.  More than her being gone does.

Sorry for the pity-party, today sucks and I’m feeling bad about a lot of things right now.  Hopefully with some sleep tonight (please God, let her sleep tonight), my outlook and attitude will be a little better tomorrow.