Creating memories in my head

It’s a bad dead mom day already, and it’s not even 9am.

I was in the kitchen this morning, making Emily’s lunch, when all of a sudden I had this vision in my head.  I was sitting on a couch in my parents’ living room, opposite my mom who was sitting on another couch; she had on blue shorts and a white shirt with her hair pulled back like it always was.  Emily was standing next to her and I was saying to my mom “yeah, and now she roars like a dinosaur too” and my mom smiled and laughed and I asked Emily to show Grandma how a dinosaur roars and she did it and my mom smiled.  I don’t think she ever said anything, but as I thought about this conversation – when I got to tell her all of the things Emily does now and that she’s missed since she died – it felt like I was catching her up on things because she just hadn’t been around.  I don’t know if my brain was thinking this is what I would have done had she been in the hospital this entire time, or what I would have done had she just been on a long vacation this time entire time. Neither of those are actual possibilities; she wouldn’t have had the money to go on a five month long vacation (my dad is very cheap) and she wouldn’t still be alive had she not died when she did.  I know that.  At least a part of me knows that, but I guess a part of me just doesn’t or chooses not to and wishes she was here so very much that it ignores that fact that no matter what, she wouldn’t be here now anyway.

I also thought about that voicemail that I have saved from my birthday last year.  I am pretty sure it is the only recording of my mom’s voice I have.  I know what she says and I can hear it in my head without playing it, which makes me cry.  I miss that voice.  I miss the accent, I miss the melodrama that came over the phone so very clearly sometimes and I miss her laugh.  I wish she had laughed more often than she did, she had a great laugh.  And a cough, lol.  She always coughed when she laughed a lot because she had a post-nasal drip that was constant; I do the same thing, for the same reason.  I miss her every day, no matter where I am or what I’m doing and today, it’s just a bit harder than most.  And days like this make me feel very lonely, on top of very sad.  We’re about to go on a family vacation and I wish she was still here to see the pictures and to hear the stories about whatever craziness Emily gets into.  I miss my mom so very much today.