Internalize much??

Another one of my co-workers has lost a family member, her father.  I don’t know the details but I do know that he had fallen ill within the last few weeks and passed away yesterday.  Again, my heart is heavy and I just want to cry.  I remember what this part was like, and it was hard – it felt horrifically hard at the time – but not as hard as the days that followed.  Making the arrangements was almost easy, going to the wake wasn’t, going to the funeral wasn’t, going home and getting on with life most certainly wasn’t and still isn’t now.  I don’t know if I will ever again know what ‘easy’ is for my day-to-day; yes some days aren’t hard, some days I don’t cry.  But there are days – like today – when I just need to cry.  It all just reminds me of how hard it was to lose her, to watch her go, and I can only imagine how hard this is for Teresa. 

My unit consists of about 9 or 10 people in all; 5 of us have lost family members in the last year.  Three of us lost parents, one lost a mother-in-law.  Two fathers and a mother.  It doesn’t matter how old you are, it doesn’t matter what kind of person they were, in the end they were your mom or dad and they’re gone.  Thinking of what my co-worker, who I’ve known for over 4 years, is going through today – that first day of getting up and knowing what lies ahead – makes me sad.  Makes me sad for her, her family, her children, and it makes me a little sad for me and mine.  I remember it like it was yesterday and yet, it feels a million miles away….just like my mom.  I don’t feel her, I don’t know if she’s okay or if she’s with us, she’s just gone.  And a day like today reminds me of that feeling that I do my best to ignore, and it’s a feeling that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.  It is an emptiness that I can’t describe other than that it makes me feel sad and alone.  Very, very alone.

Positivity

I am doing this positivity challenge on Facebook – for five days you’re supposed to write three positive things, things you’re grateful for.  So I think this is what I’m going to write today…..i will most likely edit this for FB; it’s a bit long and who in the world is going to read it all. And honestly, I don’t know if I want everyone on FB reading thoughts like this.  This is pretty personal, I hold this one close to the chest.

Today, I’m going to go a bit rogue (again)…..today I’m feeling a bit nostalgic so I am thankful for my history.

I am thankful for my Mom, who is now a part of my history.  For all that she was and wasn’t, and for all the times she stopped speaking to me (even the time just weeks before her passing), for all the times she frustrated me because she refused to go to a doctor, for all the good and the bad, she was my Mom and not a day goes by that I don’t miss her desperately.  This experience has taught me one really big thing – it doesn’t matter what your relationship with your mom is like; when she’s gone, you are forever changed and you will always feel an emptiness that will never be filled again.  There are things that she will not be here for, things that she should be here for.  There are holidays and events that won’t feel the same without her.  Without her and what she did/didn’t do when I was a child, I am who I am today and for that, I am thankful.

I am thankful for every stupid boy I ever dated J.  Without them, I wouldn’t have known what I wanted or what I couldn’t put up with.  My ex’s, including my ex-husband, taught me more about myself than I could have alone.  So for that, I am thankful.

I am thankful for my friends, still here or long gone.  They taught me how to be myself, how to laugh at myself, how to laugh at others without getting caught, how to laugh at yourself when you are caught laughing at others, and they taught me to be happy with who I am and to be who I want to be.  For those that I fought with, for those that didn’t stand by me, they taught me how to stand alone and they taught me that you can’t trust everyone no matter how much you think they care.  So for that, I am thankful.

I am thankful for the rocky road that has brought Rob and I to this point.  As the song goes “God bless the broken road that led me straight to you”; our road is very, very broken  and I know a lot of people don’t understand how we got here or even why we’re here together but is not their story.  I knew a very long time ago, when he first walked through my door 11 or 12 years ago, that we would end up here.  I don’t know how or why, but I have always known that he was the person I was supposed to be with and now, here we are.  Together we have been through the good, the ugly and the horrific, but I have learned that in the end, with some work, dedication and stubbornness, love, patience and humor, you can end up happy together. So for all of the ups and downs, for all the tearful fights that we had to save ‘us’, for the times I tried to say good-bye only to have him show up at my door time and time again, for all the times he looks at me and I just know that this is where we belong and for every moment in between, I am thankful.  He truly is my partner in this life and I am beyond lucky to have him next to me and behind me; his hand on my shoulder at my saddest moments are what kept me from falling to the floor.  I don’t know if he will ever understand just how much he means to me.

I am thankful for the experiences I have had in my life that have led me to this place, right here and right now.  I have this horrible habit of looking far into the future – really far – that I try to tame as much as possible.  Today, I am trying to remain in the now and remember that today, I am lucky.  I am healthy, I have a great partner and a beautiful daughter. I have a good job, I can pay my bills, I have family and friends that love me.  sure there’s some scary stuff down the road ahead, but I’ll deal with it in time…..or whenever I stop being so positive about the now and start to freak out about the later.

Impact! (Ouch)

Last night, my sister and I saw 30 Seconds to Mars and Linkin Park in concert.  If you don’t know who 30 Seconds to Mars is, it’s fronted by Jared Leto who won an Oscar for “Dallas Buyers Club”.  If you don’t know who Linkin Park is, the best I can tell you is that they’ve done some music for the Transformer movies and they were one of the first – if not the first – to incorporate electronic music with rap.

At one point during the 30 STM set, Jared Leto came out into the audience to do a few acoustic songs; I’ve seen them three or four times now and this is his typical thing to do mid-set.  He played a song called ‘Attack’; it is the best F-You song that I have ever heard and I used to sing it (no, scream it) in my car when Rob and I had broken up years ago.  And hearing it acoustically, with just his vocals, almost made it new to me.  It hit a whole new emotional chord because I was hearing it from a new perspective; I was hearing it with more raw emotion in his voice than what’s on the CD and I was hearing it remembering what it was like to truly feel those words he was singing and it was a hard memory to process with that emotion coming through loud and clear on the gigantic speakers. He also sang ‘Alibi’ which basically says things suck, but they’ll get better, there is a better road ahead.  Both songs hit me in a way that I didn’t expect and that hadn’t happened before.  And it happened again later in the night during Linkin Park’s set when they sang ‘Shadow of the Day’ and another song that right now, its title eludes me but it doesn’t really matter….both made me feel more than they have in the past, and it’s because of where my life is now.

I am constantly surprised that, even now seven months into this rest of my life process, my mom’s passing has changed my perspective and how things impact me.  ‘Shadow of the Day’ has always been a sad song, ‘Alibi’ has always had it’s sad components, but neither ever made me cry until last night.  Sitting or standing there, listening to the lyrics live and really feeling them just made me look to the sky (well the roof of the amphitheater) and think “I miss you”.  I know she would laugh at me as she asked how last night was, since she has no clue who those bands are or what they sing. Had no clue, that is.  Even in the middle of a rock concert with flashing lights, blaring drums and electronics, people dancing and jumping all around me having the time of their lives, I am reminded of the fact that she is no longer here and I feel alone in a crowd of thousands. 

We Survived

Rob comes home today after a very long 12 days away from home.  I missed him, I really did. I enjoyed some of the alone time – watching my tv shows, eating cake without sharing, sleeping all night without being woken up by snoring or a repeatedly snoozed alarm. But I missed ‘him’ so it’ll be nice to have him around again.  Emily and I, overall, did pretty well if I do say so myself.  I took her to this park on Saturday that my parents always used to take us to; in the summer we would go there for a BBQ at least once.  I remember taking our dog one time and she hated it – you couldn’t put her in the car or she thought she was going to the doctor’s so that was a not so fun experience.  But Saturday was a lot of fun.  We went to the zoo – albeit not all that great anymore – and we walked on the new boardwalk by the lake, and Emily picked up huge rocks and moved them around.  She had fun and I’m happy she enjoyed a place that meant a lot to me when I was a kid and is still important to me as part of my history.

Walking around the park made me remember what it used to look like, and the fun I had there when I was a kid.  Going to the zoo and feeding the deer was one of my favorite things to do there.  They still have them and one of the first animals Emily saw there was a baby deer, which was pretty cool.  It almost made me feel like my mom was there; the deer were her favorite animals at the zoo aside from the bear. He was big, slumberous and lazy and she loved him.

I would give just about anything to know that she was with us at the park that day.  Hell, I would give just about anything to know that she’s with us anywhere.  The zoo, the park, the living room.  I don’t care.  But I know, I won’t know.  I have a feeling that it’s on purpose, too.  If she is around, if she is with us, she doesn’t want us to know.  She doesn’t want ME to know, because I want to know so badly. Spiteful, even if death.  That wasn’t a positive trait before and it certainly isn’t now.

Rest In Peace

The world mourns the loss of Robin Williams today, who suffered from severe depression, addiction and probably more demons than any of us will ever know.  Whenever someone dies suddenly, whether it be by their own hand or by the hand of God, it’s tragic.  In this case, the loss is felt worldwide because of who he was. But let us not forget the family and friends who actually knew him. Knew what he would say when he answered a phone, knew what his favorite holiday was, his favorite food, his allergies, his best friend’s name when he was 10…let us not forget those that are left to mourn the actual person and not just the persona.  He was a father, a husband, a family member, a friend, he meant something to those who loved him and they will forever feel this loss.  You and I will move on; by the time his autopsy is made public, he will be a faint memory to us.  But for those close to him, his memory will be with them forever and they will cry.  They will cry when his movies come on the TV as many of us will, but they will cry when they see his favorite coffee mug in the sink where he left it and when they see his jacket hanging by the door.  They will cry for a lot longer than the rest of us because they knew him and they loved him.  Peace and love to those that loved him and to those that feel the void that he left behind.

7 Months Gone

Today it’s been seven months since my mom passed away.  January 11 – August 11.  It goes by so quickly.  I think about what was going on then – snow storms every week, my kid was transitioning into the toddler room and she’ll soon be transitioning out, she was sick the day my mom passed away and was sick again two weeks later, having to call my sister after talking to the doctor, ugh I don’t care to think about the rest of it any more than I already am as I type this.

I’m alone with Emily right now; Rob has been in Sweden since last week.  Grieving makes me feel very alone, and being alone with her makes it even harder.  Saturday, for some reason, was rough for me.  I guess because I knew I wasn’t going to hear from him and he’s really all I have in terms of support with Emily.  Most of my really close friends live hours away; and those that are close can’t take care of Emily for me because she doesn’t really know them.  This experience has taught me that I need to do a better job at building up a support system on my own because it’s not going to happen magically and I can’t always do this alone.

I’m trying to focus on the good stuff right now – Rob will be home sooner than later and I want to bake cookies or make a special dinner or something for when he comes home. A week from tonight I go to see two of my favorite bands play.  And not too far off, I’m going to Disney with my best friend to celebrate our 40^th birthdays in style!  I don’t want to dwell on the past, even though it’s only seven or eight months in the past. This morning I started to think about Christmas for some God-forsaken reason and I stopped myself; her gifts from last year are still in the Living Room, or at least they were the last time I was at the house.  I don’t want to think about things that will make me any more sad than I already am underneath my busy and a bit stressed exterior.  I don’t want to spend my day trying to cry on the inside; you really can’t shed tears internally. I tried, it doesn’t work, it’s a totally external process damn it.  So I’m going to focus on my work today – it’s  a busy day thankfully – and try to not check my email a thousand times, and try to ignore the date.  I don’t want to remember that right now, I’m kind of alone in all that I do and I don’t want to push myself inwards any more than my brain already wants me to be.

Memories Make it Real

Today, I miss my mom.  There’s been this surge of memories lately, from when she was in the hospital, and it forces me to remember and feel that she’s gone.  I hate it.  I remember driving home that first night in the snow, and then later wishing I had stayed longer so I could have had more time with her. I still regret leaving when I did.  I remember standing in my kitchen, waiting for the nurse to get on the phone to tell me why they called me “about your mom” at 6am – all while my then 18 month old was crying in the background because she had woken up early and I wasn’t there to get her out of bed.  And I remember calling Rob, telling him I needed him to come home because my mother had been placed on a respirator and was in ICU and I needed to get to the hospital. I remember going into crisis mode, getting ready quickly and heading out so I could get to her, find out what happened and what needed to happen next. And I remember the realization that she wasn’t going to wake up, sitting in the room in silence, watching her breath on a machine for days.  I remember it like it happened yesterday; I feel it like it happened yesterday, too.  On Monday, it will be seven months and yet, today, I feel like I just lived it.  I feel like……I don’t know…..I feel like I’m watching a movie in my head, one of those real tear-jerkers that you only watch when you know you’re okay with crying over a stupid movie.  I can see myself in the kitchen, I can see myself pacing the hallway outside of her room day after day, I can see myself sitting on the couch with Rob and saying to him “I don’t want to do this” the afternoon of the wake.   I know that this is passing and I most likely won’t feel this badly tomorrow.  But today.  Today I just really truly miss her and I would give anything for the chance to go back to that night so I could sit with her a little while longer, talk to her a little bit more, and enjoy the time that we had left.  I didn’t know it would be cut short so soon and so fast, but I wish I had intuition just so I would have stayed just a little bit longer.  I really do.

Could Be Worse

This morning I had to tell my two-year old that her father was leaving and she wasn’t going to see him for a while.  (He’s going on a vacation with his son to Sweden for 10 or 11 days, I lost count after a while)  When I saw the realization and understanding come onto her face, and heard her cries of “daddy” as she climbed up into his lap in tears, it broke my heart.  Makes me happy she wasn’t really aware of what was going on when my mom died; I don’t know if she remembers her but if I ask her if that’s Grandma when I show her pictures she says yes.  She’s only two so she has no real concept of time – I do tell her what day it is most days, when I remember, but still.  She doesn’t understand that 10 days is less than two weeks, 10 days is less than the time he was in Chicago for work for an unexpected 15 days early last year.  All she knows is that she was just told that Daddy is going away and we won’t be able to see him for a while and we won’t talk to him for a few days.  She cried and whined for him almost the whole way to school, which was hard to hear without breaking into tears myself.

I’m sure there are people in worst positions than myself, I know it.  There are single moms out there that work two and three jobs to make ends meet while someone else raises their children.  There are single dads doing the same thing.  There are families on food stamps, living in cars, unemployed. There are sick parents out there, trying to figure out how to make their children understand that they’ll be okay when their mom/dad is gone and coping with the idea that they won’t be there to see their child grow up, graduate, get married, have children. There are parents dealing with their child having a horrible, deadly disease, praying that their child lives to see another day or another year. There are people out there who are alone, longing for companionship, longing for a child, who can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel; I know that story all too well because I used to be one of those people.  I was alone, thinking I would always be alone because the person I was supposed to be with couldn’t change his life so that we could be together, thinking I would never have a child and that I would have to find the money to adopt or buy sperm and go for invitro.  Yeah, that would have made my Italian father happy; and adoption wouldn’t have made my mother very happy – for some reason she wasn’t thrilled with the idea.  I digress.  Even knowing all of this, having him leave today makes me sad and makes me sad for so many reasons.  I will miss him desperately, for a lot of reasons including the ones that surround our daughter.  Although I do plan on enjoying my nights alone – I’m going to watch the movies I want, the shows I want (hello – Project Runway!), and hog up the whole bed. But even in the midst of enjoyment, there will be an emptiness there next to me on the couch and in our bed.  And I’m kind of tired of emptiness.  Some days, its all I feel.  Unfortunately, I’m going to have some extra emptiness around for the next 10 or 11 days.  Knowing me, I’m going to fill up that emptiness the only way I know how – with my good friends Ben & Jerry.

Dreams - Not Just a Fleetwood Mac Song

Dreams are strange things.  I don’t really want to call them ideas or items or thoughts….i don’t know what the right term is so things it is.  They’re strange.  I’ve never had one of my mom, not since she died.  This morning I kind of did, but it was more of a memory while I was kind of awake than a dream where she came to me and told me something profound.  I had a lot of weird flashback memory stuff happen this morning and this was a part of it.  I remembered the day I brought Emily home, and how cute and tiny she looked sleeping in the backseat beside me.  I remembered the first night in the hospital after she was born and how my sister slept on the couch in my room with us.  (most of it was Emily related, as you can probably tell)  I know there was something in there with my mom, I think it was the night that a car crashed through their living room and I drove down there to see how they were and to pack them up to take them to my sister’s if need be.  I remember her face when I walked in – “oh, hi Sweetheart, what are you doing here?” like it was shocking that one of us would show up after a car drove into their house. (Yes, a car really did crash through the living room wall and into the house.)  and I can kind of remember her voice from that night, too.  Which is a first, I think.  It’s been hard, very hard, to remember her voice.  But with that memory, I kind of do.  It’s fuzzy, not very loud or clear, but it’s there.  And it’s all I have right now, not that I’m ready for more.  I’m not ready to remember her voice full-on; it’s hard enough remembering her face or how she would say “sweetheart”.  I’m doing better than I was months ago, things do get easier with time, but I know that I’ll never be “okay”.  There will never be a time when I don’t cry, when I don’t miss her, when I don’t wonder what things would be like if she was still here.  It’s an odd feeling, knowing that I’ll never actually be “okay” again and that, as my father gets older and sicker, the reality is that I will lose him sooner than later most likely and that will add to my lack of “okay”.  I have to say, that aside from my mom and my best friend, I miss “okay” the most.

Cancer is a bitch

went onto to Facebook this afternoon, just as a quick distraction from my work – I need to do that from time to time during the day to just refocus myself – and I found a post from a man that I’m still friends with, even though his friend and I broke up many moons ago.  His nephew is 5 years old and is battling cancer again.  This is the second or third time this kid has had it, and this time, it’s bad.  His arm broke again, his bones are brittle from all of the misc. treatments and therapies over the years.  And when they did the arm x-ray, they also did a chest x-ray to figure out why he was having trouble breathing; they thought it was pneumonia (sounds familiar).  He now has a new tumor in his lungs.  They are trying a form of chemo that they’ve used before with him that has worked; if he is resistant to the treatment, if it doesn’t work, as his mother said “we are out of options”.  To be a mother and to say that about your child, your 5 year old child no less, can be nothing less than heart wrenching.  I can’t imagine, and pray that I never will actually know, the heart break and suffering that woman is enduring knowing that she can only do so much to help her child and that she may be standing by, watching her child die slowly without having the ability to save him. A child who depends on her to kiss his boo-boos, put a band-aid on the ouchies, kiss him good-night and scare away the monsters that hide under his bed. She can’t scare away cancer; it’s the other way around I believe. 

Cancer is a horrible,  horrible disease that claims the old and the young.  It doesn’t discriminate.  It doesn’t care if you’ve had a full life, or if your life hasn’t really even begun yet; this little boy was planning on starting Kindergarten and now, it looks like that won’t be happening anytime soon.  The things that this poor kid has missed out on and now, another first will come and go without him.  He is lucky though – in at least one aspect – his family has gathered around him and won’t give up.  They will fight and fight along with him as best they can, until there is no battle to fight anymore.  And even then, I think his parents will continue to fight until there’s nothing to fight against anymore.  I pray, and I pray, and I pray, that this little life is spared.  That this family is spared.  They shouldn’t have to endure the pain of watching someone they love, a five-year old at that, pass away slowly and painfully from this horrible disease; there is no easy way to pass away once it’s in your lungs as I know all too well. They tell you that they will make that person comfortable, but there is no comfort in watching it happen.  No one should have to lose their child, no one should have to watch their loved one die from this disease and GOD no parent should have to decide to take their 5 year old off of life support and sit by their bedside, holding their hand as they die and take their last breath. I know it happens every day, I know it happens everywhere.  But when it hits home, especially when it’s such a young life, you can’t be anything but angry and just oh so very sad.

Breaking the Silence

I haven’t written much lately.  I think I’ve just been lost in my own head about things and there’s been too much going on around me to stop and write things down.  Right now, I’m procrastinating.  I have another phone call I don’t want to make, but have to.  Today, my dad went to the doctor to get the results of a full body CT scan he had done; I’m assuming there’s nothing really wrong because if there was, they would have had him in the office much sooner. (I learned that the hard way with my mom.  The day of her CT, her doctor called and said he wanted to see her first thing Monday morning.  It was Friday.)  But still.  It could be ‘something’ and I don’t know how to handle ‘something’.  Yes, the days are easier now that my mom has been gone for six+ months, but they aren’t ‘easy’.  I don’t know that they ever really will be.  People I know, women, who have lost their moms have told me time and time again that they still cry 8 years, 10 years, 15 years later.  I don’t cry every day, even when I want to.  But still.  It’s never going to be easy again and I’m just not ready to deal with not easy when it comes to my Dad.

I still find myself looking for my cat’s water and food dishes every morning, and almost every time I walk into my kitchen.  It was such a habit to look, to check and make sure he had enough, that it’s hard to break myself of it.  I miss him, too.  I miss the way he used to head-butt me, rub the top of his head on my nose. Sure, I don’t miss when he had teeth and used to bite my nose.  Damn that hurt.  But still.  I do miss him; I noticed the picture of him on my desk today.  I haven’t actually looked right at it in a while.  He was much younger and healthier in that picture, which is how I remember him.  Having a good memory like that is helpful; it helps to stop me from crying anytime my daughter runs up to me and says “MOM…kitty!” and I have to explain again that he is not with us anymore.

I know that there are certain things that we should probably do now, that we haven’t done yet.  Like help my Dad go through some of my mom’s things, like go through her jewelry, her books, her clothes that he still has.  But I’m not there yet.  In my head I know that it’s what needs to get done and all that jazz but the rest of me, just doesn’t want to.  I think that there’s still a part of me that’s in denial and that’s how I get through the day-to-day.  Denial probably isn’t a good place to be and to stay at, but it’s an easy place to get comfortable.  Some days, it doesn’t feel like anything is different because it isn’t – I didn’t talk to her often, I didn’t see her all the time so I don’t necessarily ‘miss’ her every day; I don’t feel the void every day because I’m not forced to see it or hear it. I think it’s only because I don’t have to think about her every day like my Dad does.  If I did, I would miss her every day and I would probably cry a lot more than I do.  When I pass the blue sign for the hospital in the morning, many times I look away so I can pretend its not there and it doesn’t represent what it represents for me now and forever.  That’s the last place I saw my Mom alive, if that’s what you want to call it.  and I try to remember that fact, too.  She wasn’t really ‘alive’ when we turned off the machines.  That wasn’t a life; she wasn’t conscious – even without medication, and when we knew that was the case, I knew it was time to let go.  They stopped the morphine and lowered the pain medication as much as they could and yet, there was no response from her anymore. She wasn’t there, it was just her body.  But still. That body was my mom; it yelled at me, it laughed with me, it smiled at my daughter, it made idle threats to my dad and sometimes it was down-right hysterically funny.  And I miss that body.  I hope that her spirit, or whatever you want to call it, is out there somewhere enjoying its new existence.  But I miss her, and I wish that I could turn back time just a little bit so I could appreciate the spirit and the body just a little bit more, for just a little bit longer.