Books & Picture Day

Last night, coming home with Emily, I started to cry.  Emily’s school was doing a book sale – your typical school book sale but on a smaller scale since these are smaller kids with limited book choices.  And Emily picked out three to take home (aka, Mommy got hosed for about 25 bucks); there were two  more she wanted to bring home but I said no, we had enough books.  There was a mini-fit but she was happy in the end with her books on the way home. And it made me cry.  My mom was SUCH a book lover, she would have been beaming to see Emily sit on the little make-shift futon they have set up as a reading corner; she sat there and looked at each page of the books she picked while I either sat next to her and watched or stood and talked to another parent (and watched her out of the corner of my eye).  My mom would be so proud to see Emily love books as much as my sister did when she was her age and as much as my mom did.  I bet my mom would buy her book after book after book….you could never have enough books in her eyes. 

My mom will also miss out on the annual school picture; I gave my parents a framed copy of the one from last year for Christmas and my mom thought it was so pretty. I thought she would be here for a few more of them, to smile at them, brag about them, show them off. I didn't know it then, but now I know how important something as mundane as the annual picture day and having a picture in hand to give to someone means. It brings tears to my eyes knowing that she's missing it. 

How I wish she was here to see this.  How I wish she was here to wrap her arms around Emily to tell her how proud she was of her.  How I wish she was here to sit on the couch and read to her, hear her pick out letters and pictures.  I can remember my mom reading the Wizard of Oz to me; it’s one of the few memories I have like that – I wasn’t read to very often as a child but I can remember many times sitting in the living room with my mom as she sat reading, drinking her big glass of iced tea and smoking (that last part stopped at some point when I was in college and she had a heart attack).

I hope she can hear me, I hope she can see Emily.  I know that I will never know either one of those things, but I can hope for it.  And I hope for it every single day.

I Don't Enjoy Being a Bitch. No, really.

This weekend I was a miserable bitch. I did all that I could to stop – I even went so far as to go into the bathroom, look myself in the eye (in the mirror) and say “stop being such a bitch already, wtf!”.  I seriously did that because I couldn’t stand myself anymore.  I also walked out of a room to breathe and to get myself to calm down because, again, I was being an uber byatch and couldn’t stop.  I don’t really know why.  Well, I guess underneath it all I know why – I have a dead mom and I’m pretty pissed about it, pretty sad about it, pretty upset that I can’t think of the holidays without wanting to cry.  I know how this process goes.  I’ve been down a similar road but still, that history doesn’t help me now.  You’d think I would somehow be able to tap into those memories and get myself grounded by knowing that there are better days and the light at the end of the tunnel is NOT a freight train. But no.  I can’t seem to apply that experience to this, even though that experience sucked too and I know that it gets better but right now, it doesn’t seem to matter.

I can’t stop myself from thinking about her, and that’s making my day-to-day difficult.  I think it’s because I can’t stop thinking about my dad, and how hard the coming months will be for him and how much harder that will make it for me.  I know that I shouldn’t fixate on anything like this – it’s all out of my control and it’s in the future, albeit the not so far off in the distance future.  But it’s hard not to.  It’s hard not to think about what was going on right here, right now, a year ago and what will not be going on right here, right  now in the present.  It’s hard to not think about her because she was a part of my every day, whether I liked it or not.  Especially a year ago, when all we did was argue about stuff like her eating habits and changing Emily’s diaper enough during the day when they watched her and no I didn’t introduce juice yet and no I’m not planning on it, and when are you making that doctor’s appointment and what did you eat for breakfast and lunch today – do you actually think that’s enough food??  But in the end, no amount of food could have saved her.  Who knows, if she did eat more it might have fueled the cancer and it could have spread faster, she wouldn’t have been here for the holidays.  When she was on the feeding tube in the hospital, they were giving her plenty of nutrition but she couldn’t put weight on because of how quickly the cancer was spreading; she would gain some, and then lose it as soon as they backed off of the fluids they were pumping her with.  It was in her bones in that last CT and it hadn’t been there a week before. A week.  19 days before it was just nodules in her lungs.  That last CT showed a huge mass in the front of one of her lungs that wasn’t there just three weeks before.  Three weeks.  It amazes me how fast something so horrible and devastating moves around in your body.

But today is a new day.  And I need to look at it that way.  Yeah I’ve been pretty wretched lately, but that doesn’t mean I have to be horrible today.  Right now, as I type, I don’t feel overly horrible which is an improvement and right now, I’ll take whatever I can get.  And with that, Sarah Bareilles’ “December” comes onto my iPhone…..gee, thanks for making me sad(der) Sarah, awesome timing!! (Quickly reaching out to phone to change song to….Little Black Dress…that’s about a stupid man, so that’s better.)  Must stay focused on the upside of things and not think about the downers – the holidays, her clothes in my house that she never got to wear (which I washed this weekend – fun times), my dad.  Yeah, not going there right now.  As my toddler would say “Momma, NO NO”.  Complete with crossed arms and a foot stomp for good measure.

Get Yourself Together, Woman!

We meet every day at work for a 9ammeeting; leadership gets together and discusses priorities for the day, policy changes, operational challenges, etc.  And here I am, yet again for the umpteenth time this year, trying to get myself together so that I don’t look like I’ve been crying for the past 10 minutes (even though I have been).  When I dropped off Emily at school, most of her friends were already there and playing with the teacher so she immediately put her stuff away and went to play.  When I told her I was leaving she came over and hugged me, and then went back to play.  She saw me walking to the door and she ran over with her arms out, I stooped down so she could kiss me, she said “bye bye” and ran back to play.  I was SO HAPPY to see her so happy, and to see her just walk off independently and be okay without me and to just jump in and play with her friends; I’m not a helicopter mom AT ALL.  I want her to be independent and not need me 24/7.  And to see her do that today was just a wonderful event to see and how I wished in that moment to tell my mom.  I wanted to pick up the phone from the parking lot and tell her all about it.  My mom would be so proud of her; my mom wanted Emily to grow up to be independent and fierce.  My mom, although she didn’t always act this way, wanted me to be independent and not depend on some man for everything.  She was happy that I could pay my bills, keep a roof over my head and food on my table without the help of a man; she never understood why my sister got remarried because to my mom, she didn’t need to.  I think secretly, it was something that she had wanted for herself but was never allowed to.

It broke my heart to walk away from that classroom knowing that my mom wouldn’t hear the excitement and pride in my voice when I told the story of this morning.  It broke my heart to know that she’s not here to be proud of Emily, to hug her and to tell her what a wonderful job she’s doing and that she’s “Grandma’s Girl” – that’s what my mom used to call her.  It breaks my heart over and over to know that she wasn’t here long enough for Emily to remember her and to not only remember who she was but to also remember how much she loved her.

Pissed & Disappointed

Today, I’m still staring at my phone.  I thought by now I would be able to pick it up, ask the questions and book the date but I haven’t been able to get myself to tell yet another person about why I am doing this fund-raiser.  I thought I could do it because this is what I ‘need’ to do – I need a distraction, I need to feel like all that crap that happened – that was happening a year ago right now – was for some good reason and not just to drive me to the brink of looney-tunes emotionally and mentally.  I need to feel like something positive came from this because so far, there hasn’t been a silver lining.

But I’m just still staring.  I know what I want to do in terms of marketing the event, reaching out to people, organizing the donations, etc.  I know all of it and I even have a plan written out.  But the first step, making it a real thing and giving it a name, I can’t bring myself to do.  I can’t do  it because it would mean that she really is gone, she really is dead.  Even now, I have a hard time using that word and it’s been over 8 months.  I’ll say “passed away” but I won’t use the ‘d’ word.  It’s just too real, too harsh, too much of an ending.

I’m angry at myself for staring, for standing still, for not pushing myself forward like I feel like I should but can’t seem to do.  I know that I need to do things at my own pace, (insert misc. bs here that people tell you) but I feel guilty for not doing this all already.  I should have been done and over with this whole fundraiser by now, technically; I had the idea to do it over the summer or really late in the Spring so why the hell haven’t I done it yet???

Grief really makes you reach across the gamut of emotions, doesn’t it?  I’m sad, I’m angry, I’m self-deprecating, I’m back to sad, oh look here comes anger around the bend mixed in with some selfishness just for fun.  No one can prepare you for the journey that is the grief after a loved one dies; there is no self-help book that has a title with your name on it (how cool would that be though??).  If there was a map I could buy at the Barnes & Noble when I go to pick up a latte, I would pay any amount of money for it at this point.  Just when I think I’m starting to turn a corner and feel ‘normal’ again, I get hit with something – these days it’s the looming holidays and the memories of how she was last year this time.  I look forward to next year at this time when it’s not so fresh, and maybe the guilt won’t be such an overbearing pain in the ass. 

Baby Steps

Today, I moved forward a little bit.  I picked up the phone and called my parents’ old parish, asking if I could rent space for the fundraiser in my mom’s honor.  I left a message, so now I just wait.  I am hoping that they say yes, but we’ll see.  If whomever I talk to isn’t receptive to the idea, I might go right to the top – the pastor has been a friend of my dad’s for years and in his eulogy for my mom said “I didn’t want to welcome you home like this, but you’re home now and this will always be your home” (yeah that didn’t make me cry like a baby).  I think I need to do this now, I need to feel like I’m doing something for her now that the holidays are coming and I have these horrible memories and thoughts and I need something positive (aside from the vacation I’m taking with a friend in a few weeks).

Moving forward and trying to turn a horribly negative experience into something positive, I hope, will make me feel better.  Something has to give.  It’s not that I’m sad all the time, but I’m sad more often than I would like and my sadness is triggered by things way too often for my liking.  Maybe if I have this to work on, plan for, focus on, I won’t have so much time to remember how she died and how………responsible I still feel.

UPDATE…..I can’t use the space at the parish, but I did get to speak to the Pastor’s Assistant who adores – well adored I guess – my parents.  She’s a wonderful woman who cried, and cried, when my sister and I went to make the selections for our mother’s funeral mass.  She shared with me that her mother also passed away, it will be 3 years this December.  And she told me this – “It doesn’t get easier, it does not get easier, but it does get tolerable”.  That struck a chord with me and made me realize that I’m not crazy thinking that this will never be ‘easy’ again but the light at the end of the tunnel will bring some normalcy, for lack of a better word, to things again.  She said that strives for tolerable some days, because she knows that’s as good as it will get.  And I can live with that.

Coincidental Music

This morning on my way to school/work, I heard a Stone Temple Pilots song, a Rick Astley song, and then a Third Eye Blind song oh and a Goo Goo Dolls song.  STP was one of Donna’s favorite groups; my mom loved Rick, TEB was a band we listened to in college and at the bar after we graduated, and the Goo’s song was one that reminded me of a friend that was killed in a motorcycle accident almost 19 years ago.  I know that there is a very high probability that this was all just coincidence and it means nothing, but deep inside me I feel like it wasn’t.  I feel like it meant something; what, I’m not sure.  Maybe it means that they have all met, they have hung out and they are all okay.  When Donna died, I hoped that she would meet up with Billy who was young and cute and fun and smart and a tiny bit edgy – she would have liked him.  And when my mom died, I hoped that Donna would find her and help her, show her the ropes (per se) and hang out with her and introduce her to her mom –I think her mom and my mom would have gotten along.  So maybe that’s what this morning was….some message from beyond to say ‘we’re together, we’ve all met, and we’re all okay’.  I hope that’s what it was.  I hope and pray that they are all okay, where ever they may be and they have met.  Each of them was pretty cool in their own way and my mom loved Donna, she would be happy to see her and I hope she’s filled her in on everything that’s happened since she left us 5 years ago.  Or I at least hope they’ve had a good laugh over the things that she’s watched from a far for the past 5 years…there have been some doosies…..

I miss each of them very much, even though I don’t think of Billy every day.  Although at this time of year, as the anniversary of his so very untimely death approaches, I think of him more and more.  And as the holidays approach, I think of my mom and of Donna and her mom more and more – if that’s possible – because they won’t be the same this year; they will never be the same again.  Today I will do my best to not cry in my office, but my best may not be good enough.  There are too many people gone, there are too many people missing this wonderful thing we call life.  Just too many.

13 years/8 months

Today is a particularly hard day, for so many reasons.  13 years ago, thousands of people died as I watched it all unfold on my tv.  I still remember seeing the first images of the Towers with smoke rising around them and thinking “why are they showing this….that bomb went off years ago” and not knowing that it was new, it wasn’t a bomb, I knew people in those buildings who would not make it out.  Today, I remember them with sadness and I remember who we were as a country at that time. We were together, united, we were there for one another. Here in NJ, there was kindness all around; you didn’t know if the person in front of you at the red light or in line at the store had lost someone or was waiting to find someone.  There are still some that are lost who will never be found; my cousin’s husband and his brother worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, they were not found.

And today marks 8 months since my mom passed away.  8, in this sense, seems like such a large number.  8.  It’s close to 10, closer to 12 than 7 or 6.  As the days and weeks move forward quickly, I am forced to come to terms with the fact that the holidays will soon be here.  Halloween means another costume and cute pictures of her one and only grandchild.  Thanksgiving means that we’ll try to recreate her meal without her help this time. And Christmas.  I don’t really know what to say about that day.  I knew that she would not be here for this one, but it doesn’t make it any less difficult to think of celebrating without her.

Today, I remember everyone that is gone, not just from 9/11, not just from 1/11, but anyone I’ve known and cared about who is gone.  They are all missed, I have memories of them all, and I hope to see them all again.

A Small Improvement is Still an Improvement

Today is an improvement – I don’t feel as sad or as isolated as I did yesterday, which is good.  This roller coaster sucks.  I hate, really truly hate, that I never know how I’m going to be day to day anymore and honestly, I’m not entirely sure if I ever will.  There is always, ALWAYS, something that makes me think about my mom. Whether it’s things like yesterday, having a coworker come back after losing her father and that making me remember what that first day back was like, or driving past the hospital sign, or thinking about Halloween and how my mom loved picking out Emily’s first Halloween costume (although I am fairly sure it was all my dad’s doing), there is always something and there are days that just one thought tosses me back to those early days and all I want to do is cry in front of her ‘drawer’ at the cemetery.

Last night, as I sat on the floor with our new kitties, I thought “my mom would love you guys” and I got a little choked up.  It’s sad, but true.  They’re cute, fun, have the softest fur ever known to be on a kitty, and they are sticking adorable if I do say so myself.  Let alone all the stuff that Emily is doing or saying now that would crack up my mom to no end (if she could hear it, of course).  It’s sad remembering or realizing that she’s not here to share in this with us, with me.  And as Emily grows up and becomes more of a little girl or a young woman, I will continue to have the same thoughts and feelings.  I knew my parents wouldn’t see her graduate from college, but I hoped they would both be here to see her graduate from pre-school and kindergarten.  I know it’s important to remember the good times (even if there weren’t many) and I know it’s important to try to focus on the fact that she was here long enough to get to know Emily, see her, watch her grow even if it was only for 18 months.  I know it’s important to focus on the good, and not the bad; it’s sometimes not an easy task to accomplish, though.  I remember those last days, even before she went into the hospital and those were not fun-filled days.  Having to convince her to go into the hospital, having to deal with her hating me for making her go to the doctor, my sister fighting with my dad to make the CT appointment for my mom, sitting in the chair and talking to her doctor, sitting in this chair and talking to him again.  It’s hard to not think of those and to not think of everything that came before it.  I do hope that it gets easier to focus on everything else instead of this stuff.  This stuff sucks.

Grieving by Association

Today, my co-worker came back in after her bereavement for the death of her father.  As a management team, we all meet daily at 9am; I ran into her after the meeting was over and she was crying – she said she didn’t think she would be so overwhelmed today.  All I could say is “the first day back sucks”.  What else could I say?  I don’t think “the next three to six months are going to be just like this, so get used to it” would have been helpful.  Or how about “if it makes you feel any better, my mom will be gone 8 months this week and standing here talking to you makes me want to cry like it happened last week”?  Yeah, probably not a good idea too, even though it’s the truth.

Even now, 8 months later, I feel like it’s my first day back.  I remember how I felt sitting in that meeting, sitting at this desk, walking these halls thinking “please God, don’t let anyone ask how I am”, and then feeling grateful when someone did.  And the more I talk to people the more I learn that what I feel today will never go away.  There will always be times that I feel like I want to cry my eyes out because in my world, it feels like she just died.  I feel like I just stood by her casket in the middle of the church, rubbed it gently with my hand, and cried in front of all of our family and friends.  That’s how I feel today.

Disappearing Self

I have sacrificed a lot this year to make myself ‘work’, for lack of a better word.  I’ve sucked it up more times than I can count, went to work, got out of bed, took care of my daughter instead of just focusing on myself.  I’ve stayed at home while he went to see his children, while he went on a very long vacation with one of them.  I’ve done things I didn’t want to do, including telling my father things that I never wanted to say out loud but had no choice at the time.  I’ve put my fears aside and faced things that no one should; I told a nurse to start the process of allowing my  mother to die.  No child should have to do that.  I’ve been the rock that I’ve always been in the face of insanity and uncertainty.  I haven’t gone to the cemetery when I’ve wanted to, so that I can spend time with my family.  I haven’t run away all of the times that I wanted to – and if I had, I don’t know if I would be back by now.  I’ve put my own needs to the side because that’s just what I do.  Everyone else is more important, what everyone else wants and needs is more important.  And now, based upon a recent conversation, I’m being asked to support my partner first, as if I don’t already do that every day.  As if I make a decision to do it.  As if I put myself first regularly.  And the few times that I have, well, I don’t remember when I have.  Even when my mother died, I put my child’s needs before mine – she was sick the day my mom died and I came home right from the hospital to be with her, to comfort her, instead of just driving around in silence and shock which is what I wanted to do.  I take care of everyone else around me before I take care of me, and now, its being insinuated that that’s not the case.  How can I put myself any further back on the burner?  Should I just allow him to run rampant, make whatever decisions he wants about anything and everything and not say a word?  Should I just work, take care of our child, and not have an opinion on anything else so that he feels that he is my priority more so than he is already. At what point will I lose myself entirely?  I’d like to know that so I’m prepared for that moment and I know what to expect.

Why Am I Crying??

It’s one of those days when I’m crying and I don’t really know why.  Oh the fun.  This morning I was listening to a cd one of my friends made for me and a U2 song came on…that was Donna’s favorite band, she died 5 years ago.  So the music started and I started to cry.  Then the duet that Robert Downey, Jr and Sting did on Every Breath You Take came on and, again, on came the tears.  I have no idea why.  I’m such an emotional wreck today and I don’t really know why.  There’s a part of me that is very happy – my relationship is in a good place, my daughter is doing GREAT in school, my dad is doing okay right now, we’re adopting cats this weekend, all is well in that part. And then there’s that other part.  The other part that just makes me sad, the part that’s disappointed over so much that I can’t change, the part that is just so sad, that’s the part that makes me want to curl up on the couch with a box of donuts, fashion magazines, Arrow on the TV (good LORD he is hot), and a fuzzy blanket. Alone.  So I can cry if I want, I can be mad if I want, I can just be.  That part of me, on days like today, is very loud in my head and yells “go the F home already”.  Even on days like today when I can’t.  I have too much to do, a class to teach, and not enough vacation time to use any way.

How do you go through your day, your life, when all you want to do is be on your couch alone with some donuts?  I can’t even pretend that’s where I am….so I can’t take a mental vacation, that’s for sure.  Ugh.  I really want those donuts right now, too.

Suck It

Today is what I would like to call ‘shiteshow Tuesday', for a number of reasons.  I think I’ll make a bulleted list…

·         Last night, Emily was a BEAST.  Cried and screamed for 45 minutes in bed before finally passing out.  Thankfully she wasn’t horrible when I went in to wake her up this morning but man, it was hard to let go of the anger and disappointment I had left over from yesterday. Yesterday was really, really hard and I yelled at her once – only once which is surprising given how many times I had to walk away from her mid-tantrum, how many times I had to stop myself to breath so I wouldn’t yell. 

·         I have a bag of my mom’s clothes from Christmas in my house now.  My dad brought it over, thinking I could use some of it or I could just donate it.  I walked past it for the last few days, just glancing at it and trying to pretend it isn’t there – knowing that I at least have to move it, but this morning after my shower it just took over and I started to cry.  I have her stuff, and I don’t have her and it sucks.  I hate this so much.  I miss her, I have no idea if she’s okay, if she’s in heaven or somewhere else, if there even is an after this kind of existence, and I just feel empty today.  She is missing out on so much, and it sucks.

·         My computer wasn’t working when I got here, which meant I couldn’t start doing my prep for a class I have to teach tomorrow.

·         It was fixed but now that I go into the database I see that I don’t have everything that I need.

·         A plan that I wrote was rejected, again, by my executive director for – what I think (and my boss thinks) – really stupid reasons. Seriously, some of this information has appeared in prior plans and NOW she doesn’t like it.   UGH.

·         I don’t have lunch so I am more than just very tempted to have ice cream for lunch because really, why not at this point.

·         I can’t seem to make any headway with prepping because the test system keeps locking up on me.

·         I really wish I could restart this day, stay home, and not be so frustrated.

·         It’s 1:30 and I feel like I have accomplished nothing today – except for flirting via text with my significant other, which is a bonus since things have been a little weird between us lately so I guess I accomplished something…..