It's Been 61 weeks....

The holiday memorial service is being held at the cemetery at the end of the month, I told my dad I would go with him.  It’s for Easter, which thankfully does not coincide with my Mom’s birthday this year. Last year sucked – her birthday was Saturday and then Easter was the next day. The first holiday we did without her – it was horrible.  And this year, well, I guess it’s a bit better.

Every day is a bit better, in the grand scheme of things.  It does vary a lot though.  There are days when I start off fine, great even, and then it all just crumbles down around me with a thought, a memory, a song.  I don’t know why but for some reason, St. Patrick’s Day is bugging me more than I thought it would.  I don’t remember if I had a hard time with it last year, although I probably did.  I had a hard time with everything this time last year; she had only been gone for what seemed like a hand-full of weeks – 9 weeks, I think.  And now, at a year and 9 weeks, I dread St. Patrick’s Day. A day when she would make corned beef and cabbage, just because that’s what she always did and always had on that day.  My great-grandmother, her grandmother, was from Ireland so that was just the norm; my mom spoke Gaelic before she spoke English – her heritage was still important to her up until the end, and if she’s still around somewhere I’m sure it still is.  I miss sending her a cheesy card for the holiday, calling her and wishing her a happy St. Patrick’s Day.  I can remember at least once her telling me that she didn’t know why we celebrated him because really what did he do to deserve a holiday?

Whether it’s a holiday, or just a regular run-of-the-mill day, she is never that far from my thoughts.  I try to not think about her too much because, well, I don’t want to be sad and miserable.  I still feel robbed, cheated, guilty.  Those feelings may fade over time but they will always be there, I think.  I will always wonder how it could have been different if I had done more, if I had done something sooner.   She has missed so much in the past 61 weeks – and she continues to miss out as time marches forward. She will miss out on the vacation stories and pictures, the toddler milestones, the school applications, the business woes, the birthdays and holidays that are to come.   I just hope that she has a ring-side seat to all of the craziness and joyfulness and even sadness and hardship that we experience as if she was still here.   Because if she was still here, I would call her and tell her all about the craziness, the joy, the sadness and the hardships; I would invite her over to watch Frozen with Emily for an afternoon – after which I am sure she would make my father go out and buy up all the Frozen stuff at the local Target.  I would call her.  I would send her cards.  I would be there and so would she. Which I would give just about anything for right now.

The Necklace

I’ve been wearing this necklace that was my mom’s – I had given it to her the Christmas before she passed so she never got to wear it, but I still consider it hers.  I had bought a very long chain for it (she hated anything near her neck), so it’s an unusual piece for me to wear, since I usually don’t wear anything this long.  It also makes it more noticeable to my 2 year old, who now knows it’s Grandma’s necklace.  Last night she said “momma, Grandma buy for you?”, to which I had to explain that no, this was Grandma’s but she’s no longer with us and now it’s mine and one day it will be hers. She asked “me….my necklace?” and I said that yes, one day when she’s bigger and old enough to wear it, it would be hers.  She had a big happy grin on her face that I hope my mom could see.  Nothing would make her happier than to see that little girl smile. It was an odd conversation to navigate with someone so young who doesn’t understand or really even know about death yet.

The necklace is a gold shamrock, with some small diamonds in it. My mom was Irish, and I thought that at the time, she needed all the luck she could get.  I had visions of her wearing it to treatments, but that never happened.

Today happens to be my daughter’s first day of pre-school.  So last night, as we sat together in the chair in her room before bed-time and we had the necklace conversation, I told her just how much Grandma loved her and would be sooooooooo proud of her right now for doing so well in her new classroom.  My little one just continued to stare and play with the necklace and said “yup, Grandma no here…Grandma love me”.  It was a sweet moment that I hope, somehow, my mom saw or heard or knows about.  If she was still here, I would have called her as soon as Emily was in bed.  But I can’t do that now.  As much as a part of my brain still thinks that I can, most of my brain knows that I can’t so that’s what stops me from actually picking up the phone.  It’s those moments that make it ‘real’ all over again, makes me realize that it’s not just some movie that I saw. I lived through it, survived it, will never be the same because of it.

I try to not think about it as much as I used to, now that it’s been over a year.  I try to not dwell; not that I think I ever did it on purpose, I had no control over the days that I spent in a battle with my emotions while I sat here at my desk attempting to focus on something other than my loss and shock and sorrow.  It’s better now, but I still get hit out of the blue by it and when I do, it truly takes the wind out of my sails.  And I don’t always realize it until it’s on me – there are times that I just lose my temper, or I’m just more impatient than normal, or I just have an unbearable need to be alone. Those are the days that I think “oh yeah, it’s one of those dead mom days again”.  And I just have to ride the wave, try to be ‘normal’ and get through it with a strong belief that the next day will be better.  Most of the time it is better, but those consecutive bad days still exist and I suppose they always will.  Unlike my mom, grief never dies; you never get to say “grief no here”.  It’s always here, maybe hiding behind a door or lurking behind the couch waiting to jump you and scare the living crap out of you.  But it’s there.  It might be in a song, or in seeing a favorite item or flower of hers, or in the picture that hangs next to my desk that today, caught my eye and made me stand and stare for a moment, while feeling that emptiness that has become all too familiar this past year.

Visiting Old Haunts

 I sat in the parking lot of the hospital where my mom died close to one of the parking spots that I sat in one day and made phone calls. The phone calls everybody in that position has probably made. I called my boyfriend and told him what was going on; my best friend and told him what was going on. I don't even remember the extent of the phone calls or when in the process that happened. I just remember sitting in the car and making those calls because my phone was dying and it was during the day so maybe it was the day she went into respiratory failure or maybe it was the next day when she was responsive or the next when she wasn't. I don't really remember. The days all meld into one big day without definition.

I'm not sure why I came to that spot to sit in the parking lot and stare at the building where my mom died. I don't know if I thought it would be cathartic. I don't know if I came here to cry.  I know that I just wanted to sit alone, as close as I could to where I parked last and remember what it was like to sit here and to be one of the people who park their car every day and make the trek up to a waiting room. A waiting room where there are babies being born nearby or a waiting room where there are people losing their lives nearby. Theres a lot of waiting in a hospital & I did a lot of it. I feel like I still am, in some regard. Sometimes I'm waiting for it to get better, and when it does, I wait for it to get worse because it always does.

This place will always, to me, be not just a hospital - it's where I lost my mom....it's the last place I had a conversation with her. It's the last place I heard her voice, I saw her smile. It's the last place I heard her complain. It's the last place I got to show her pictures of my daughter. It's the last place she told me she loved me.

It's more than just a building to me and it's more than just a place where other people go. It's a place that I used to go, for a week that felt like an eternity at the time, until she was gone. It's the place where I left her after she was gone, the place that I left that first night thinking that I would see her the next day, talk to her and talk to doctors and figure out what we're going to solve the problem or to at least curb it's advancement.

But there was no solution by the time we got here. It was beyond too late by the time we walked through those doors. She was there for less than 24 hours when she was put on a ventilator and then 48 hours after that she stopped responding. I know it sounds trite but if I knew then what I know now I would have done things differently.

It will always be the last place that I got to talk to her it will always be the place where I sat in a window and watch the snow fall as my mom said attached to a respirator it'll always be the place for my sister and I try to make light of a situation that was unbearably heavy for either one of us to bear