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.