Keeping it real . . .

 

Its my mum's memorial this weekend.  I think it will be tomorrow that they will be laying the headstone on my mum's grave and dedicating it. My brother and his family have gone down to Nova Scotia to be there for it, and I think my oldest son is going to try to be there. My oldest daughter will be there, her husband, my sister  . . .   I can't of course be there, and there is not much I can do about that. 

I was always telling my mum how much I loved her and appreciated her and all that she did for me in and throughout my life . . .  words that always were inadequate and unable to truly express how I felt for and about her. It is still hard for me to believe that she is no longer with us and that I just can't pick up the phone to call her.  I find myself daily wanting to call her home just so I can hear her voice on the answering machine . . .  but I don't.  Afraid that its been changed, or taken off, or that someone will answer and I won't get to hear it anyways and then have to explain why I have called . . . its just crazy me wanting to call to hear my mother's voice. 

 

Mom was the consumate letter writer  . . .  writing a letter to each of us at least once a week for many, many years, and then bi-weekly, down to monthly and then for the last number of years the letters stopped as she struggled to string her thoughts together and even to write her name at the last.  I saved all of them, and all the cards she sent me through the years . . .  for just such a time as the inevitability of this chapter in my life. I haven't been able to bring myself to read them yet.  I still feel too raw about everything, but I know they are there waiting for me.  I think I even have a few that she wrote to my children when they were small.  One day I will sit down with them, but not just yet . . .

  

 

I find myself being a tad bit over-critical with Todd  at times . . .  almost resentful of the fact that it is because of him that I was not able to be near my mom these past 19 years, was not able to be with her at a time she needed me most  . . .  I find myself feeling angry at times that he took me away from her.  It was only supposed to be for two years and ended up being so much longer . . . but it is not his fault.  I made the choice to come and to stay.  When I have those thoughts and feelings I stuff them down.  He doesn't deserve them.  He has only ever loved me and I think that I am a bad person to feel such things, or to take it out on him when he messes up even a tiny bit.  None of us are perfect, least of all me . . . I should not expect it in him, and my mother would not be happy with me in doing so . . . 

She loved my father still, 

after all those years and all those hurts, 

and forgave him, because it was just him being him.

You can't expect anyone to be anyone but who they are.

Love anyways.  Forgive & forget. 

 

I had started a memory journal . . .  but I only got two pages done.  I just cry too much when I try to put them down.  Maybe my soul needs the carthasis of the tears, I don't know.  It upsets Todd and it upsets Mitzie and so I try not to grieve too openly.  Instead I cry in the shower where my salty tears mingle with the water from the tap and I can't tell which is which.  Is this even normal? Am I normal? 

And a huge part of me feels guilty for not being there with her these past years as she declined.  I had always told myself that I would be, had promised myself that I would be.  I had never envisioned that I wouldn't be  . . . that wasn't the plan  . . .

  

The reality is . . .  you don't. 

I keep waiting for a sign that she has forgiven me for not being there, for not doing enough . . . that she is still there watching over me  . . .  but nothing really comes, or maybe I am blind to it, or not sad enough, or not looking in the right places, or maybe I am wrong and this is all that there is . . . please God, don't let it be that.  I don't think I could bear to live in this life without hope . . . and then I get mad with myself for doubting, because deep in my heart I know that this is not all that there is.  I am just being my usual impatient self. 

And I grieve and I grieve and I grieve.

Please tell me it gets better or easier to bear. 

I know I am not the first to lose someone I love so very much and I will not be the last,  and  that this will not be the last person that I love so much that I lose . . .  I just never knew that it would be so hard, or hurt so much.   I keep myself busy, busy, busy  . . .  but its never quite enough.

 

I find myself each day just basically going through the motions of living . . . treading water . . . trying not to drown. I feel as if all anyone has to do is to touch me and I will start bleeding out this aching soul that is filled with anger and sorrow and remorse and loss.  I find myself feeling sometimes that I don't deserve to miss my mom as much as my sister does, or my brother does, that I didn't do all that I could have done, or should have done . . . and that my sorrow is very much undeserved, unearned . . .  not within my right to feel, and that I will never ever feel complete or worthy again.  I need to go to the Temple but I can't seem to make myself go when I have feelings like this and thoughts like this running through my head and my heart. 

 

I know this too shall pass  . . .  but at the same time I am afraid that it will.  That one day I will stop missing her, or wanting to feel her close to me.  I so don't want that to happen.  Not ever . . .  and so I greedily hang onto my sorrowing heart . . . to the loss. I am afraid to let it go  . . .  for fear that if I let it go, it will somehow be gone forever, that SHE will somehow be gone forever . . . and I can't let that happen.