Today is 4 years since my mom’s body stopped working.
A lot of time has passed and my family and I carry on now pretty well. We laugh and take trips. My dad is doing well learning how to move on, my brother is growing in his independence (my mom would be so proud!), and I’m learning how to create again. Maybe I will keep writing even though I chose to back away from it for a bit. My mom always loved to see what I would create. I think I may just keep sharing what words are in me. So many of them are because of her.
Of course today has had it’s hard and painful moments, but it also was my last day of summer before I start teaching again. It was a day at the beach with 3 people I love. It was breezes, iced lattes, and a good new book. It was belly laughter about the difference between hotdish and casserole and feeling my partners arms around me in the waves of the ocean. It really was a beautiful day.
She taught me to appreciate these moments. She told me not to find wealth in material, but to see richness in friends, art, and optimism. She taught me to be grateful.
Today I am so grateful for the love and memories I have of her. And, I’m grateful for a world of “family, friends, even strangers who are willing to love.”
This journal entry from 2 days before my mom died really stuck out to me today. I wanted to share it tonight.
August 24th, 2014
And I’m back here again, ready to write.
The sad story of a mother who’s dying and a world that has loved her so much.
My aunt says today how she didn’t want her picture with my mom because she doesn’t want to remember her like this… I want to remember it all.
I want to sit in bed with her and see her smile when I ask if she wants to cuddle. I want to wait for that lucid moment when I know she’s listening to us talk around her. I want to do my best to walk her to the bathroom, move her body for her when her mind says get up and her muscles just stay like jelly. I want to be here, helping her with it all, because she is alive and I love her.
Not that it’s not the most difficult thing ever…it is. But maybe it’s a part of the healing process already, doing everything I can to take care of her through it all. She cared for me as a screaming, incapable baby; how could a part of me not be happy to take care of her as a dying adult.
I love her so much. The pain is too strong because of that…but people bring in so much joy everyday. Flowers, talks with friends, and friends, and friends, time together, feeling emotions, holding hands. It is both true that there is so much beauty still in this world, and that the world feels heavy, dark, and gray.
So ending today with a reminder…not to do any last minute relationship building that guilt could whisper will make it better, (We’ve done it; we’ve had an amazing relationship, and although we did not do all things we sure did a lot and should feel content with a close, loving mother-daughter relationship.) but to take it day by day. Do not be concerned about tomorrow, tomorrow will worry about itself. Instead fix your mind on now, and the love that you hold in each moment.
Because I think I’m realizing that even when she leaves there will always be love. I will miss her and be so sad to not share things with her, but I will not be naked, in a world without connections. I will be surrounded the the 100 blankets of family, friends, even strangers who are willing to love.
She taught me that it was out there, and I will remember it even when she is gone.
