Her Strength

I have been wondering lately about the depth of my grief.  People have commented to me about it and say that it is a testament to my Mom.  To me this is normal, I didn't know that there is any other way to grieve.  Deep, painful, crushing, empty, sustaining grief.  And terribly, terribly sad.  Don't other people feel this depth of grief?  Don't other people suffer so?  I don't know.  I would suspect that they do.  However, I know nothing else but what I am experiencing.

I wonder if it has anything to do with how I knew my mother to be.  She was the strongest woman I have ever known.  I truly, honestly believe this.  She was not a complainer.  She worked so very hard in her life.  But to her that was what people do.  She worked at a job, came home, took care of the kids, the house, the garden, her community.  She made sure she gave everything that she possibly could to her family.  That was what life was for her, her family. 

If she had it, she gave it and gave generously.  She would go without for her children, her family.  To Mom, life is what you give and how you give.  You never said anything in passing to Mom because the next thing you know, it would appear for you.  I learned later in my life to keep things to myself, things that I might wish I had, because she would get it for me.  She wanted her children to have things that would make them a little happier, make their lives a little easier. 

She also had this incredible strength emotionally.  She was the type of woman that would say to herself, "can't feel sorry for yourself, gotta keep going," or "better pull yourself up by your bootstraps and move forward."  She believed that life was going to leave you behind if you didn't keep moving.

I never heard her complain about anything, even when she was sick, she always went to work, did her usual daily chores, and just kept going.  She just didn't talk about it.  I would ask her, "how you doing today?"  "Oh, I'm great."  No matter what.  She was always great.  Part of it is that she probably didn't want us kids to worry about her.  She never lead on anything negative.

I guess maybe that is why my grief is so deep, so profound some say.  Because how could someone leave so suddenly, when they had such a strong persona.  How can someone pass when they had so much life to live and so much love to give to her family.  How could this woman, that I so looked up to, and admired for all that she was, leave me so absolutely lifeless; so weak.  I believed, or maybe I hoped, that I could reach this pinnacle of what she was.  But I feel so powerless now.  Strength is not within this body right now.

She came from a generation of women where inequality reined.  But she grew to be a woman that was stronger than any woman that I now know who has grown up in this "newer" generation.  She surpassed them in every area. 

Maybe my deep grief translates from the loss of the great pedestal that my Mom resides on in my mind and heart. 

My First, Firsts...

Today I took my first bike ride since Mom's passing and I find that the "firsts" are very hard for me.  It is then that I think things like "well the last time I took a ride, Mom was here." I know that sounds weird but that is how I look at some things.  I guess that is what is meant when people say the first Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthday, Easter, etc. are very hard. 

I don't want to pull out the vegetable plants that have gone by because Mom planted them; I don't want to put some things away in the house cause Mom put them there, I don't want to throw anything out cause Mom may have set it there or used it for something or just touched it.

I even find that the fall is making me sad because winter is coming and that can be such a dreary part of the year.  It just makes me that much more sad.  I know that when winter is here then I will withdraw because spring's approach will be hard.  That is when Mom and I would say that the days are getting gorgeous and we would start to think about cleaning out our the vegetable and flower beds.

On our bike ride today, Russ and I were on Swamp Road, no cars in sight, no breeze, no nothing but swamp all around us on this road and we both at the same time smelled cigarette smoke.  I looked at him and said, "I smell cigarettes."  He said that he did too.  Very strange.  Because there was nobody, no thing, no breeze, nothing around.  Do people get to smoke in heaven?   I don't have any kind of explanation except Mom was with us, smoking a cigarette.

Yesterday, I went into a store where a good friend of mine works.  And I kind of slowly peered over a shelf and said hello to her.  She jumped a little and immediately asked me if my Mother had smoked cigarettes.  And I said yes, why.  She said because just a I said hello, she got this overwhelming smell of cigarettes.  That she was waiving the smell away, it was so overpowering.  Mom was there was all I could think of.

It is funny, I don't like the smell of cigarettes but I now like to smell that smell once in a while because that really brings me to close her.  Her LiveSTRONG bracelet that I wear has the smell of cigarette smoke on it. I have been working with this woman who had commented that smell is one of the most powerful memory-triggers that there is.  I am finding that this is very true because when Mom passed, I went would hold onto some of her clothes and put them to my face and smell.   There was one shirt that was in her pile that still had her perfume smell on it.  That smell made me really feel her near me. 

The first firsts are going to be my challenge.

Everyday Tasks

Days seem to be getting harder Mom, they all feel the same, blend into one. I always feel the same.  Maybe it is because I have been hoping and praying for a lighter load on me and my family but it doesn't seem to be going that way.  Not yet anyway.

Work is not the answer as some say, "you should go back to work, it will help"...not helping.  Simple tasks are difficult.  Difficult tasks I seem to "man-up" and accomplish.  I just want my Mom back.  But I know that isn't going to be.  My pain and grief is deep. 

I now do the grocery shopping for Dad, I write the checks for the bill.  It is SO difficult to write the checks, to see Mom's signature on the register just a few pages before.  I walk by her desk at the house and see her writing on envelopes, on paperwork, and it takes my breath away.  For that moment she is still here.  She is everywhere in the house.  From the dishes Mom and Dad ate on, to the baskets hanging in the living room, to the chair that she always sat in, to the canning jars sitting, just waiting for Mom to fill them again. 

Norma does the lawn mowing because I can't even get in Mom's car to move it to get the mower out of the garage.  Some things I hold tightly, others I pull back from.  Sometimes it is too much.  Mom's car was the place that I would see her second-most, her house first, but then her car.  I would see her driving home from work or the grocery store (always with a wave and a smile), seeing her backing into the garage, or coming down my driveway to visit or drop something off.  The car was her.   If I was outside working, she would go by tooting her horn all along the way, her way of saying hi.  Now, if I am outside working, and a car goes by tooting the horn, it always stops me in my tracks.

Yesterday, I went to the house to pick up the garbage and recycling to take to the dump, and completely lost it.  Going about this task was so hard.  I remember it was Mom and me taking turns going to the dump, whoever had the most free time that day was the one that went.  I didn't want to go yesterday.  I wanted to let the whole thing just go.  Do it next week.  Do it some other time, when I feel stronger. 

Someone saw me yesterday and said that in time happy memories will help fill in the sadness.  I am hoping because now there are no happy memories.  I try to pull up these memories, look at pictures of us together, and it is not coming together.  I just have to take people's words for it that in time it will happen.  This is just such a horrible dream.

My niece Amanda and I were talking a couple of days ago and she was saying that getting through the holidays, through the next few months is going to be tough for us.  Mom and Dad always came to my house for holiday lunches and celebrations.  When Russ, Patience and I moved up here 6 years ago, I took over the role of having family at my house for the large get-togethers, it was getting too hard for Mom, our family has gotten so big.  I wanted to make it easier for Mom, anything to help her out 

But I don't know how we will do that this year, I can't imagine not seeing Mom at my table with the family.  How do you get through that?  Is everyone going to silently go about the business of eating and not mention what we all are thinking?  Or are we all going to fall apart one at a time as we disappear from the table? 

I am trying to find the spirituality of this, to find some comfort in it.  I listen so intently to people as they tell me their beliefs, their stories of spirituality.  I long to find that kind of comfort.  I can only patiently wait for that day to come. 

Hanging On

Yesterday I brought down to the cemetery two of the beautiful petunia plants that I had repotted for Mom.  One is pink with magenta lines throughout it; and the other is magenta.  I put up the wrought iron plant hanger and put it behind the headstone and put one of the plants on it and let it cascade over the front of the headstone a little bit. Perfect, it was.  The other one, I wanted to put up on the other hook that would cascade to the side of the headstone. Of course, the best layed plans... Well, when I put the other plant on the other hook, the whole planter started to lean over and would have fallen if I hadn't caught it.  I could just see Mom give me a look, laugh, and roll her eyes.  I ended up sitting it on top of the headstone and leaving the other on one side of the hook.  They look so beautiful.  She would have loved the colors. 

I also stated a memory book with all of the sympathy cards that were sent to our family.  I am putting in between some of these cards, different photos of Mom.  Some of family members with Mom, some of just Mom, and some of friends and Mom.  I am also buying the condolences book that was put online from the Burlington Free Press that people wrote beautiful sentiments in about Mom.  This book also includes pictures that people have included in their note; it is really a wonderful book to have.  It is healing to go back and look at all the touching words that people have said.

I cannot do enough for my mother.  I just have to keep doing these things to memorialize her, to make sure that everyone knows and remembers what a wonderful woman, person, mother, grandmother she was.  It just helps me to move forward.  To know that I am a good daughter, that her work as a mother is shining through.

Yesterday was not a good day; I did not talk to Russ much. I sat on the wooden bench swing and cried for about an hour; just thinking of the day that she passed.  Sometimes things just keep replaying in your mind.  And that's what my day was like. Little bits of it are slowly coming back to my memory.  It is very painful to replay.  It always makes me cry.  People say that you go into shock when a death occurs.  I guess I did. 

I talk to my niece alot these days. She told me that she had a dream of Mom that was really great.  I told her that I am so hoping that Mom would come to me in my dreams.  She has come to several people but not to me.  I want so badly to see her; for her to tell me what happened. To tell me that it was meant to be.  That she is in a wonderful place with some of her family and friends that went first.  I want to make sure she is ok where she is.  I want to make sure that I can some day see her again and feel her arms around me and tell me how much she loves me.  I am hanging onto that thought with all I have and all I am worth. 

Missing Mom

Tuesday, August 31, was my first day back at work.  It was VERY difficult.  So many people being so kind and so loving, but I could not stop crying when they would give their condolences.  I could not focus on work, I could not focus on what I should be doing, what direction I should be walking in.  I found that I was staring in space more than anything else. 

GOD I MISS MY MOTHER.

I don't want to go back to work.  The only work that I want to do is to take care of my father with my brothers and sisters.

I can't stand that time is moving on because it means that I am getting that much further away from her.  It is difficult for me to realize that I can not physically see my mother any more.  It is hard for me to fathom that I will never see her again on this earth.  It's a bad day. 

I bought two beautiful flower plants today; petunias, and I am going to hang them on a nice wrought-iron hanger at the cemetery for her.  She would have said "...don't waste your money".  I would say that "...it's not a waste of money".  She would chuckle, I would chuckle.  I miss those days.  I miss her.

My heart is heavy today.  My stomach hurts.  My tears don't seem to have an end to them.  It's one of those days that you just want to crumble to the ground.

I love my Mother.  I love my Mother. I love my Mother.

I will, one of these days, start to write happy stories of my Mom.  But for now, these are my thoughts, my process for grieving her.

Mom, I miss you so much, it hurts.  I love you so much, it heals.