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.
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