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.