Lists

Halloween is coming.  You can feel it in the air.  The nights are getting chilly and the blanket of leaves on my lawn are being pulled up closer to the house, preparing for what is to come.

Mom loved autumn.  She love the coolness of it.  She would put up the vegetables from the garden; tomatoes, beans, Swiss chard, beets, carrots, pickles, everything; there was never any waste from her garden.  I tried to keep up with it this fall but my mind was not on that.  And it is so much work to can vegetables.  I have done it several times and I am in total awe of how she was always able to do all that work.  I now see the empty canning jars on the porch and feel sad that it is not going to be this year, or any other year for that matter.

Mom always loved Halloween too.  It think that it was a reason for her to make her incredibly delicious popcorn balls.  She always made so many and would end up eating alot of them.  But making sure she gave some to Laura cause she loved them too.  I would go over and she would have some set aside for Laura.  She ALWAYS thought about her kids.  She would give the trick-or-treaters a popcorn ball and a huge chocolate bars.  However, since us kids have grown up, and the kids' kids are grown, there really aren't too many others that come by the house any more.  But that didn't matter to Mom.  She would still make as many popcorn balls and have the same number of candy bars available, cause"...you never know." She never would have wanted to disappoint a kid so she always made sure there was enough.

This is also the time of year that she would start preparing for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  She LOVED the holidays.  She loved knowing that her family was going to celebrate these days together.  She would make sure that she had the turkey way ahead of time.  Starting buying the cranberry sauce.  And start making her lists.  She was a list-lady.  So am I and so is her granddaughter Amanda.  There is something fulfilling about being able to write things down and then crossing them off. 

LISTS

I was over to Mom's and Dad's house yesterday and was going over some papers, looking for something for Dad's truck.  And I found the most heartwarming thing that I didn't know that she had kept.  It actually made me get butterflies in my stomach.  It was a list of people that were attending Russ and my wedding, 27 years ago.  She had the pages of them with the names of attendees and a check beside their name.  Also in another list were the names of the guys that were in the wedding party with the measurements for their tuxes that she had kept there too.  It was a really beautiful find!

My wedding was her wedding too.  I had my Mom involved in every step of it.  She was my own personal wedding planner.  She loved to be involved too.  Russ and I were living in Massachusetts but getting married here in Vermont and I couldn't always be there to do stuff so Mom did alot of it for me.  She was great too.  She would do all the leg work for me for things from the wedding cake that I ordered (with her guidance of course) to the tuxes.  She was the depository for the RSVP cards too.  She put them in order for me and would call me and tell me who had responded that day.  We would talk every night about how the wedding plans were progressing and what she could do for me.  It was a beautiful, fun wedding and I have such great memories of Mom on that day.  And finding that list was such a wonderful find.  It was like finding treasure.  I was able to smile and not cry.

My lists these days are in my head mainly; making sure my father is taken care of (with my brothers and sisters), get myself stronger, take care of my family, and try to find the spirituality of life; in that order.  Because at this time in my life, my Dad is a priority. He cannot take care of himself and we have to take care of him.  He looks so lost sometimes and sad that it makes me cry when I leave him.  Dad is of the generation that women take care of the men.  I know that he misses Mom so much.  We try our very best to make him comfortable and as happy as we can as his children.  I will do everything in my power to make sure that he knows how much we love him and how much Mom loved him.

Finding my strength to move forward, one step at a time, is my next list item.  When that happens I can take care of MY family again.  They have been wonderful and patient with me.  They know what I am going through and are giving me love and support to get me back.  When my strength returns, I know that I will be whole again, be myself, and be who I am and get back to how I want my live to be. 

My life has been interrupted; it actually has been put on pause.  That is what it feels like.  Not knowing how to move forward of how to move back.  My humor, love of life, sense of who I am has been totally knocked out of me.  I need to get that back in order to find myself again.  And I do see the sparks sometimes.  I do know that I am getting there.   It is a process.  One that I know that I have to get through in order to move forward.  And to grieve properly, to get it out. 

My last mental list item is finding spirituality; finding the meaning of all of this.  I am not necessarily talking about religion, but maybe that is what it will be.  I want to know what is out there for all of us.  I am looking for the comfort that we all try to find when this happens to us.  I was telling the woman that has been helping me through this journey on Friday that I am so happy that Mom has come to people all around me in their dreams but am upset that she has not come to me, no dreams of Mom.  So MM asked me that if my Mom came to me, what would I want to know or ask her.  The words just tumbled out of my mouth, I just want to know that she is ok, that she is happy and joyful where she it.  That is all I want to know.  I want to know that my Mom IS out there.  I want to know that there is a place where I will someday see her again.  I want to know that we will laugh again, hug again, and I can kiss her cheek again.  Her beautiful, smiling, mom-cheek.