Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Grief

Today it has been 3 months and 5 days since my mom passed away. I just haven't wanted to or felt like there was anything to write until tonight. Grief is a weird thing. One moment I feel like myself, the next I feel like my world is falling apart. I guess I am still me with a sad side, with a missing piece. Sometimes I get lost laughing or thinking of the future, and then it feels like the wind is knocked out of me when I remember that she is gone. That no moment in my future will truly be happy without her there to share it. The days go by quickly and it doesn't get easier, but instead it's begun to feel like a bad dream. The moments in the hospital feel distant even though I can remember each detail of each moment. I wish I could blur that part out. I wish I could only remember the beautiful, happy times with my mom. I wish I could only remember the smile on her face and not the pain or sadness in her eyes while she was sick.

Our family is functioning. We smile and remember the funny moments with my mom. We sort of avoid talking about how much we miss her with each other because it goes without saying. I know certain things remind Emily of my mom at the exact time they do for me. We don't need to say it.  I don't think more than 10 minutes goes by that I don't think about her. I pray that I will see her in my dreams, but I have only had two dreams about her and neither was of happy times.

People say you always feel your loved one with you. I have been searching to feel my mom with me since she passed away. I honestly don't know if she is with us. I do believe she is in Heaven but don't know if she has any way of seeing us or looking out for us. I wish she did, and I wish I could feel her presence every second. I think we have this expectation of what it feels like to lose someone based on books and movies about the afterlife. It's more empty than I expected.

I try to think of how busy my mom always was, how she got married and had kids so young. Today I looked at a picture hanging on my Grandma's wall of our family in 1992. My mom was already married had two kids by the age of 27. It just reminded me of the way she always seized each and every day. She never waited around unsure of her decisions the way I do. She lived. She gardened, she taught, she read good books, she went to farmers markets, she brought us on vacations. She was a great example of how to make the most of every day. I can't remember a single day that she ever just sat on the couch. I know that she definitely was not ready to end her life on Earth, but I am thankful that she did so much while she was here, and that she touched so many lives.