Dec 28, 1974 -- Happy 37th Anniversary Daddy!
I sure miss my mom. I took a moment and wrote down my most recent thoughts on the question I get asked most often -- How am I doing?
I am doing fine most of the time. Sometimes being so far away is kind of nice. My mom's absence isn't always so in my face. I like to just pretend it's not real. That she is really just back at home and I am living here just like it was. Sometimes being so far away is awful. You just feel like no one really understands what you are going through because no one here knew my mom. No one here can understand just what I am now missing out on. Only those who knew her can understand just what a gap her being gone has left behind.
Absolutely everything has my mom's fingerprints on it -- As I unpacked my 7 large boxes of Christmas decorations it was astonishing to realize that she has given me nearly every decoration I own. And those she didn't give me, she helped me make. As the Christmas packages have arrived in the mail (and there are plenty) It is just sad to realize that her's won't be among them. And her presents were never anything elaborate but they were always hand made by her -- matching red cloaks for the girl's to wear on Sundays, pajama pants for everyone, new towels with the kids names embroidered on them, everything so simple and yet thoughtful and made with so much planning ahead and time.
And that is what I miss the most is just time. Time to learn more, time to just chat on the phone. In fact some days seem pretty long -- she and I would always call each other during our most boring tasks and we would each put on a headset so that we could work while we chatted. The laundry just never seemed that big of a task if I folded it all while talking to my mom on the phone. Now? same amount of laundry but the folding just goes on forever.
Time to ask questions -- you think you know all about someone until they are not around to answer questions -- Right after she died we were trying to assemble some of the old photos and we could not find my parent's wedding photo album. Not 3 days earlier we could have just asked her where it was and she would have known immediately, instead we got to tear apart the house for hours before finally finding it in such an obvious place. I suppose I should just be thankful for google -- since now instead of calling her to ask how it is done I just google it. But then I find such a new clever way to do something that I am then sad that I can't call her and tell her the new idea. It's a vicious cycle :)
Fortunately, my life is super busy. Chasing kids, carpooling, cleaning up, cooking, coaching, crafting, cramming in exercise, and just carrying on leaves very little time left for crying. But the crying times sure have a way of catching me completely off guard.
I feel like I'm in just the slightest fog -- like those claritin commercials where all of a sudden they peel back a layer and you see "claritin clear" -- but then sometimes I feel just the opposite -- that I had been living in a beautiful hazy fog and now the world is stripped back crystal clear and it has a lot more rough edges than you initially thought. I am constantly longing to be in whichever one I am not in at the moment.
What I wouldn't give to have another beautiful sunny day swimming at my mom's, watching her teach my babies to swim, eating a meal I didn't cook. It was such a beautiful hazy perfection. And I hate the crystal clear image of reality.
And then at the same time I go through the motions of the whole day afraid of loving too deeply, afraid at just how much I have to lose that I am really numb to all emotion. And I hate the foggy feeling.
