3 Months Gone

It's been 3 months (13 weeks) today. How is it even possible???   What have I been doing?   How have I managed not to see or hear from my mom? Why do I have to continue on and her not know what's happening with my family and me?

Going to my parents' house is still so, oh I don't even know a word for it, sobering...gut wrenching...lonely....you get my drift.   Things are just how they were when mom lived there.  Her slippers are still out.  I wear them when I visit.  Dad has dusted and moved the trinkets, which I turn like mom would want them.   Her fancy bathroom magnifying mirror still sits on the counter.  She used that thing daily to pluck her eyebrows.  She bought me one too.  

The house screams, "MOM!!!!"  I found a random pillow lying on the guest bed at their house.  I asked dad if he knew where it went (assuming a grandchild had moved it).  He didn't know.  I told him and moved it where it belonged.  Mom ran that house.  He doesn't know where stuff is.  The plants looked sickly.  I told him plants need light and he had to open the blinds.  He has sat in that house with the blinds closed for three months now.  That's depressing. 

I literally think about my mom all the time.  She consumes my thoughts.  All. The.  Time.  I look up in the sky and wonder.  What does she look like now?   What does she do all day?   I assume worship God!!!   Does she remember being on Earth?   I have such a hard time with that.  If she remembered she should know we aren't there.  Then she should miss us.  Missing us would make her sad, right?   But you're not sad in Heaven.  Does she see other people she knew from Earth in Heaven?   Did she find my baby I miscarried in February 2008?   I asked her to please find that baby when she got there and take care of him/her until I came.  Even though I didn't have that child but a short time, I still love him/her.  I still think about that child.   I ask God to tell mom hello for me and hug her.  

It's hard.  So hard.  And unless you've lost your mom you don't know.   It really makes me mad when someone says, "I know it's hard"...if they still have their mom.  They DO NOT know.  Like I don't know what it's like to lose a dad because I've still got mine.  

That nightgown still smells like her.  Thank God it still smells like her.  I have it in a wad and open it up everyday to smell it.  I bury my face in it and hold her scent in my nose until I'm desperate for a breath.  I'm terrified when the day comes that I can't smell her anymore.  

I replay conversations and instances in my head all the time that involve her.  I wonder how I would have played things out differently if I could have seen the future.  For instance mom died at about 12:28 on Tuesday, January 5.  Around 11:00 dad and I walked down to the cafeteria to eat and were gone about 45 minutes.  I wouldn't have left if I would have known I only had minutes with her when i returned. 

  I feel guilty thinking back towards the end of her time at home.  I would come visit, bring food she wouldn't eat, and clean for them.  I'd lie in the bed hold her hand, brush her hair, and we'd talk. Usually I'd talk and she'd listen when she felt so terrible.  On several occasions she said, "I wish you could just stay here with me."   Ohhhh why didn't I stay????   I wish I would have.  Trey could have managed the kids.  I thought I had to go home.  I didn't.   I am sitting in this chair squalling like a baby.   Will this hurt, empty, numb feeling ever go away?   

I hear that time helps.  I guess it takes a long time.  Someone said the first year is so hard. A year of firsts without them.  I dread things to come.  Mother's Day... I might hide under a rock... But I won't because I'm a mother.  Their anniversary, my birthday, our big beach vacation.  All that will be tough.  Mom has already missed two grandchildren's birthdays and dad's.   I feel like it's not fair that I have to do life without her.  It's not. 

I look so strong on the outside.  I am.  I'm tough.  You won't see me crying. I do that alone.  I don't cry when I go to the cemetery. I go often.  Bitty asks to go a lot.  Ford cries several times a week.  It's usually at night when he's tired.  One night he told me he wanted pancreatic cancer so he'd die and could go see Gran.  That'll tear you up, people.

  Adjusting to our new normal without someone who was such a huge part of our life is tough.  It's scary... Life that is.  Life is fragile, y'all.  We aren't promised tomorrow.  Death doesn't discriminate.  We've got to love everyone like its our last day.  I was fortunate enough to have time to prepare for my mother's death.  I told her everything I wanted to tell her.  She didn't die and me have any regrets.  We aren't always that lucky.  Love deep.  Love big.  Never go to bed mad.  Pray.  Be kind to others.  Forgive.  And most importantly, KNOW the Lord.