Shock

I realize I am still in shock. It may have been two months but my mind does not grasp the reality of my Mom's death. My brain, my heart do not want to accept that reality. I can't explain what the difference is with her death, but it feels so profoundly wrong to me. Not that anyone did anything wrong, or could have prevented it, or could have changed it, but that she just shouldn't have died. Especially just before my wedding. I am still in shock, still reeling from that night when they told me what was wrong with her, that it wasn't a heart attack, but an unstoppable aortic dissection. I said it that first week, and I was definately right. I am trying to rewire my brain to understand this enormous event in my life. God help me, because I just don't think I can get this in my head on my own!

Dreams

I dreams of my Mom last night. I'm not even sure what the dreams were about, but she was quite alive in all of them. It is doubly cruel to wake up in the morning and realize that she is gone when she has been so alive in my dreams. I feel like I am bad for not calling her, then I remember, and it hits me all over again. Will I ever understand how someone so vital and alive can be here one day and gone by the next morning? I feel so alone now. I miss her, and just saying that seems so vague and pale a comment. I feel ripped and damaged. Like a huge part of me is gone now as well. Like a vacuum exists at my very core. This is such an earth shaking event in my life I at a loss for word.

December

It is December 1st. I left work yesterday feeling ill. I have some kind on cold or bug. That explains some of the aches and pains, it's not just grief. I have spent the day laying about the house, taking it easy and trying to feel rested. since I have to work tomorrow. I would much rather be off and go to church tomorrow. Tomorrow, I think, is the first Sunday of Advent. I would rather prepare for Christmas in a purely religious way, and leave all of the commercial trapping to other years. I would rather spend Christmas on retreat, but now I am married and I have other things that I need to do. And I have my Mom's pugs to take care of. One is sleeping on the sofa with me and the other two are running around the house. There is a fire in the fireplace with a log of pear wood from the tree that came down last year, and the whole room is beginning to smell lovely. I don't know how I really feel right now. I still miss my Mom fiercely! but for the moment I feel calm. That in itself is a blessing. The fire helps, listening to the crackle of the logs, watching the dancing flames. and feeling the warmth spreading out over the room is wonderful. My Mom got to spend time in this room enjoying a similar fire on cool evenings. Perhaps it also helps that I haven't had much to do today except take care of myself, nurse this bug, and relax. That allows me time to reflect, or not to reflect, as I choose. There have been too many times lately that I have been pushed into a situation where something has reminded me on my Mom, or especially the night we took her to the hospital and I have had to mull over the memory. Or push the memory away, when I would rather had time to consider. Trying to live my usual life, (or unusual, since I am now married and also need to help my husband with his broken wrist and be nurse) and grieve and reflect at the same time is nearly impossible. I try not to cry when I am at work, but there are times when I would like to just sit and dissolve into a puddle of tears. It I had more times like this day, I think I would feel more like myself. (Although I do need to remember that that "self" is now permanently changed by the death of my Mom. Each death I've had to adjust to over these years has been different, and has left a profound mark on my life. I am a different person because of each person's life and because of each person's death.

What on earth can I say? I just feel so sad. I just can't believe that she's really gone. I was there when she died. I was there at the viewing and the funeral, but I have an overwhelming feeling like she still at the hospital. Like if I go back to the chest pain ER, she'd still be there! That's got to be weird. I know it has to do with how suddenly and unexpectedly she died. But it feel so unreasonable to me to want to go back there, to feel like she would still be there. I feel so confused. It's the last day of November. Tomorrow it will be December. I feel like I'm being dragged kicking and screaming into Christmas. I would have been so happy this year, to be doing our usual traditions as a new bride. But what can I do now. I can try to content myself with knowing that my Mom is spending her first Christmas in 42 years with my Dad, but that doesn't help me with the empty feeling I have without her here with me now. Without both of them. And still the little girl voice in in back of my head wants to scream "She can't be dead!" I can be in a crowded noisy room and feel all alone and disconnected to every one.

I know it's been just over two months since my Mom died. Did I think this would be easier? It is actually getting harder. Thanksgiving was difficult, but Christmas is like a mountain to climb. I would like to go away for the holidays, and my husband and I actually had already scheduled time off (I had already asked for December 20th off to spend the day with my Mom on her birthday, now how do I spend the day?) so we could go away. But he is going to do the holidays like we have done before, with his children and his Mother, And his brother's family. I don't want to do that, but how can I say no? I know how unexpected death can come. I think it would be selfish of me to tell him that he can't spend Christmas with his family. Who knows what this next year might bring? This could be the last year for any one of us. Just like last Christmas was the last Christmas for my Mom. It will hurt to spend Christmas in the usual way, but it will hurt no matter where I am, or what I am doing, so I can give him this.

This is our first year as a married couple. This year has had so many major stress factors in it. Planning our wedding all summer was difficult, but at least my Mom got to see everything and be part of all of the planning. She saw me in my gown, saw my bouquet (silk flowers) saw our rings, and since my husband and I were together for 4 years before we actually made the legal and church commitment she saw what our marriage would be like. We already had everything ready for our October 13th wedding date when she died on September 10th. We buried her one September 13th, one month before the wedding. It was very, very hard, but I was able to set my grief aside for that one day. I think that I was able to do that was my Mom's gift to me. So at 50 I am a new bride, a new orphan and an mature woman. I feel all jumbled up inside. I was usually comfortable with not having children of my own, but now that my Mom is gone, the last of my birth family is gone. I was an only child. I have no roots and no leaves. I am the barren daughter and I feel the weight of the decisions I've made in my life.

How do I get through Christmas? I feel like I'm walking though a mine field. Last I was ambushed by "Charlie Brown's Christmas" I remember when it first came out. It was 1965 and it was the first Christmas after my Dad died. My Mom did such a wonderful job making Christmas special for me. I remember all of the presents that she got for me that year. All of the decorations at the house where we'd moved. It was hard, but it was really great. It hurt so bad seeing that show on TV. The memories were so vivid and fresh, it was almost like a flashback. It made me miss her even more. How can I go about the plans and shopping that I need to do for everyone, when she would have been shopping with me? And I already had some things for her for Christmas, and her birthday on December 20th... I'd already bought birthday cards for her. How do I go to church on Christmas eve when it's so hard just to get through a regular Sunday without her there with us? I'm so very tired. Achy. I know that it's all a part of grief. And I know that this is something that I just have to feel and let be until it becomes easier to live with. But for now it becomes harder and harder as the Christmas season gets closer. I wish I could just hibernate until some time in January!

Mom,

I miss you so much! How can you be gone? You've always been there for me. Always been there with me. What can I say. I feel empty, stripped out. Lost. I went to the house today. It feels so bad without you there. Wrong. I have to clean it out, but it's your stuff. I'm intuding.