Weighty Matters

I've been feeling the weight of this day for a long time. Dreading it. Hoping maybe it could slip by unnoticed while I'm working myself to a frazzle in Room 15. No such luck.






 For weeks, anticipating, I've worn your death like a heavy yoke around my neck.

You know what I wish?  I wish you could have just one post visit after moving on from this earthly space.  Just one hug that says, "Hey, it is all good!"  Well, actually, I'd like to hear, "You just can't believe this, it is so wonderful, just can't even tell you why I ever put off leaving that old, sad sack, infection prone vessel that had me all bound up in pain and sorrow."
I guess I know the answer.   We wouldn't let you leave  without us.
We have too many in this brood having trouble hanging on as it is.
Life is so weird Mom, but you knew that.  On one hand, you are so very gone, but on the other hand you are never far.  I don't think I'll live long enough for 59 years of you to fade away.


You are impressed on every fiber of my being, so somehow I feel lost and undone without you, even though I was more than ready to not have to watch your continued decline.

You loved to cook and feed people and you loved to eat.


You never leave me because that same compulsion drives me and every thing reminds me of you.
Onions- I love raw onions, cooked onions, every kind of onion because you did. So tonight, even tired and not really caring what I ate, when I warmed up a cup of bean soup, I had to have an onion.

Anything warm and cheesy makes the thought, "Mom would love this," float unbidden through my mind.

Dark chocolate, coffee, bread and butter have your name written on them.

Seafood, especially lobster, screams, "Mom" at me.

 

 And Thanksgiving and Christmas and family. Christmas was your most favorite. You planned for it all year long.

 And prayer.  I'm a bold prayer because I learned it well from you.  When things go wrong all around like our spring and summer medical crisis and things that are other people's story to tell, but cause my fears to rise up and choke me, I choose to remember and believe your prayers for us went before us to our Father, into eternity,  and will not fade or disappear.

Your love of song.  When I think of pedicures or showers, I remember all the baths I sang us through, when I was terrified of dropping you and you were cold and miserable. Those old sweet hymns warmed us and got us through.  Even new songs, like Chainbreaker that you loved me to sing to you.

And there's this head of gray, crazy witchy-poo hair that is ten inches longer than it probably should be, but you had some strange love of my hair and I'll likely never cut it short. Your vision had gotten poor enough, perhaps my hair was all you saw clearly, but those last months, every time I came you told me how beautiful my hair was that day.  You were not happy when I dried it straight and would let me know about that too.

So, clearly you are so with me and clearly you are so very far away.

I will try to allow all my creative mind to imagine you in the splendor of heaven and shake off this sorrow.

 Tis hard.