Surviving the Loss of My Mom

If I allow myself the quiet time to close my eyes and think, I can go back to my place in the world three years ago. The ICU doctors scrambling… The many tubes, machines, IV’s, and medical personnel that littered my mom’s body… The uncertainty in my dad’s voice… The fear in my heart… The feeling that everyone with a stethoscope around their neck knew something that they weren’t yet sharing… The introduction to words like “sepsis,” “system failure,” and “bacterial meningitis.” Who would have ever guessed there would be a disease I could hate more than cancer?? As horrific as everything was in those dark hours, I was at peace being near my mom. I remember hating how cold her hands were… I remember confidently knowing that whatever had suddenly consumed her body would be squelched by her fight for life, just as it had with each of her three cancer battles… I remember the moment that I realized I could be wrong about this confidence. I remember pleading with her to live because selfishly I couldn’t exist without her. I remember the single tear that fell from her right eye after my pleas… As if she was telling me that she couldn’t stay no matter how much she wanted to.

I spent the night of February 1, 2011 holding my mother’s blackened hand… Hoping for an answer, praying for a miracle, and spiraling into a sadness I never knew possible. Tonight, as the moments draw closer to the anniversary of that dreadful day, I am spending the night alone. Alone with my thoughts, alone with my feelings, alone yet very much surrounded by the love and memories of my wonderful mother. Today I have journaled, I have cried, I have remembered. Today I made new memories with my dad that I would never have made if this momma’s girl still had her momma!!

Tonight, I am thinking about my three young children, thinking about how they are healthy and innocent in this crazy world. I know in my heart how blessed I am to have so many people keeping me in their thoughts and rallying behind my difficult days. Next week marks the fourth anniversary of my beautiful mother’s arrival in Heaven… Which makes it the fourth anniversary of my journey of living without “my person” on this earth. I have steadfastly hated every day without her, have struggled to enjoy moments that should have made me blissfully happy, have been afforded the unfortunate opportunity of understanding just how precious life is, and have been blasted with the knowledge that perspective is everything.

I often find myself feeling silenced. Who do you turn to when the one person you’ve relied on for 29 years has vanished? How can you replace someone you never wanted to lose? I’ve cried to family and friends, sought counseling, logged a billion hours journaling at coffee shops with unknowing patrons awkwardly pretending to ignore my sobs.

What I have found is this: I have survived. And each year, it gets just a little bit easier to breathe. The smiles come a little more naturally. The guilt of laughing feels a little less consuming. And the love… the love never fades.