A few of her favorite things

I posted a few weeks ago about going through my mom's gmail account and deleting emails. I did it again today and logged into her Pinterest account to change the email preferences. By logging in as her, it brought me to her profile page where she had written a short description of things she likes.

"I am a lover of beautiful things-outdoors and flowers with garden art bring a smile to my face. I teach piano lessons to anyone that enjoys music. Antiques, silver, and old linens make me smile."

And that made me smile.

It's almost over

It's my mom's birthday. We always went shopping after Christmas and last year we went on her birthday. We found my wedding dress that day. It was a good day. We spent it together.

My family and I received a lot of cards this Christmas. Lots of "I'm thinking about you" and "I know this Christmas will be hard". Well all I've been thinking about is her. And yeah, it was hard.

Luckily this year of "firsts" is almost over.

Because I like to punish myself

I occasionally check my mom's Gmail. I don't know why I haven't deactivated the account, but I haven't. Somehow, the thought of deactivating it will erase "her". The messages she would have seen about music, and roses, IKEA, and the 'Canes. The emails she exchanged with me, my brother, and her friends.

Over the past few months, when I'm feeling particularly strong, I go in and look at a few of the emails from before and also try to clean up her inbox. It's a slow Friday at work so I decided to do it today. 253 unread emails in her inbox. Then I clicked on the chat function.

I'm not sure why it hasn't occurred to me before to click on it. I guess because I don't save all my chats. But she did. I already knew what we talked about the night she died. But there it was in black and white. The words I wrote to her and she wrote back to me. Random stuff about a new rug I got and plans for the lunch we were having that weekend for my grandma's birthday. But at 9:00pm on May 30th I read the last thing she would ever say to me, "he was kind and softspoken". She was referring to my brother's doctor. I had sent her a link to an article that one of my friends on Facebook had posted and among other things it happened to contain a picture of him.

After that, I just signed off to go upstairs. I didn't say, "goodnight, I love you", and that makes me sad.

I read through a few of the other chats. Some with me, others with her friends. I went back to this day last year to see what we were talking about. Plans for Thanksgiving food of course. Then I had to stop. That's enough punishment for one day.

Already?

Somehow, one-quarter of a year has passed. A lot has changed. So much that I want to talk to her about - laugh with her. We could make each other laugh so hard that we really should've been wearing Depends on more than one occassion.

Like this one time, we were painting my brother's ceiling a light blue. I was standing on the bed and she was standing on a chair. The house phone rings. High on paint fumes, I bent down to answer the phone that was sitting on the bed. Hello? Hello? Phone keeps ringing. Mom starts laughing. I look at her like, why are you laughing, and why is the phone still ringing when clearly I have answered the dang phone! Well, she had unplugged that phone from the wall jack without me knowing. We couldn't stop laughing. And I peed in my panties a little.

Three months gone. Already.

Tomorrow

This is not going to be a happy blog. There, you've been warned.

I'm dreading tomorrow. For every birthday wish that comes my way, I'll only be thinking of the one I won't hear.

I appreciate the cards I've received, the presents from friends, lunches, laughter, and wine (I might have more bottles than Total Wine now).  My husband threw me a surprise party this year. About two months ago I asked him not to. I did not want to celebrate my birthday. Despite my request, he did anyway. And we had a great time. Secretly, I'm glad he did it. It's exactly what my mom would've wanted...for me to be happy, with a husband that takes care of me.

Five years ago my mom and I disagreed about something. It caused a rift in our relationship for a few months. Despite us not being in the best place with each other, she still came to my work with a card, cake, and present to make my 30th birthday special. It's what she did. She always made the effort. A few months later my life changed pretty dramatically, we got over what came between us, and we became best friends.

Tomorrow is going to be a tough day. I probably should not wear mascara.

Oh, and birthday bonus...I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow. Ugh.

I needed a moment

I had the idea for this post immediately after our wedding, to attempt to document the overwhelming feelings I had during the ceremony. I never did start it, for one reason and another, but after this weekend, I decided to write.

 

I needed a moment during our ceremony. Everything was so overwhelming, the words of the preacher, our surroundings on the beach, the many friends and family that attended, and the man standing before me. Both of us had been through so much to get to this point, and finally finding each other, when the preacher asked me to repeat our vows after him, I had to take a moment. I knew I couldn't go on without completely losing it. So I paused - for a good while.

 

Fast forward five months. This weekend we went to the historic Fair Barn in Pinehurst for the wedding of some good friends of ours. Two people who, like us, have been through a lot and have finally found the love of their life. It's also the first wedding I've been to since my own. There were so many emotions in the room and in my head. She walked down the aisle to Rascal Flatts' song, "Bless the Broken Road", and I lost it. Jim kept asking if I was ok, and I wasn't. I wanted to run to the side before the tears got the best of me but couldn't as I imagined the clip clop of my heels on the historic wood floors would break the peacefulness of the ceremony. So I sat.

 

With lots of tissues I made it through the candlelit ceremony. The heartfelt vows that each of them wrote, their precious son in the tiniest tux you've ever seen, passing and blessing of the rings, and the special necklaces given to each of their daughters. Everything was perfect, and I'm so happy they've found happiness with each other.

 

 

Dream or Nightmare?

I've had three dreams about my mom. The first was just her coming up an escalator, then I woke up.  In the second, we were shopping together like we would've done one random weekend. Kohl's, Penny's, looking at shirts, commenting how ugly some of the clothes are or how we'd never be able to fit into those jeans.

The third dream was last night and it was the most real of them all. I got a call that she was alive. I went to my parent's house and there she was, in a turquoise skirt and shirt. I hugged her, not believing what I was seeing, asking her how this was possible since she was cremated. She replied, "the doctors put me on life support." (hey, it's a dream, it doesn't have to make sense). My aunt and my grandma were there talking about what's been happening since she died. I stood off to the side, observing, not believing it was possible. Then I saw that she had found something that I've searched her house high and low for since she died-wishing many times I could just ask her where she had put it last. I asked her where she found it. She told me that it was under the cabinet wrapped up in towels. Next time I'm at dad's I'm going to look there.

Each morning after these dreams I wake up wanting to just go back to sleep so I can see her again. I hate these mornings.