It's that Time Again

 We've hit that time of year again. I survived the second anniversary of Mom's death. And now my Facebook memories are starting with the constant updates of Dad's progression through the hospital. From now until July I will be reminded on a continual basis of That Time. I could just not look at the reminders, but I won't. It's like poking a bruise. You know it will ache, that the poke will make the throbbing more intense, yet you can't seem to stop pestering it. Just to make sure it's still real. It isn't just discoloration - the hurt goes deeper than the surface. You have to be sure it causes pain.

Looking back now will still bring me to tears. I still miss mom every day. The hole she left behind isn't so jagged any more. Maybe all of those tears smoothed away the worst of the sharpness and made it easier to bear. Or maybe just living each day one after another forces you to accept the changes. 

I went back and read some of my writing from the early days - the ones where we struggled to know if Dad was actually going to make it or not, when the wounds from Mom were so fresh I struggled to feel anything but numbing pain and shock. And I can feel it now just reading those words again. But looking back on it also amazes me. If anyone were to have told me we were going to experience that and where we would be two years later - I don't think I would have been able to do it. I think the act of only thinking of the next thing that had to be done was what got me through - what got each of us through it. I didn't think about the Big Picture. I broke everything I could down into the smallest pieces I could and worked on those. And here we are now - I'm working at a better company, I have established friendships with people who live local to me, in so many ways I survived. Yes, survived. There are so many scars. Dad carries the physical marks from his ordeal - and we all carry the emotional ones. I still sometimes wake up in the middle of the night from dreams thinking of hospital waiting rooms. Waking up in a state of panic that I can't explain with only a lingering sense of dread, a sense of something missing. It will often take me awhile to wake up and make sense of what in the world is wrong with me. It's almost always from some dream that twisted reality with nightmares. 

I still am grateful every day to have been able to write my mom's obituary, help plan her memorials and funerals. I hope I did her memory justice. I'm so grateful I was able to be with my dad through such a harrowing time. I'm grateful to have been able to have spent so much time with my cousins and other family. I'm grateful I had whatever strength, fortitude and general stubbornness to see me through it. I am still amazed at the strength my dad exhibited to walk away from it all. I learned so much about myself in those months and as absolutely horrific as it all was - it was a culmination of experiences that helped to shape who we are. It has helped build relationships and brought some of us closer together. Sometimes you just have to do the hard things.

I posted a picture on my Instagram with a caption on the anniversary of Mom's death about our grief being the same age as a toddler. That's one of the ways I remind myself it's ok when it's really hard. When the kids are being particularly assholish or my husband made some ridiculous joke that she would find endless humor in - it's ok that those are the times when I still go to grab my phone and then stop because she can't answer if I call. Because my grief is a toddler. Well behaved, sedate, small in some moments. And in others it is throwing a full out tantrum and is so large it can take over an entire house with its noise and need to be heard and felt. And that's ok. 

And on Mother's Day I'll do my best to not hate everything. I'll be reminded yet again of the project I bought all of the supplies for right before Mom passed away. The one I still can't bring myself to start, let alone finish. The one that was supposed to be for her Mother's Day present in 2019. I'll try not to think about the fact that someone will make a smartass comment about me not "really being a mom." And I'll try to be adult enough to point out that the three miscarriages I got to experience years ago kinda made sure of that, didn't it? I really hate Mother's Day.

Most of the time though, I'm ok. I can tell stories about Mom and everything is good. I can tell tons of funny ones and I laugh. I can think about my time running to the ICU to see Dad and I don't think only of the heartbreak - I think of the hours spent with my cousins, with the countless messages and phone calls from family and friends and their support. I think of the wind through the trees on the porches of my family members' homes back in Pennsylvania and the peace that brought to my ravaged mind. The fresh vegetables and endless salads from the backyard gardens. The good is so entwined with the bad that there cannot be one without the other. And I'm perfectly content with that. 

And on days when I just need space now I spend a lot of time on the porch. I have multiple sets of wind chimes. And stray cats who like to just sit on the porch with me. And I've bribed all of the neighborhood birds into singing by putting up three feeders in the backyard. I'm even planting flowers this year. We have made it through two years. It was yesterday. It was a lifetime ago.