Tangled Grrl

 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...

I woke up crying for the first time in a very long time. I was dreaming. My whole extended family was first in a home that doesn't actually belong to anyone I know, but it was supposed to, and there was all kinds of the normal gossip that surrounds family gatherings. Lots of food. Gatherings in groups. Weird things that should never happen in real life but happen in dreams. Then the scenes changed and all of a sudden the family is all in some type of place for an event. And it seems like a birthday party. But it isn't. But it should be. And there's a disagreement over the treatment of homegrown vegetables and their use as fertilizer in a garden. And then my mom is angry that I won't eat a ham and cheese sandwich my husband got for me. Even though he knows I hate ham and cheese. He got me two different types to try. She says she hates ham and cheese too. And then it hits me that everything is wrong. It's all so wrong. Because my mom loves ham and cheese. And while sh...

I've been dreading this day. I knew today would have a notification that would pop up telling me I had Facebook memories. I knew I wouldn't be able to resist looking. I knew I would cry. And I did exactly that. But I managed to wait until after 8pm to give in. I already knew what the memories would show me. It was one year ago today that I started living a life that was so much different. One without my mom physically present. Today marks the day that the Facebook memories will start changing. For the next three months I will see memories that will show me the journey that almost took my dad too. And for the last 2 weeks I've been antsy and emotional. Living through a quarantine doesn't help. I'm not a patient person. And I like to just push through hard things when I can. This is another First. And I want it to be over. I want the next few months to be over too. Mother's Day and Mom and Dad's anniversary and Mom's Birthday. And the Facebook memories...

I have been lost in a world of fantasy lately. In between work, household chores, sleeping and basic living I've been listening to a series of fantasy. And it has been glorious. I get lost in books. Lost in the characters, the worlds. Entranced by the stories and even after they are over, they linger with me for quite some time. My husband has been on second shift for months, so most evenings it is just me, home alone. Home alone with the words of other realms shifting around me as I cook or clean or eat or knit. Adventures, loss, heartache, love and magic as the telling of the tales are played. I'm on book five of my current series. Hours and hours of being captivated. And maybe that's why I dreamed of my mom last night. My mind has been open to the possibilities that only fiction ever leaves you open to. I don't remember how it began or how it ended exactly. But she spoke to me. I have no conscious memory of her words or her voice. But her very presence was so str...

I've been making a lot of new things lately. I made my first real honest garment this past weekend. A pair of flannel pajama pants. And I sewed another project bag from my scribbled notes, just to see if I could make sense of what I had done last time. And every time I manage to make something new, or create something, or navigate a new skill, I really want to call my mom and tell her about it. It's what I would have done every single time I finished any new project of any complexity. I would have spammed her phone with pictures or FaceTimed her. I would have bored her to tears with the technicalities and she would have let me just because she was proud of the joy it brought me. And if I'm being honest, most of my surge of creativity is my need for distraction. It's a need to be busy. To stay focused and pour my need to do something into something that has a tangibility to it. So I'm knitting, weaving, sewing and crocheting all of the time. I'm making things...

Another year older. Another milestone passed. Dad and I were having a conversation the other day that for right now we are having to go through all these new "Firsts." We did the first Mother's Day, her birthday, my sister's birthday, my brother's birthday. Now I've had to do my birthday. I wonder if they will get easier. Because these new firsts? They suck. I was never horribly into birthday celebrations for myself. I prefer to just spend the day doing what I want, which mostly means some type of solitary activity. I want to pick a meal I like, not do dishes and then something crafty or read. I don't need a tiara or expensive gifts. I'm not a big fan of cake and I don't need a surprise party or a room full of people. And this year I really just wanted the day to pass me by. I wanted to get through it as quickly as possible so I could say I survived it. I knew I was going to get a notification of last year's Facebook post by my mom. I kne...

Saturdays are sometimes my hardest days. Those are the days that I used to call Mom for absolutely no reason other than to ask her what she was doing, or ask her how she was feeling. Mostly it was just a good day to reach out and catch up with her. It wasn't unusual for her and Dad to be off doing something with the Club or off to the casino, but she would typically still be around at some point to shoot me a text or to call me back at some point. Right now Saturdays are really hard. Because I have my big MRI coming up and I'm in the middle of another flare up and I really want to talk to my mom. In the middle of the day yesterday, after I finished up some household chores I felt capable of doing, I sat down to rest and I looked over and saw the bag of crochet work I had taken from Mom and Dad's house. It was a project my mom had swiped from my aunt to finish for her. And I took to finish when my mom no longer could. And the tears started. Because this was the kind of day...

There aren't a lot of stories about my mom and I shopping. Mostly because my mom was not a fan of shopping. She was not the type to be bored and then beeline for a mall. If she had to buy an outfit for an event, she was going to complain about it more than a little bit before actually leaving the house to go search for it. My cousin got married last October. Mom and I both needed to get something to wear. We decided we were going to go and get something for each of us that made us feel fabulous. I talked her into going to stores that were probably outside of her comfort zone because I promised her that if she was willing to try something new, I would too. We deserved to feel good in what we had on so that we could just be comfortable and enjoy the event. I may have bribed her with the promise of dinner, my treat. We went to a few stores and decided to try White House Black Market. I found several somethings for me and settled on an outfit that cost me entirely too much money, b...

I cried at work today. That sums up this week better than anything else I can say. Yesterday I woke up at the time I normally leave for work. Somehow I still managed to make it on time. Today I woke up on time, but got stuck in absolutely atrocious construction traffic and ended up clocking in 16 minutes later than I'm supposed to. For the past week I've been fighting my summer time headache and nerve pain. For whatever reason, I have been getting atrocious nerve pain as soon as the temperature starts to stay in the 80's. Instead of it starting gradually and building to numbness down my left arm in a few weeks or months, it got to that point in one day this year. That's been my companion for almost a week. I've been back at work for not quite three full weeks. I still am trying to figure out what I'm doing again. I barely knew what I was doing before I left. Yesterday I screwed up, and someone pointed it out to me, rather forcefully. So I went to one of the su...

I was going through my phone today updating the photos with some of my contacts. That led me to scroll through my All Photos album, where there are so many memories of Mom. Even the photos that don't have her anywhere in them. I remember the conversations we had about so many of them, because I used to call her every time something funny or annoying happened in my life. I'd send her pictures of the braids my youngest put into my hair. Or pictures of my kids playing outside in the rain and mud. I'd send her pictures of the ridiculousness that is my husband with our cat. I'd send her pictures of whatever crafting project I was working on, or had just finished. I sent her pictures of choir concerts, show choir performances and letters praising the girls on some accomplishment. She may have lived 3 hours away from me, but she was as integral to my every day life as my husband. And she appreciated my husband's Dad jokes and puns in a way few others do. When Mom made a ...

Today is the day before Independence Day. In the town we live in, they start out the celebration by having a small town parade. By a sheer miracle, my husband and I were kid-less and home together to sit out front and watch the parade this year. The route takes the parade down our street, so we just take a couple of chairs out front and watch. Mom loved parades. When we were little, she would take us to them, more full of excitement than we were. When we were teenagers, she embarrassed the living daylights out of us. She knew the local firemen and police and would be jumping up and down to get them to blare the sirens and horns. And they always would as soon as they saw her. As adults, her sheer enthusiasm was contagious. She was so excited it was hard not to be excited too. She loved the sirens and the horns. She loved the bands, the color guard, the noise. She loved watching kids march along, some bedraggled and obviously overheated. She loved seeing the girls in pretty dresses. Sh...

Everything has changed. Nothing has changed. That's how I feel about being home. When I drove up to my house, everything looked different. There was an abundance of green that had not been there when I left. I noticed that the speed limit on one of the local roads went up. The highway has been repaved. The annoying construction near work has moved from the left lane to the right lane. All of these seemingly inconsequential things force me to accept that I've been gone from this place for 2 months and the world kept moving. It changed in normal, everyday ways. And I still feel stuck in place. That's the thing about tragedy, loss and long hospital stays. You're so insulated from the outside. Yet the outside keeps moving along. Ready or not, it will slam you in the face with the differences when you emerge. Today was my first day back at work after a 60 day leave. And I was so nervous about going back. What if I forgot everything? What if I just started sobbing at my d...

I've spent this morning packing up my belongings and cleaning out my car. I'm driving home tomorrow. I'll step foot into my own home for the first time since April 27. I have to go back to work on Monday. And I know I will need time to acclimate myself to normal life. Normal life without my mom. So I will likely be an absolute disaster at times this weekend. And I'm ok with that. I left my dad for the first time last weekend. I went and worked at a trade show with my best friends. And they are a bunch of kind, unique and supportive women. They asked questions, but not too many. I received a ton of love, support, and hugs. And I managed to make it through the entire trip without sobbing. I teared up a few times, but knew I couldn't break down because I had responsibilities. I didn't want to be the crazy vendor crying in the booth and then having to explain why I was crying. I didn't want to have to look at strangers and tell them my mom was gone. And I was ...

I'm in a fog today. I spent last night writing up the story of Dad's progression through this nightmare. As usual, I couldn't manage it without some tears. But I got through it and emailed it to him. We posted it on Facebook and GoFundMe for anyone who wants all of the sordid details. In order to write such things, you're forced to relive them. And I wonder how long it will be before reliving them doesn't make me feel like the wounds are ripped open again. When the pain and loss won't feel so new, so fresh. Because you can't tell a story about Dad without telling one of Mom too. I know it will be worse when I go back home, to my "normal" life. Part of me is dreading it. As much as I miss my husband, girls, cat and my bed - I know that when funny things happen I can't call and tell Mom all about it anymore. I can't call her for advice or for the recipe of dishes I know how to make but can't remember. I can't call her to vent my fru...

I got asked a few times why I write these blogs. Why do I then share them publicly? The answer is not a short one nor is it an easy one. It's not a cry for help as some may think. It's simply a way of saying I understand. I'm not the only person grieving. I'm not the only person who has lost a mom. I'm not the only person who has sat alone in public places crying over every day objects. But I have a platform and sometimes I have the words to share it. So I do. Because I learned a long time ago that the written word has the power to reach people. It has the power to bridge gaps and link people. So often we see the internet and social media vilified for the negativity. But there is power there for good too. If it weren't for the marvels of technology I wouldn't have the ability to reach out to my best friends right now. In my darkest of moments, technology helps me to reach out to those that can help me turn on a light. And sometimes reading the words of s...

Some days are harder than others. Some moments are harder than others. Sad moments and happy moments are the hardest. The times when you would naturally reach out for the person who knows you the best. When you would immediately call your mom to share your sorrows or your joy. She would just know what to say. She would have the right inflection, the right words. She would respond in every right way to make you feel like you deserved to be on cloud nine. Or that you could survive this setback. Because she made you. She already understands the flaws, the minutiae that makes up your thoughts. Yesterday one of the nurses told us that although Dad's chances after he was admitted were 50/50, in her experience only about 20% of patients in that shape actually make it to where he's at. And today he was actually cleared to have a liquid diet. That's such a major accomplishment. And all I want to do is call my mom and tell her. I want to hear the elation in her voice when I explain...

I was talking to my cousin the other day about the ability to picture a finished project in your mind before it's done. He works in the construction business and was telling us about a client that paid to have a door and window installed, bricked in, then paid to have it pulled back out because she decided she didn't like it after it was completed. She couldn't picture the finished product in her mind without seeing it fully finished in front of her. Even with all that technology can now offer, some people simply can't see  without the physical proof in front of them. I don't normally have that problem. I may have to swatch my knitting to see how two colors will look mixed together, or do small swatches with stitch patterns to see how a variegated will play with a texture, but the overall I can normally then picture. I can see the finished picture in my mind when I get an idea for a design for a room. I can shop around and spend months picking out furniture, curta...

I chose to not go to the hospital early today. I did another 12.5 hours there yesterday and I'm exhausted. When you've been there through as many shift changes as I have, you start to understand why everyone keeps telling you to take care of yourself, even as you look at them in disbelief. How is that supposed to happen? How are you supposed to be there to see rounds? To question the medication changes, the plans if you're not there? And on the same hand how does your laundry get done, or bills paid or your hair washed if you don't take the time to stay away for a few hours? I'm not sure yet because I tend to do everything with a force of a tornado pushed by a hurricane. I'll figure it out eventually. Yesterday I knew I'd hit a wall so I told Dad I was coming in late today. I needed to do laundry, make calls and wash my hair. So today will, hopefully, be productive at home and not just a hospital day. I'll still worry all morning and feel this draw to le...

 There are days when grief is a bit like a frozen lake. Some days it's protected by a layer of ice that's thick enough to build roads over. Thick enough to travel across and live on. Other days the very air of an exhaled breath will shatter the delicate layers and the grief turns into waves that destroy every semblage of okayness you thought you had built. Suddenly you're back to Day 2. You feel as though you're back to surviving on coffee and Tylenol for crying induced headaches. You're not sure how to sleep or what to do next. Sometimes that feeling lasts for mere moments. Sometimes it's hours. Then just as suddenly your ice is intact again. You can still feel it but it's a little more distant. Those moments are always worse for me in the mornings or at night. It's always the calm moments, the alone moments. Especially the times I would normally reach out to her.  It's dangerous to let my mind wander; that's when I'm transported to the ...

I spent 12.5 hours at the hospital today. My first interaction began at 4am when the nurse called to give me report on my dad's status. He had a really rough night. And once I was up, I may as well stay up, so I got ready and headed down. While on my way I got another call letting me know they were taking him down to CT. I lost count midway through the day how many tests and procedures he had done today. I will tell you that when I left, his vitals were stable, all 6 of his drains were operational, I witnessed my first NG tube placement today and I got to be a patient advocate. I also am a pro at mouth swabs and suctioning the moisture from the mouth swabs. I also know where all of the linens are kept, can wipe down faces like a pro and can stand my ground even when witnessing someone I love in pain or under duress. Nothing tests your strength or your fortitude quite like necessity, but I'm grateful for every second that I am here. That I am able to be here and stand and re...