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Losing Mom: A Journey Through Grief (Part 16)

T oday marks 3 years since you died.     T his day comes faster and faster with every year that passes.   I   suppose part of me is grateful that I don’t sit glumly in the darkness that this day represents.    I  suppose it also means I’m just another moment closer to seeing you again. However, the other part of me hates that this day comes so quietly after all this time.   I  have been incredibly aware of this impending date since your birthday, then since the first of the month, and with writing dates that were necessary at work.   B ut feelings surrounding this day have been very quiet.   A nd the realization of that makes me quite sad.  I can’t help but feel some semblance of guilt about such a thing.   I t strikes me as non-caring, non-loving, as if I  have completely made it out of the vice grips of this grief.     I  absolutely haven’t, but the longer I have spent in here, the more I understand it’s shiftiness. My grief specifically is not always felt the most on anniversaries,
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Griefaries: Nine

This morning, as I rolled out of bed, I intentionally hit the right hand on my Build-A-Bear.  I genuinely wanted to hear my mom's voice, for reasons that I can't even explain, but sometimes explanations offer no real solace anyway. The entire message played straight through - a silly voicemail about tiny gnats surrounding my car.  Mom found this incredibly peculiar I guess, because she thought it warranted a phone call.  Lord only knows where I was or what I was doing that day that left me not answering, ultimately sending her to voicemail.  Sometimes it is difficult for me to accept that I have any voicemails from her at all, because that just implies that I was too busy to speak to her.  My own mother!  I could laugh at loud with how ridiculous a sentence that is.  Now truly, some people are genuinely busy and unable to answer phone calls, but still.  However, I'm also glad that I have something concrete to hang onto.  If I had picked up that day, who's to say I'd
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Griefaries: Eight

January 29, 2023  I was in the shower, rinsing myself off underneath the nearly too-warm water, when I suddenly got a writing idea.  This has not happened to me in quite some time, but when it does, it never fails to arrive at the most inconvenient time - when I'm half asleep, driving, taking a shower, at work, etc.  Nine times out of ten I will not be able to jot down the idea that floods my brain in full.  If I'm lucky, I will remember it long enough to where I'm awake, parked, my hands are dry, all the kids are asleep, etc., and then I can make it permanent somewhere. The rather lucky and unlucky scenario that happened to me in that shower, was that I didn't forget the prompt.  But I'm certain that's because the initial prompt only prompted even more thoughts, which flashed my brain with traumatic images, which made the remainder of that shower feel simultaneously like two seconds and two days had passed. When thoughts like this intrude so suddenly, it can al
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Griefaries: Seven

October 24, 2022 I cannot bear the approaching sound of an aero-med flying overheard without thinking of my mom.  It seems, since she died, they have almost flown over weekly.  While she was still here I could not recall a time I ever heard one. Mom became very acquainted with their sound during her many countless hospital stays.  I remember one time in particular, I believe it was in the heart hospital in GR, mom heard one either flying off or landing on top of the hospital.  She mentioned it nonchalantly, passing seamlessly in the conversation already being had.  As if expecting the rest of us to notice it so easily as well. I notice them constantly now.  When mom first died, I imagined they would land right in our backyard and whisk her down to us.  Her hair would be blowing in the wind of the helicopter blades whirring, and she would stand before us whole.  They never landed though.  Just proceeded on to their destination.  I can only hope that whoever they retrieve on every ventur
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