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 venture gets another chance at life.

Most of the time, even now, 2+ years later, I cannot believe it.  I know I say this constantly, or as often as I post now, but I truly mean it - it makes absolutely no sense to me that my mom is gone.  Naturally, the day to day life without her makes that quite obvious, but that’s not what I mean.. She was just here.  And so was Aunt Diane.  And Grandma.  We all met together religiously every weekend for blasting-volume tv watching and deliciously-bad fast food dinners.  I crocheted things that my Grandma inquired about.  I read books that my Aunt was curious about.  I laid next to my mom with my head on her lap, or my feet under her legs for comfort and warmth..  I don’t see any of them now.  Not even in dreams, mostly because I don’t dream.

Yet somehow it’s been so long.  And every tomorrow that I get is just another day longer.  Those days will soon all add up to a decade without her, which will already basically be half of the years I was blessed with her.

Today is just a normal Monday night.  Just like all those normal nights for me, I should be sleeping, but instead I lay in bed reminiscing.  Instead tears well up in my eyes, until they become to heavy a load to hold back any longer.  Instead, I miss my mom, and every other true love of mine that has ever departed.

If I am honest, which I like to think that I am - I wish this was not my life.  I would return every last piece of it to get my mother back on earth.  Even if she wasn’t my mother in that life, and even if that life ended for her the same way this one did.  I just wish she had more time.. I wish I had more time with her.  I wish she got to reach the age of 60, and then 70, and all the way up into the 90s like her mother before her.

I wish I was able to care for her the way she cared for Grandma, and my kids would tag along for fast food dinners, and reminisce on her life via old photographs in boxes hidden in drawers.

Only now, all they will know of their grandmother is whatever it is I can remember to share, and this memory of mine fails me often.  It also will not do the justice that momma herself could..  I’ll just have to live with that though, just like the rest of it… 

I love you forever and always, my star.  I miss you tremendously.