Antsy

Tags

Death, Mother, time

I am six days away from the one year anniversary of my mother’s death and I don’t know how I am going to be.  I don’t know how I am going to feel.  I don’t even know what to do.  I won’t be with my family for this and I want to be there for them, for me.  I need them right now, like I need my mom.   I won’t be with them for this because of my duties. I just don’t even know what to feel, besides extreme sorrow.  I just want the day to come and go. I don’t want to deal with this.  But at the same time, its the first and I know its going to be the hardest and no one here knows.  I can’t share this with my Soldiers, I need to be strong for them.  God, I just need my family more than ever now.  How do I do this without them?  How do I stay strong?  Can I just skip this day? 

Sorry for the rambling post…. but here it is

Tags

Love, mom

I have an amazing best friend who I have known for over 7 years.  We met when we were both interning in London.  She obviously knew and loved my mom very much and my mom always cared for her.  We had a big falling out right before I deployed overseas and it has taken us about four months to be able to even email each other.  And I never realized how much I needed her and my mom as my sounding boards. 

My mom was obviously my first and most best friend.  As I have said before I told my mom practically everything, and my best friend knows everything.  But with my mom gone and me and my best friend falling out, I have no one to tell everything to.  I know I have my aunt, but technology is not her friend and I just can’t tell my brother a lot of things.  

So recently I bought a new car (I know while I am overseas, its kind of crazy, that’s just what I do… rash decisions) and I wanted to tell someone so bad. And I had no one.  And it’s the kind of car I always told my mom I wanted and she always would say “I can see you in that… that’s such a Becky car”.  And now shes not here and I cant share my happiness with her. 

 When will I stop relying on my mom to be my first call, when will that instinct stop? And now that I don’t really talk to my best friend I feel so isolated and lonely.  My mom would always be my voice of reason, I mean of course she would have told me to buy the car, but she would have at least tried to reason with me the pros/cons and done the cost/benefit analysis with me.  I mean I wouldn’t have listened to her anyway, cause lets be honest, once I looked at the car I already made up my mind.  And my mom would have known that, but she would have at least helped me to rationalize this decision.  She was always there for my big life decisions and now shes not, and neither is my best friend, and I still feel lost.  What do I do now how do I fix this.  Both of them brought a balance to my life, and my mom is forever gone and my relationship with my best friend is fractured.  So what do I do? 

 How do I justify my actions, how do I make decisions now? How do I fix my relationship with my best friend?  My mom always knew the answers.

 And being deployed does not make this any easier.  I always make sure that my Soldiers call their families back home, but who do I call? My brother?  He has his own family.  My aunt?  She is old and busy with my nephews.  My mom was always there to answer her phone, well except for her cell phone that was hard to get her answer!  I just want it to be easy.  I want to talk about my mom without crying.  I want to be strong for my Soldiers but how do I do that when I cry about my mom all the time.  How can I be strong for them when no one is here to be strong for me.  My family tries, but I need my mom and my best friend.   God, I sound so emo right now, at least I still have my sense of humor!

To Do List

Tags

Cancer, Death, life, mom

My mom always loved to travel, but never got to go many places or all of the places she wanted to go.  And I received a letter last week from one of my penpals and it stated how she lives in Manhatten and how beautiful it is at Christmas time.  And it made me remember how much my mom always wanted to go to New York City at Christmas time to see how beautiful it is (Christmas was always my mom’s favorite). Naturally my mother never could afford to go because she gave us everything.  But it got me thinking, my mom never got to do a lot of the things she wanted to. And I don’t want to be like that.  I am deathly afraid that I will get cancer later in life, so I think now is the time for me to build my To Do list, my bucket list if you will. 

While I have done a lot, there is so much more for me to do.  And I will work hard to be the woman my mom wanted me to be, but I will never not do the things I want to do.

So the first thing on my list is to go to New York at Christmas time to see the lights.  I will continue to grow this list and hope that in accomplishing it I can make my mom proud. 

“This time last year”…

Tags

Death, hope, Mother, Mourning

…that is how I start every thought (or that is how it feels).  

Last 4th of July I left my friend’s beach-side condo, and naturally the party, to get sit in my mother’s living to watch the fireworks on TV with her.  Because every year I watched the fireworks with my mother, no matter what. And we always went to the beach.  But last year we had to watch them in her living room.  Naturally my mom being my mom asked me what I wanted for my birthday and my first reaction was for “my mommy to get to better so we could be at the beach next year to watch the fireworks”.  And I really meant it and I really believed it would happen.  Because at 29 I could not fathom that my mommy was dying.  

And at exactly this date last year my mother checked into the hospital for what turned out to be the last time.  And me and my family moved into a hotel right down the street so that we would not have to drive the hour each way to see her.  And I hated and I hated my aunt for wanting to do that.  And I became resentful of my mother for not getting better.  

As the days countdown to the one year anniversary of her death all I do is think of where I was this exact date last year.  Because the last month before my mother died is a very vivid memory.  I remember everyday of that last month; who visited her, what I wore, what I ate, what my mom would not eat, the TV shows I watched with her, the day my brother and me signed her into hospice, everything.  

I think maybe the first year after death is the hardest because of the memories like this.  At least it is for me.  Because maybe this time next year I will only look one year back and this time this year does not include my mother’s impending death.