Category: forever & always

Happy Birthday Ma.

Your life was cut too short … for me. Though if your last couple of years were any indication of what the remainder of your life was going to be like, I am thankful it did not continue any longer.

I feel guilty for saying that but I have said a million times over, the life you were living from 2013 on was not the life I’d wish on anyone. I am grateful though that we got to spend those additional years together.

I still get the urge to call you each day and check in with you on my way home but there is no one there to answer. I find myself envious of Mo in Breaking Fast that I did not have the foresight to keep your phone number active so I could still call without the risk of some random stranger answering. Perhaps that is holding on to too tightly to the past but even still, to be able to hear your outgoing message every once in a while would be a welcome reminder.

As I sit here writing this, I can’t help but feel as though I have let you down in someway. While we are talking about life not worth living, I am participating in my own at the moment and have no real excuse – hence the letting you down part. You only wanted me to find happiness, and I have not been able to manage that, and for that, I am sorry. You would be heartbroken to know how I have managed to isolate and separate myself from most anyone who cares about me.

I promise to try and do better. Time is running out.

I was thinking yesterday that I would write a post titled “Happy Birthday” yet I am compelled to focus on my memories of you on this day.

I was just awoken from a dream a few moments ago that while not disturbing, created an anxiety that disturbed my sleep to a point of being suddenly awakened.

I will stage first the setting of this dream.  I was at work – a school though I am unsure which because I do not recognize the parking lot.  You are at work with me though I do not fully understand why (exploring this is perhaps a separate post – you were always so interested in the population of students I worked with and often expressed a desire to come and read with them – yet you never were able to do that).  I do know that we drove separately but again I do not know why you are at my school.  In the midst of dismissal, busses and cars moving about in the parking lot, I grab my things and head straight for may car as I am preparing to go out of town (I get the feeling I was going to the mountains or Gatlinburg more specifically).

As I approach my car I am torn between actually leaving or going back inside to see if you need anything.  I am thinking of you and that you may need me to drive you home because you are tired.  I distinctly remember recalling a vision of you weak and wearing your turban.  Rather than go back in side I call you on your cell – I recall feeling worried if you will remember how to answer your cell phone and think perhaps I should just walk back in to the building.  You do answer, from my end I hear a very tired and weak hello and then a second one.  Hearing your voice confirms that I should not leave but check on you instead – I am immediately reminded that the day at my school may have been too long for you and that perhaps you should have only come for a couple of hours to keep your strength up.

I ask how/what you are doing and you tell me “I’m downtown” … With those words, I become anxious about you driving your truck (the brake light comes on now) downtown at this time (it is dark now in my dream).

These are the events and feelings of anxiety that immediately awaken me from my dream,

This post is about much more than my dream on the morning of your birthday – it is about my memories of you.

For so long I saw you as a fragile, tired, weak, and broken body with an absence of light in your eyes … so this is what I remember of you.  I struggle to remember who you were before the dis-ease took over your body, mind, and spirit (in that order).  It is hard to imagine you now as the person you were when the relay for life photo on my desk was taken.  It is hard to remember you as the strong independent woman you became who would pickup and drive to Knoxville because Ashlyn was having boy trouble.

Those are the memories of you I want.

That is the memory of you I need now.

It has nearly been a year since I last sat next to you on the couch.  That day will forever be a sad day for me because it was that day, February 14th, 2015, that I helped you to the bed for the last time.

It was a different bed though and for different reasons.  No longer was the focus to simply rest peacefully but now it was to rest for eternity.

That day was extremely difficult for me.  Never have I had to make such a difficult decision as I did on that day.  I still wonder if I made the right decision or just the easier decision.  Even as I toil with the answer to that question, I can’t imagine having made a different decision for your sake.

All of those memories are flooding back to me as we approach the anniversary of your passing.  Today brings specific memories with the amount of snow that has fallen.  Beautiful, pure, fluffy snow – in uncommon amounts – that will from this point forward remind me of your passing.  I will always believe that you left your body in sync with the coming snow out of consideration for us – as was the reasoning for everything you did.  You knew that we would not have to take any more time off from work to care for you since the storm itself provided the necessary reprieve.  You always felt ‘guilty’ that I was having to use my sick time to take you to the doctor and care for you – I wouldn’t have had it any other way though.  In the end, no amount of time off from work is sufficient for the mourning that I continue to experience on a daily basis.

You are forever with me Ma and I will never forget your Love and Support.

forever & always

Today would have been your 60th birthday had you been aloud to see it.  If you were still alive, I can’t imagine it would be a day of much celebration.  Seeing you deteriorate over the past couple of years has forced me to see the fragile nature of your body and even your spirit towards the end.

Not a day goes by that I don’t think of you.  My feelings wander between those of peace and of sorrow.  On the one hand, I am at peace knowing that you are no longer bound to this plain by your dis-eased body.  On the other hand, I am saddened greatly by the time lost and taken for granted.

As we pass through the holidays, and more importantly your birthday, I can’t help but realize that over the years the joy I experienced from the holidays came as a result of a celebration of you.  As I grew older, December 25th became less of a day spent around a Christmas tree and more about the time I could spend close to you.  As a result, I am faced with this quiet rebellion against all that the holidays typically bring, overtly refusing to celebrate since I am unable to celebrate with you.  At the same time, I feel deep within my soul that you would want me to continue on celebrating yet I don’t know how to do that.  It is almost as though I fear to continue on would mean that I have moved on and I can’t imagine that.  I do hope to someday move beyond remembering only your struggles to a place of remembering your joys but I guess that will take time.  Still though, I never want to forget any of the times or experiences of your fight – I just want to get passed that and remember who you were/are to me.

For what it’s worth – Happy Birthday Ma!

I love you – forever & always

 

Exactly six months ago today I lost you forever.

I spent yesterday looking at photos and files on your laptop, the one I bought you a few years ago so that you could play games and check email or Facebook in bed.  I’ll never forget how gradually you became less and less interested in using it and engaging online – I think interest first began to wain when it became more difficult to see and then slowly more difficult to comprehend.

Over the last year you very slowly became someone I did not recognize.  Your laugh was heard less often and your smile seen less frequently.

What concerns me most now is that all I seem to be able to remember are the doctor visits or the pain and suffering you endured.  I am finding it difficult to remember the better times.  I am finding it difficult to stop crying over and focusing on the times that have nothing to do with who you are.

I want to remember the good things.  I want to see you in my dreams and smell you around the corner.

I want to remember – and forget …

forever and always

The text is Ma’s actual handwriting taken from a Christmas card she sent me one year.  I chose the ‘tattered’ pink ribbon because while she was certainly a survivor, the 23 year battle definitely took it’s toll on her (and us).

She will be with me – forever and always

I am sitting in Asheville, NC @ Tupelo Honey gathering my thoughts and planning a means of insuring Ma is physically with me always. To accomplish this, I intend to tattoo her script and words on my arm. 

She is already with me in spirit but I am now attempting to insure she is a part of my physical being as well. 

I love and miss her so …

forever & always

I held your hand as you took your last breath.  I can’t help but feel responsible on some level because it was I who made the call that as I feared was to be the last straw.

With that final breath came immense grief and sorrow for me that you will no longer be with me.

With that final breath came peace for you as you are no longer bound by your diseased body.

This emotional roller coaster from relief to grief and from peace to sorrow will undoubtedly be the longest ride of my life.

I Love You – forever & always

It was my 37th birthday (02.12.2015) and one of the most difficult days yet.  We are told by your oncologist that your earthly form will only remain for another 2 to 10 weeks.  This is of course exactly 2 weeks after we decided it was time to arrange hospice services.

On Friday the 13th no less, the hospice nurse tells me that it is much more like 1 to 2 weeks.

My gift to you on Valentine’s Day was the one thing you seem to fear more than anything else.  The single most detested apparatus I have ever heard you speak of.  I feel though that I had no choice – you couldn’t continue on as you have these past few days – especially now that you are deteriorating at a rapid pace.

I am still unable to process why this is your path in life.  You never deserved this – not in the least.

One thing I am certain of though is that energy can neither be created nor destroyed.  Your energy will be with me for the rest of my life and long after.

I love you – forever & always

I sit here with you again in the hospital as you fight to feel better. The most recent news has not been promising and I can only sit back and watch your pain continue and your earthly form deteriorate. I ask every night for there to be some amount of closure to this existence for you whatever that means. I plead that you be made whole or at least leave this world peacefully. You do not deserve the level of suffering that you experience every day.

This is the meaning of cruel and unusual punishment which I guess is only inappropriate according to man’s law. HIS law on the other hand is many times misunderstood or at least mis-taken. I have to wonder what the message is in all of this for you, me, and the rest of those close to you.

I simply do not have the capacity to understand nor the faith to believe in it. All I know is that you are suffering day in and day out and are now having to miss one of the most important times in your granddaughter’s life. I know that this is not what you want nor is it what any of us want for you.