Adjusting

In case you hadn’t heard, my Mom passed away on November 15.  I’ve been trying to wrap my head and my heart around that hard FACT ever since.

This is the first time I have ever really had to deal with death.  I have been fortunate enough to never lose anybody close to me until now.  And it’s not that I just lost somebody “close” to me – I lost my MOM. As I’ve grown up, Mom and I have had our differences, and gone through growing pains as I’ve gone from child to adult and made my own decisions, not all of which Mom agreed with.  But I can honestly say that my Mom and I never had a major “falling out” – there was never any period of time where we were not on speaking terms, or where we avoided eachother.

My Mom was my touchstone.  She was my best friend – my whole life, she’s known pretty much everything there is to know about me.  Even as an adult, she basically defined my holidays and made sure the family stuck together.  We relied on her to be the heart of our family, and now we’re going to have to take everything she taught us and stick together without her.

And of course I have regrets.  I spent a lot of time with my Mom – I usually saw her at least a couple of times a week.  We were closer than most people I know are to their parents.   But I wish that I had spent more time telling her how much she meant to me, and thanking her for everything.  I visited Mom the day before she passed, and she asked me to brush her hair, which I did for about 5 minutes.  She wanted me to keep brushing it, but I was tired and told her I would later.  Of course I did not brush her hair again.  I wish I hadn’t gotten frustrated with her when she got confused and angry with me – she was on medication and wasn’t entirely lucid.  I wish I had spent more time saying goodbye that afternoon.

It is a very hard concept to grasp that there is no “going back” and that Mom isn’t going to come back.  After her funeral (or celebration of life, as we called it) I kept feeling so incomplete because I couldn’t talk to Mom about it.  I wanted to know what she thought about it, and talk about all the people who came and what was said and just process it all with her like I am used to doing with most things.

For a while I kept telling myself I just had to get through…the funeral…Thanksgiving….Christmas…then things would get easier.  But that’s not really true.  Mom is not coming back to refill that hollow spot.  We all just have to get used to it and work around it and let ourselves be happy with everything that we still have. I have to do that.

Be kind to one another,

Becki

Mom’s Obituary

Tagged as: coping, death, grief, loss, Mom