There Is A Storm Coming....

It's almost your birthday again Momma. October was always your month. The weather has changed  from summer and there is a chill in the air, and in my heart. There is a storm coming. One that I cannot fend off alone.

As I go through the motions of eating, I cannot enjoy my dinner this night. In the wake of the taste of grief, everything tastes bland and lifeless. I close my eyes to try to savor the sweetness. It is no use. Everything is bitter. I feign happiness for my sweet, innocent daughter. But there is no happiness  for these tired eyes on this night.

There will be no calling her grandmother to brag on her latest achievement at school, nor any inviting to tomorrow's soccer game. There will be no laughing at horrible school picture faces or the resounding cacophony of my child's voice bouncing off of the walls of Granny's house. Your home  is no longer. It remains, but is falling into disrepair much like the unkempt weeds that grow across your gravestone, both too long unvisited. The house and your grave both hold hollow echoes of you and a cherished time gone by.

A time that held the greatest love of all, as the late Whitney Houston sang. A love I will cherish all of my days and one that I could never forget. A heartbreak that my heart cannot ever truly begin to heal. A loss so tragic that somedays, on the raw days, my mind still cannot begin to fully comprehend.

But comprehend I do. I have no choice. The chill sweeps outward from inside. A cold, suffocating wave envelops me as the tears run unchecked down my face. The realization has set in that my memories are all that I have. There will never be any shiny new ones. This is the fourth year that I have replayed the same worn memories over and again in my head. There will never be any more memories than what I have at this exact moment. I am heartbroken. Yet I have a lifetime full of memories, but it is not enough. It is never enough. I want more. I want more of you. But there is no you anymore, only what I carry in my heart and my mind.

I close my eyes and remember. One at a time I take out my cherished memories and replay them in my mind's eye. Mommy and Daddy kissing, the last hug on our visit before your final hospital stay, you imploring me to never let my three year old, now seven, forget you. Birthday shopping with you that last year to bring you into the technological age, and your birth date on a sticker from our last ever shopping trip on my computer tablet, a mere six weeks before your journey was at it's end. Precariously sealed in time with scotch tape, my attempt at preservation. Preservation of the proof of a precious memory. Something physical from that last birthday with you. Something that marks a specific moment in time and says that she was here. You were here together. You were with me this day.

On a day that I long to hear your voice, I close my eyes and try to replay it in my head. Only this time, I cannot recall your voice immediately. My eyes fly open, my breathing becomes labored, and I start to panic. The tears fall unabashedly down my face, as I try to remember your laughter, and I cannot. Time stands still. I can hear my heartbeat in my throat, as I  desperately play memory after memory in my head. I can almost hear your voice. But I cannot find your laughter. It is on the edge of my remembering, just out of my grasp. No, no, no my inner voice screams, you cannot have lost her laughter. It's in there, just remember. We have to find the laughter! I cannot lose another piece of her. I am hysterical on the inside as my grief ridden brain desperately searches for the laughter, her laughter. My mother's laughter.

The emotional storm rages as I desperately search my mental archives for the laughter. I find it, and as I replay the memory in my mind, there is no sound. It is as if the sound has altogether been stripped from my memory. I continuously wipe the tears from my eyes and face in an attempt to keep my daughter from seeing the storm raging within me, that is leaking out of my eyes.

Another piece of her lost today as another little piece of me died. I have lost my mother's laughter. "It was all you had of her, how could you lose it!", my mind screams at me. "But it's been so long since I have heard it..."another piece cries.  I am so very weary. So tired of all of the grief. So tired of the maelstrom of swirling emotions. Grief, guilt, loss, sadness, depression, exhaustion, bravery, strength, selfishness, and loneliness. Tired of feigning excuses tonight for the little one so as not to have to explain myself, and stir up her grief as well as my own. Trying to control this storm that always rages within me just below the surface, threatening to break free.


There is always something constantly reminding me of you; a familiar smell, a rainbow or a butterfly, or your favorite colors. Eating dinner on your favorite color purple plate, just to feel closer to you when I feel the storm coming.

I miss you Momma. Just like storms that reach their shore, they rage awhile and then they are no more, so is my grief. At least kept at bay for a little while.

Good night Momma, I love you!

     -Your cherished daughter

School Pictures

 

I have been wanting to write. The words have been trapped inside me, threatening to burst forth. I have cried every day this week. Missing them. Remembering them. I have had the desire to explode all these feelings onto paper. It takes a lot of energy, your whole being to process grief. But I just haven't had the energy as of late. Until now.

I sit in my kitchen staring at my daughter's school picture, eyes closed, imagining my Mother's arms around me the last time she hugged me, and all the harsh realizations come flooding out. They explode out of me. The floodgate is open. They will never see her again. They will never see her play soccer. They will never be able to wrap their arms around her and see the wonder of her growing up. They will never see the wonder of my beautiful daughter, looking, sounding and acting like them. Like all the females in our family. I am now all alone. My village is broken, and gone. I am broken. My dad and I are the only ones left.  My husband and my six year old baby complete my family.  There are my in laws, and they are great, but its not the same. It will never be the same, ever again.

 I grew up with my parents and grandparents attending every single school function that I ever participated in.  Band concerts, Rainbow Girls, dance recitals, swimming, football games when the marching band played, band camp performances, summer camps, school plays and musicals.  They were all there. Always. They will never be there for her. She will never know what it is like to have my Mom, or my Nana cheer her on.  She will never see their loving faces in the crowd.

I am a master at compartmentalizing.  I thought I was okay with my Nana's death.  We were there, she lived a long full life. She was ready.  It was her time. I told her to go.  I told her it was okay, as if she needed my permission. My six year old handled my eighty-seven year old grandmother's death like a seasoned pastor at her bedside. She told Nana stories, snuggled up to her, and told her it was okay to go and meet Jesus. She learned how we treat our dying. The great grandkids were there for the learning, and the passing of the torch.  They all sat on her bed, held her hand, and talked to her, just as if she wasn't knocking on deaths door. I watched the passing of the torch to the next generation that weekend.  That day was precious. It was my Nana's last attendance at a big family gathering.  It was for her.  She passed quietly the next morning, before I could get to her from the hotel.  

She waited for me to drive to North Carolina from West Virginia, with my husband and my child. She waited for me and my daughter. She wanted to see her girls one last time. The last granddaughter she raised, and the last baby(great granddaughter) that she helped to raise, whom she adored. She needed us to tell her it was okay to go, that we would be okay. We had just been to see her less than two months before I got the call. My Auntie B, with whom she lived, called me and told me that it would be any day, possibly any hour now. She let me talk to her one last time. She woke up and had a moment of clarity from her medicine induced, dementia fueled ,mumbling, confused haze to tell me, her "third daughter" one last thing.

"I love you. Goodbye. Tell everybody up there(WV) I said bye, now don't you cry!"

I, of course lost it, right there in Kohl's, where I was Easter dress shopping with my best friend. I went to the car and bawled my eyes out. I knew right then, that it was the last time I would ever talk to my grandmother. Since I had just visited, my Auntie B excused my presence at her bedside vigil. She said I was there when Nana needed me to be.  To make some last, lasting memories with Nana. And she was right.  I had visited seven times over the last year, to make sure my precious baby had some good memories of her Nana.

It is such a surreal experience when your grandmother tells you goodbye, and you know, I mean you just know deep down in the depths of your soul, that she really means it. And it was important for her to tell me. When the woman who helped raise you, that called you her third daughter because you were so close, the only other woman who knew firsthand the earth shattering, life changing pain of losing her daughter, my mother...and who was there for me, and I her, through it all, is gone? Well as my Daddy would say, it's a game changer.  It's a life changer.  A life altering, no going back now, you are the new MATRIARCH of this branch of the family, it's shocking.

When your world changes so very much in such a short period of time, you retreat and take care of you. You take care of your broken, fragile, mental state, and that grief process that is hitting your baby? Well you shut it down, compartmentalize, and take care of her first.  Like I said before, I am a master at compartmentalizing, and a very strong woman.  I come from a long line of strong women, who I was fortunate enough to be best friends with as well.  We were a threesome, my mom, my Nana and I.  And it rattles and shakes you to the very foundation of your soul, when your village starts dying around you. Self preservation kicks in, and you take baby steps to recreate and band aid your shattered world. Then there is another year of firsts to survive. And you have to go through every single one. Mother's Day, Birthdays, Anniversaries, Christmas, Thanksgiving, first day of school for the new year, New Years, Valentines Day, the day of their death, etc.  A whole year of firsts, in a whole new existence you have to figure out without them. All the while, life goes on. Without them. And then you start to pick up the pieces, and figure it out.

And then you sit at your kitchen table and see your beautiful daughter's newest school picture, and realize that your baby will never really know these two beautiful exemplary women that shaped you and made you who you are today. They were your everything. She was their everything, as were you. 

You are all she has now. They are in you, and you must never let her forget them.  You promised them. No matter how painful, no matter how many tears. She will know them through all the pictures and stories you tell. She will understand how much you loved them through the amount of your tears and depth of your grief. She will cry and grieve with you! You will get through it together. She will know them through you. You are her mother. You will be everything to her that they were to you. You have big shoes to fill. And more memories rush in, a lifetime full of memories.

And your heart breaks all over again.

Afraid

I am afraid.
I am afraid to call. 
I am afraid of what I will hear. 
I am afraid of losing her. 
I am afraid to confront my grief.
I am afraid of being alone.
I am afraid of asking someone to be with me because I will have to explain. 
I am afraid she won't make it until the weekend, when I can go to her.
I am afraid she will go before I get to her, but maybe it's better if I don't.
I am afraid that my last visit with her, was my very last.
I am afraid to tell my baby, she's already lost my mom at the tender age of 3.
I am afraid.

I am afraid.
I am afraid of waiting any longer to call. 
I am afraid of waiting.
I am afraid of waking them up, when they all desperately need sleep.
I am desperately afraid to lose the woman who helped me pick up the pieces after my mom died.
I am afraid I will forget.
I am afraid I will not be able to convey her wonderful life and legacy of love in her eulogy.
I am afraid that I don't want to let her go.
I am afraid of life with out her in it.
I am afraid of losing the last person in my direct lineage that has been there for every single moment of my life.
I am afraid.

I am afraid.
I am afraid of losing my second mother.
I am afraid of losing the last person who knows all the moments of my deceased mother's life.
I am afraid of losing my last grandparent.
I am afraid of losing one of my very best friends.
I am afraid of having one less person who loves me unconditionally in the world.
I am afraid of losing the last living piece of my mother.
I am afraid to lose one of the last living pieces of my childhood.
I am afraid that all the dead relatives she is seeing are real.
I am afraid for her, as is she, that when she goes to bed that it will be the last time she lays her   
head down to sleep in this world.
I am afraid that when I spoke to her yesterday, that it will be the last time.
I am afraid that when she told me goodbye yesterday, that she meant it.
I am afraid that she knows.
I am afraid to lose my Nana.
I am afraid.