Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
The future’s not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.
Whatever will be, will be
The future’s not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.
Doris Day
I still don’t have any words to describe how I feel about what happened.
I’m a know it all. I can’t let things go, I have to say it when someone is wrong. I can’t just let it be. Not my finest quality to be sure.
Maybe that’s why. Maybe that’s why I’ve got nothing. I didn’t know this was going to happen. I didn’t have the answer.
I still don’t.
I still don’t.
I didn’t see this coming. Never in all my planning, or all my visualizing did I foresee… this.
I remember one time in highschool, the day after a big break up, I heard that my ex wasn’t at school. So when I walked around the corner and he was walking towards me, I wasn’t prepared.
Even though 20 years have passed, our encounter that day stayed with me.
I wasn’t prepared and I acted horribly.
I wasn’t prepared.
I wasn’t prepared.
I like to be prepared.
For our wedding I spent a year visualizing the weekend. I say weekend because we got married at Spirit Ridge. We encouraged everyone to stay there or at close by hotels and enjoy all the festivities.
It rained. Like a red alert rainstorm for 2 days.
In August.
Seriously in a desert that gets less than 12 inches of rain a year.
BUT I haaad played it out once as a plan b. but I didn’t put much thought into it, I didn’t want to put it out there,
you know?
you know?
Even when my mom was diagnosed with cancer,
I did not see this coming.
1 year later…
Isn’t it weird how numbers stay with you? How all of a sudden 1 month turns into 6 months and then all of a sudden 12 months. Counts, hospital room numbers, blood pressure, days in hospice, each hour of that day, June 20th, 7:00pm…
Isn’t it weird how numbers stay with you? How all of a sudden 1 month turns into 6 months and then all of a sudden 12 months. Counts, hospital room numbers, blood pressure, days in hospice, each hour of that day, June 20th, 7:00pm…
Every time my mind slows down and I allow it to rest my thoughts settle… questions pop into my head,
How did this happen?
What happened here?
How did it get to this?
I have to remind myself, I mean I have to say it out loud to really know for that whole day…
My Mom died.
Whaaat???
I know, right?
That happened.
And it is only year one of many many years of reminding myself…
Wait a minute.
Ok… sorry, needed a breather…
My Mom died.
Gulp.
My Mom died. What the fuck?
Sometimes I am crippled with the thought of never sharing a laugh with her again. Somedays I thought I wasn’t going to make it through, my sadness was just too overwhelming. Thank goodness for my girls. Not 1 day has gone by without happy, sad, and even mad thoughts about her. Usually not more than a day passes that I don’t spontaneously break out in tears.
I see something my Mom liked, and I cry. I see something my mom didn’t like, and I cry. The strangest things seem to set me off. When I sit and nurse SBean in a dark room and feel her knead me, I cry.
My Mom died.
Gulp.
My Mom died. What the fuck?
Sometimes I am crippled with the thought of never sharing a laugh with her again. Somedays I thought I wasn’t going to make it through, my sadness was just too overwhelming. Thank goodness for my girls. Not 1 day has gone by without happy, sad, and even mad thoughts about her. Usually not more than a day passes that I don’t spontaneously break out in tears.
I see something my Mom liked, and I cry. I see something my mom didn’t like, and I cry. The strangest things seem to set me off. When I sit and nurse SBean in a dark room and feel her knead me, I cry.
Life has become… before Mom died and after Mom died.
Weird… in a gut-wrenching, ball in the back of my throat kinda way.
OK I’m going into year 2. I know I used to think about other people’s loss in a STUPID way. I was all like, it’s been over a year, she must be over it by now. Seriously was I that dumb? Yes. I had no idea.
I had no idea that this missing piece of your heart is permanently missing. It doesn’t matter if it is a year or 50… It never goes away. It may not be the 1st thing I think in the morning… now, thankfully it is 2nd or sometimes even 4th.
So many times I have reached for the phone to call her… walked to the back office to tell her something…
Shit.
I have prepared for her anniversary though.
I have decided Friday will be a day of acts of kindness. We are going out and every time we do an act of kindness we are going to say “that’s for Kathy pass it on”.
I have decided Friday will be a day of acts of kindness. We are going out and every time we do an act of kindness we are going to say “that’s for Kathy pass it on”.
Who knows maybe in years to come so many people will be passing on my mom’s kindness it will come back around to us. I like that, my mom always said,
What comes around, goes around.
I like thinking about a future that includes her.
I need to think of a future that includes her in some way.
I need to think of a future that includes her in some way.
Because as if I haven’t talked to my mom in a year!
As if my mom hasn’t laughed along beside me as we watch SBean create her own language and attempt ANYTHING!
As if my mom hasn’t heard HBear describe every book she reads in such enthusiastic detailed fact! All about Charlie and his glass elevator and the chocolate factory. The sideways stories of Wayside School, all about Grace and those darn girls, Nancy Clancy and Judy Moody.
How is she not planning a trip out to Calgary for my nieces first birthday?
How did she not complete dad’s golf set this Father’s Day like we had discussed… just last year?
Look at the house. It is all painted like you asked us to.
Share my excitement…
Please.
Oh right…
My Mom died.
I’ve got nothing.
I see her in all things yellow. I see her in my dreams and we hug. I hear her in the wind when I stand in the backyard. She is all around me but she is not. HBear keeps a dreamcatcher on her picture beside her bed. It is there to chase away sad dreams.
On Friday our family, across the country, will be doing a balloon release in her memory, as we did at her celebration of life last year.
We will release 1 yellow balloon at 7pm (the time she left us). 1 balloon for 1 year of missing her like crazy.
Thank you to Tracey Roberts for starting this tradition that means so much to our family.
On Friday please go out and pass on the kindness my Mom gave so freely. Tell everyone to pass it on…
For Kathy.
Life’s blows cannot break a person whose spirit is warmed at the fire of enthusiasm.
Norman Vincent Peale
