17 March 2000
Boy, did I lose it last night.I was driving to a grief support group, and I started thinking about my mommy's hands.
We used to hold hands all the time, even when I was grown up, if we went out shopping or whatever, I'd hold her hand while we were walking.
And every once in awhile, she'd hold up my hand and look at it and just marvel at how it used to be such a little hand, and say how she used to look at my little hand while she was holding it and wonder how it could ever be the hand of a grown woman, and how now it was so strange to see my hands that look just like they did was I was little, but bigger and attached to a big grown up me.
She always took wonderful care of her hands, they were always super smooth and silky soft, and her nails always looked perfect. They always felt so nice and cool.
And last night, I realized for the first time that my mommy's hands are gone. They don't exist anymore. I'm never going to hold those hands ever again in my life.
You think I would have realized this when we had her cremated 3 months ago, right? No, I'm a little slow these days and I just realized this 13 hours ago.
I think that's the hardest I've cried since the day she died. I usually have just had what I call 'leaky eye' syndrome where the tears just keep dribbling out. But last night in the car I was just sobbing and howling and I could hardly breathe. I came very close to pulling over, but I was already late as it was and the traffic was so bad I was hardly moving anyhow.
For some reason it just hadn't hit me before that her *body* was totally gone. I'll never feel her hands again, or pet her silky blonde hair, or put my arm around her little waist or rest my head on her chest and hear her heartbeat. The body that brought me into this world is GONE and I am just overwhelmed by how sad that makes me. I just feel totally shattered.
15 March 2000
Today is the 3 month aniversary of my mamma's death.Her birthday is 24 April, then mother's day is the day before the 5 month anniversary.
This is hard.
For everything I'm sad about, there's an "at least". Everyone keeps telling me "at least she got to see you married." "at least you had a wonderful relationship with her for 28 years." "at least you were there when she died." "at least you got to talk to her after your honeymoon."
It's all true, and someday I guess I'll be glad for all those things.
But I get sick of at least. I don't want the LEAST, I want my mommy. She was the MOST.
I had another dream last night where I'm trying to get her to tell me she loves me, and get her to be affectionate with me. I hate those. That's really my biggest regret is that she had to pull away from me near the end, because it hurts. Not having the last times we spoke have the closeness and love that characterized the rest of our relationship is obviously hurting me all over, even in my dreams.
I actually had the best dream ever about my mom a few months before she died. Which was neat because I got to share it with her. It was strange, but wonderful. We were in some kind of a class and the teacher handed each mother-daughter group a stuffed lion cub, and said "When the lion cub is a born, it's mother sees it as perfect, without spot or blemish, regardless of whether it really is or not." and my mom turned to me in my dream and said "That's how I see you honey, that's how I've always seen you. No matter what you do, you're my perfect little baby lion cub." and I fell into her arms crying. And as I laid there in my mommy's arms, I felt like all of the emotional hurts and problems inside me were being washed away, and at the same time, I felt like her physical problems were healing and her blood was becoming healthy under her skin.
It was SO real. I woke up sobbing and called her in the middle of the night & told her the whole thing and she started crying too. She'd been feeling pretty bad for several weeks and when I woke her up the pain she'd had in her side was gone. And she told me on the phone that what she said to me in my dream was true. I'd love to have more dreams like *that* now...
Later
I'm so glad I saved some of the sweet emails my mom sent me. I just found this one, and it made me feel better all over again. She wrote it to me at a time when we were disagreeing about something I had done.
Subject: Yore Mawma loves you
Hi princess,
Just a note to tell you that I love you and I accept you and your choices are yours and you needn't ever be nervous that I will ever stop loving you or reject you. You are my daughter forever and have a complete right to follow your heart and the things you think are correct. I love you but I am not you nor are you me.
I am on my way to a Bible study. Kissy, kissy, hug.
Ever and always loving you,
MommyWhat a wonderful mommy. I am glad I have this to read when I feel like I wasn't or am not the daughter she deserved.
13 March 2000
I do dream about my mommy. Not as much as I'd like to. but a decent ammount. My dreams of her have changed as time passes since her death. At first she would show up in my dreams and I would panic because I had to figure out how toexplain to her why I had her car and her wallet and why I'd been spending her money, and I didn't understand why I'd given so much money to the funeral home if she wasn't dead, and I would get very stressed out. And then I'd wake up and be relieved but horribly depressed. I was having dreams like this about 2 times a week for around 6 weeks.Then one night after my grief counseling group, I had a dream involving lots of other things but at one point my mommy called on my cellphone and I was talking to her when suddenly I said "Wait a minute...mommy, this can't be you. You're not calling me, I'm imagining this. You're dead. I'm not hearing you, I'm making this up in my head." and in the dream I was trying to figure out if I was hearing things from a dead phone, or if there was someone else on the line that I was imagining to be my mom.
I was sad when i woke up because I realized that my subconscious mind was finally accepting the fact that she was gone. After that happened though, my conscious mind suddenly started having a harder time believing it. I just can't believe it, it doesn't make any sense.
Anyhow, I really hoped that I would still dream about her, and I have on occasion. The last dream I had about her, she was dying but they let her out of the hospital to spend her last days with me and my husband and we were at the beach together. It was nice.
10 March 2000
My first really big breakdown after she died was in the card aisle of the grocery store. I saw a "Mom" card and just totally lost it when I realized I was never going to buy her another one. I too loved picking out cards for my mommy. She always marvelled at how I found ones that were so applicable to our relationship. I told her (and this is true) that I'd just go to card shops and read all the Mom cards until I found one that made me cry, and bought that one. I'd go up to the counter sniffling and the cashier would always look at me funny.I also would always buy her one "To my mommy" little kid type card for every holiday. I had fun picking those out. I can't blieve I'll never got to pick out any of the "to my grandma" cards for her from my kids. And that she'll never get to send fun and cute cards to them. Thinking about things like this just break my heart. She wanted grandbabies so badly.
9 March 2000
She always wanted to have a lot of babies and only had me, so I felt like I had to live a life that was worth all the hard work and sacrifice she put in to raising me. I still feel that way, even moreso. I tell people that no matter how sad I am without her, I OWE it to her to go on with my life and make it WONDERFUL, and have kids and raise them as well as she did me and be a testament to her hard work. She swore when she found out she was pregnant that she would not be like her parents and she would do everything possible to be the kind of mommy she always wished for growing up. She definitely succeeded, all of my friends always wanted her to be their mommy too!I'm not perfect and there were times when I disappointed her horribly, but I think overall i did okay. she was always worrying that she didn't do a good enough job raising me, that she wasn't the best mom she could have been, that various probalems I'd had were her fault, and I always reassured her that that wasn't so. I spent so much of my last 24 hours by her side in the hospital just telling her that she'd done the best job in the world and that I loved her...I hope she heard me.
2 March 2000
There are marks of my mother's kindness all over this world, and I thank God for it.She donated money to a Christian organization in India that buys Rickshaws for families so that they have a way to make a living. There are 2 Rickshaws in India that say on the back "Blessings from Dove Anderson, Texas, USA" on the back. I have photos of them with the families that now own them.
There are Russian Jews in Israel that were able to get out of Russia because of my mother's donations. They thank God for her every day.
She has a pile of letters and notes from impoverished people the world over that she helped financially.
There will be people going to Heaven for years to come because my mother ministered to them in prisons or shelters. I am using 10% of my inheritance from her to set up a scholarship fund to a local Bible college, because she always wanted to attend one and never got to.
She was such a giving person and I am so proud of all that she did, and have resolved to try to continue her good works throughout my life.
1 March 2000
Someone asked me recently if I was starting to feel 'normal' again (which is kind of an insane question after only 2.5 month anyhow), and I said "You know what? I have to come up with a new definition of normal."Because until 27 November, I'd been single, I'd lived alone for 9 years, I was a virgin, and I had a close loving relationship with the best mother in the whole world. Within 3 weeks every one of those things changed. I don't even know who I am now. I have no idea what 'normal' is, because so much of who I was before is gone. I don't know who I am anymore. The line between who I was at Thanksgiving and who I was by Christmas is more like a huge gaping chasm that I can hardly see across. Somehow I have to figure out who this new person living inside my skin is.
28 February 2000
I was just in a meeting with two co-workers. One of them had his family's christmas letter tacked on the wall of his office and I started reading it. There's a paragraph about how proud they are of him and his work and achievements, etc... and they are obviosuly so very proud of him. I just started crying in the middle of the meeting because I can't believe I don't have anyone to take that kind of parental pride in my anymore.My mommy was my greatest supporter and encourager. She was always so supportive of and thrilled by any accomplishment of mine, whether it be losing 5 lbs or getting a promotion or getting a really great deal on something. She was always so sure I could do anything I wanted to, she was always there to tell me I was smart and brilliant and beautiful and wonderful.I just can't stop crying, I don't know how to tolerate the knowledge that no one will ever be there for me in that way again. It just breaks my heart.
16 february, 2000
My mom was cremated. She hadn't said that was what she wanted, but it was what she'd done for her mom in 1997, so I figured she'd want it for herself as well. I actually felt better knowing her body would just *poof* cease to exist, as opposed to sitting in a box in the dark cold ground. She hated the dark and the cold, and she hated cemetaries...plus having her cremated was the only way I could think of to have her remains with me in Seattle.I had to pick out something for her to wear, and I almost used the suit she wore to my wedding because she loved it so much, but then I decided I wanted to keep it for me, and maybe wear it to my own child's wedding someday, so I used the dress she wore the rehearsal dinner instead. And the matching shoes. My mom would have never forgiven me if I'd sent her off into the great hereafter with no shoes *smile* (I inhereted over 300 pairs from her! Luckily we wear the same size!).
The paperwork said we could bring jewelry to, but I could hear my mother saying "Why waste good jewelry? That stuff was expensive!" so I didn't.
Anyhow, I don't like to think about the process at all, it upsets me horribly these days, so I just don't. We had her ashes sealed into a beautiful blue stone fountain with her name and favourite bible verse on it. So when we get to our new house this summer, it will be hung outside looking out over the lake. I know she's in heaven, but it makes me feel good knowing that her memorial will see the sunrise over the mountains every day.
I don't know if I want to be cremated or not. I definitely don't want a viewing, I know that much. Unlike my mom, I like cemetaries, I think they are peaceful and nice. I wouldn't mind being buried I don't think.
I am totally over any guilt I had about having the ashes in the garage. My grief counselous said "Hey, most people put their loved ones in the GROUND covered with DIRT and MUD. DOn't feel bad about having to leave the ashes in a box in the garage for a few months." Gus brought them home from the post office and put them down there, I haven't even seen the box.
Plus we found out house, so now I know where the fountain will go and have that to look forward to. It's perfect because it's in the process of being built, but it is still early enough that we get to change some rooms around and pick out all the flooring and colours and appliances and all, so we're getting a custom home without the hassle of building from the ground up. It's supposed to be done in May and we're closing in 1 June. I went through a period of being really sad and depressed after we signed the papers, because it feels awful to be getting this wonderful home solely because my mommy's gone. I try to think of it as this wonderful thing I've gotten because my mommy loved me and cared enough to plan for the future, but it's still very sad. And what's worse is people who are expressing real jealousy over it, and I'm like "You know what? I'd rather live in a studio apartment for the rest of my life and have my mommy back for one more day." And people just don't get it, they're telling me how lucky I am... It's weird.
31 January 2000
My mom was definitely 'holding on' for my wedding. She went home from her weekend here and went into the hospital and never came out.I also think she was waiting to go until I got back from my honeymoon, because she knew how devastating it would be for me to have gone 2 weeks (the longest in my life) without talking to her and then come home and find her gone. I talked to her on the phone twice and then she went into ICU. I wish she'd been conscious when I got to Dallas so I would have some peace knowing that she knew I was with her, but I just have to believe that in my heart.
The weekend of my wedding, I felt like my mom had 'drawn back' from me a little. She was still the same loving mommy she had always been, but there was something distant in her. Most people wouldn't have noticed it, but as constant companions for 28 years, we were so very tuned into each other that the slightest thing was easily apparent to us about the other's feelings.
At the time, I thought it was because she was having a hard time 'letting go' of her little girl and giving me away. But now I think also she was detatching from me a little bit because it made it easier for her to let go of her life. I was the only person she felt she needed to be on this earth for and I think she had to cut her feelings for me off a bit so she could let go.
She told me that weekend that she had always been scared while I was growing up, of something happening to her, because I would have no one to care for me if she wasn't there. I think seeing me married finally relieved her of that 28 year long fear and she was tired of fighting her illness and just wanted to go home and be with the Lord.
I miss her so much...
15 January 2000
Can i do anything?!We decided to go to the movies tonight & chose Girl, Interrupted because I didn't think anything in the film would remind me of my mommy & upset me, it being the 1 month anniversary of her death.
Well, near the end of the film, the girls are watching the ending of Wizard of Oz on the television, and that was all it took.
I have been trying to remember specific memories of time spent with my mom, and had been having a hard time, just been remembering this blur of constant love and support for 28 years. But The WIzard of Oz brought some back and now I just can't stop crying.
I loved this movie so much as a little girl, and I wanted my name to be Dorothy so badly that I would tell people it was my name. My mom would come get me out of the sandbox and all the kids would say "Bye Dorothy" and she would pull me away muttering under her breath "Did you tell them all your name was Dorothy again?!". She bought me this beautiful pink organza dress from the thrift store when I was 4, we called it my Glinda dress because it looked like her dress in the movie, but less of a full skirt. I still have it for my daughter to wear someday. She took me to see The Wizard of Oz on ice for my 23rd birthday, and bought me cotton candy and we laughed about how we were the oldest mother-daughter there.
Going through her things, we found presents she'd bought for her as-yet unconceived grandkids. She'd ordered Christmas gifts for us before she came to the wedding, some of which just arrived in the last 2 weeks. She loved me so much and I just wish I could have one more hug. She was so beautiful and she always smelled like roses. God I want my mommy back so bad it just hurts so bad.
I keep finding her long blonde hairs on things. She was so goregeous. She was so good.