29 May 2000
Six months ago today, my mommy looked at me for the last time, hugged me for the last time, kissed me good-bye for the last time.How can I have possibly lived for 6 months without any of that? How can I still be alive? It's funny, I don't know if it is a good thing or not, but I'm not scared to die anymore. Not that I want to (most of the time, anyhow) but I don't so much care if I do. Used to be, when I was on a plane and it got scary, I'd grab my seat arms and start praying. Last time, on my way back from Dallas, I just shrugged. At least I'd get to be with my mommy again.
You know, if "the joy of the Lord is my strength" I'm in pretty bad shape. I think that's the worst effect of this whole ordeal. I have no joy. I can feel surface happiness, but it never goes deeper than that. No wonder I'm having chest pains, I feel like there is a giant rock on my heart. I want my joy back, I want to be a generally happy person again, I want my mommy.
Some people keep telling me to "reach out" for them, that they are there for me....they can't undertand that they have to do the reaching. I'll respond, but I don't have the stregth to "reach out" to anyone. I'm just sitting in the corner crying, they have to reach in.
15 May 2000
5 months. 5 months ago today, I was saying goodbye to mommy for the last time, and I'll never know if she heard me.Time flies when you're grieving I guess. It seems amazing to me that it's may already, that my 6 month wedding anniversary is 12 days away. It all seems like such a blur. Sometimes I honestly forget that the wedding happened already - I spent so long planning it and so soon after it was over, I had a million other things to worry about, deal with, and think of that it just seems so far away.
I had a big grief spasm saturday night, I saw the picture of me & mommy from last Christmas in my wallet and just fell to pieces. I hadn't been really feeling in so long that I forgot how much it hurts. It's such a horrible deep well of excruciating pain that I can't let go and just feel it because it feel slike it will kill me. Eventually I made Gus turn the TV on and just shut myself down again. So much for our romantic weekend getaway.
It's pretty sad that the highlight of my mother's day was having a dream that I was shopping for a present for her, and talking to her on the phone. Although recently I've started having those dreams where she isn't dead and I panic for various reasons. What an awful feeling to wake up and be relieved that your mother is gone...it makes me sick.
12 May 2000
With the approach of Mother's day, I have sunk into a terrible bleak numbness. I just don't care about anything, I don't even feel sad anymore, I'm just empty. And I think this is worse than being sad. At least that feels normal, feels sane. This feels like nothing.It just seems so sick how Mother's Day gets shoved in my face everywhere I look. I guess it has been like this every year, but I never noticed it before. Why whould I? I didn't need television or radio or email spam to tell me I should do something nice for my mom. She loved Mother's day, more than her birthday or Christmas or any other holiday. She thought being a mommy was something worth celebrating. I always showered her with cards and presents every year. Now I wish I could give her a hug, or just tell her I love her.
Sometimes I find myself doing things she wouldn't want me to do, and I realize I'm doing it, but can't stop myself. I guess I think if I'm bad, maybe she'll come back and stop me.
We're going out of town this weekend, to just kind of ignore the fact of the holiday. It was pointed out to me that I can't run from it, and that's true. But I can distract myself.
Oh, because of the forwarding I put in to have my mom's mail forwarded to me, the Seattle Times sent a lovely letter welcoming Dove to her new home and saying they knew she was probably still unpacking, but she should consider a subscription. I about threw up.
24 April 2000
Today is my mommy's birthday.In honour of this, I'm going to tell a funny story about her.
We spent almost all our time together. To the extent where sometimes mom would space out and forget to be a grown up again when she wasn't with me. Like once when she was out on a double date with a friend and two very sophistacted high-powered San Francisco attorneys. They were driving past a farm, and my mom pointed out the window of the car and says "Ooooh look! Horsie! Horsie!"
Anyhow, he and I were pretty loose around the house as far as germs went. We'd drink out of the carton, lick the cake batter spoons, etc... We just weren't real concerned about getting cooties from each other.
So for my mom's 36th birthday, she decided to throw herself a Sweet 16 party. Her real 16th birthday had been a horror, so she decided it was time to make it up to hserself. She invited a ton of people and made a big beautiful cake. The house was full and everyone was dancing andf eating and having a blast. Mom started cutting and serving the cake, and when she had served about 1/3 of it, a friend sidled up to her and said "Uhh...Dove? I'm not sure if you realize this but....well, you've been LICKING THE KNIFE between each slice of cake!"
She was utterly mortified! She offered to give everyone fresh cake, and they mostly said "Hey, we didn't want to say anything, we figured it's your birthday, you do what you want!". It became a long running family joke after that.
You know, what's funny is that even though I'm putting this site out there as a tribute to her, I'm not sure how much she would appreciate it. My mom was a very private person, she didn't like people to know a lot about her. Except me, I knew everything. I read about people finding out things about their parents after they die that they never knew. I've been looking, but it seems I really did know everything there was to know. Which was a lot.
It just seems too horrible to not be able to sing happy birthday to her.
22 April 2000
A funny thing happened friday. My wedding video came in the mail.How odd, I thought. How could they have finished the video without the materials they needed from me to finish it?
I called and left a message for them saying "This is sure interesting. I'm not sure what's on this tape, but I hope it's not my wedding video, since it can't be my wedding video, seeing as how you were missing several important elements, like the CDs that make up the background music for oh....75% of it? Please call me..."
So after I'd finished dealing with the mail and other coming home activites, I put the video in. And watched it. It was my wedding video. Apparently they just gave up on waiting for me, and instead of oh...say....CALLING ME AND ASKING FOR THE CDS, they just went ahead and used whatever music they wanted to. Which happened to be horrible awful music easy listening crap that I hate.
Bear in mind, they knew the delay was due to my mom's death.
I called them back in TEARS, and said I sure hoped they were willing to redo this thing, because I refused to have a wedding video set to music that makes me want to heave. I mean, the video looks beautiful, and the music is seriously foul. It was very upsetting.
So I watched it through anyhow, and I had figured I would deal okay with seeing my mommy in it. I have some other videos with her in them, and I have watched them, and I like seeing them.
Well, I guess this was different because I'd never seen it before, it was not 5-10 years old, it was my mommy as I most clearly remember her, and she's there with me looking so vibrant and beautiful and hugging and kissing me, and it wasn't even 5 months ago. And she's not here anymore. I just don't understand that yet.
The first time she showed up on the screen, in the dressing room with me, I just lost it. I was crying these horrible great wrenching sobs. I thought my chest was going to explode. Every time I would get under control, I'd see another scene of the two of us together. Holding hands. Her hands wearing the rings that I've had on my fingers for 4 months. I was truly hysterical, I just kept howling "Mommy, how can you be gone? How can you not be here anymore Mommy?"
Anyhow, the video goes on, and I'm just a big crying wreck. I'm watching the ceremony part of the tape, and at one point during the ceremony, I see my mommy pop up from her seat, come out into the aisle and pick up the hanky I had dropped when I went from her to Gus, and start straightening my train out. And I started laughing like crazy, because that's my mamma in a nutshell. It was so perfect. I had no idea she did that until yesterday when I saw it on the tape. I'm sure she was sitting there in her pew twitching, waiting for an appropriate moment to get up and pick up the hanky in the aisle and fix my train, because her baby didn't look perfect. It was just a beautiful funny precious thing. I can't help but smile about it even just re-telling the story. It's just the epitomie of my mom.
19 April 2000
Today I was buying Easter cards for my husband (and trying hard not to look at the Happy Easter Mom cards, or the birthday cards that I would have sent out this week if she were still alive) and the woman who checked me out asked if I didn't want to go ahead and buy my mother's day cards now as well, and I just burst into tears at the counter. I know we shouldn't take all the mother's day references so personally, just like I know I shouldn't get angry at people who call my house and tell me it's time for my mom to make her next dental appointment. It's hard not to though. I feel like the world should know that this terrible thing has happened.
17 April 2000
I've been scanning pictures for the webpage. Mercy what a beautiful woman my mamma was. I loved how people always thought we were sisters when I was younger. I had a date come pick me up in high school, and he was flirting with her before I came out of my room. As we left I said "Bye mom" and closed the door. He just stood on the porch looking stunned. I was like "What?" and he said "Uhh....did you just say bye MOM?" He'd thought she was my older sister!I almost felt guilty for not crying on the 15th this month. I know my mom wouldn't want me to be sad, but at the same time I feel like I should feel worse at times when I'm feeling better. It's confusing.
We're starting to pick out tile and appliances and stuff for the house we're building with my money from her. I wish she was here to help me, she was so good at decorating... I want to be happy and enjoy this homebuilding experience, but it's hard.
11 April 2000
All the mother's day cards and ads and articles have just been setting me off right & left lately. I can't stand it! Last mother's day wasn't anything special, I thought we had a million more...When I was going through my mom's files after she died I found that she had saved every mother's day card I'd given her in my whole life. And the ones my husband sent her last year. I think this mother's day I am going to sit down and read them all. Same for her birthday (24 April) she still has all the cards. She dated them all too, so she knew which year they were from.
This is really amazing to me because my mom was very adamant about not keeping old things and throwing out whatever she didn't need. She hated any kind of pack-rat like behaviour. But she saved 28 years worth of cards from me...
Mom had to go into the hospital up here the wednesday before the wedding. She stayed there all through thursday which was thanksgiving. I'd planned this big family/wedding party thanksgiving dinner, and now the only family of mine that was there couldn't come to dinner. I was heartbroken, and I kept trying not to cry because it made my mommy upset. After dinner, I brought her back a box of turkey and stuffing to the hospital, and she asked if I'd had fun, and of course I said no because I had spent the whole time wishing she was there. And she said "I'm just ruining everything, aren't I? I should have just stayed away and let you have a nice wedding. Or just gotten a gun and ended all this misery."
I have never heard my mother say anything so horrible in my life. I went home and cried for hours. No matter how sick my mamma was, she was always optimistic and confident that she would get better. For her to basically have a suicidal thought that she put into words was the most awful thing I could imagine.
Now I know how much she must have been hurting, and how angry she must have been that she couldn't participate in all the things I'd planned for us to do together before my wedding.
I miss her so much, and I want her back so bad, but I admit that I would only want her back if she were healthy. Watching her suffer, and having to talk to her on the phone every day for 4 months and hear how bad she felt was terrible. At least I know she's not in pain and she's got a healthy perfectly functioning body again and she's happy.
8 April 2000
I feel awful and terrible and like my life is pointless and I'm scared all the time to the point of being terrified and I feel totally alone.In the beginning of C.S. Lewis' book A Grief Observed about after his wife died, he says "Why did no one tell me that grief felt so much like fear?" I was really glad to see that it wasn't just me. When I think about it, *really* think about the fact that my mommy is never coming back and she'll never see my kids and I'll never get to hug her or sit in church holding her hand or buy her another birthday card, I feel so scared I have to stop thinking about it for fear I'll just start screaming and not be able to stop.
I just feel like what's the point of doing all this stuff I have to do. Who cares? I'm not excitied about finishing my wedding video, my mommy won't get to watch it, and it's going to be full of her, and I'm going to watch it and just miss her even more.
7 April 2000
I feel like I am on this weird roller coaster of emotions, but with no real 'highs'. I just go from miserable to hysterical to numb. I have so much that needs doing and I just can't make myself do it. I got a list from my mom's estate attorney of all the documents he needs from me and just panicked. It's such a long list! I haven't even managed to finish sending thank you letters for wedding gifts yet. I have to send a packet of stuff to the videographers so they can finish my wedding video, and I haven't gotten around to that either. Everything just seems like so much work.It's funny, my doctor, who was really reluctant to prescribe me *five* sleeping pills 'for emergency only' in the month before the wedding was all ready to prescribe me some Prozac. I told her she was insane if she thought I needed to take pills for grief. My mom was a psychologist, and I have a healthy mistrust of those kinds of medications. I know they help a lot of people, but I definitely do not want to mess around with my emotions with chemicals. No thanks.
Anyhow, I just fell apart at the doctor's office yesterday, I was rreading Redbook or some magazine like that & there was a Mother's day photo spread of moms with their young daughters, and I just felt so lonely and empty remembering all the great times my mommy and I had when I was a little girl, and knowing I am the only person on earth that has those memories anymore.
It's hard not having anyone to ask about things I remember from my childhood who can clarify things for me. I was always remembering some random moment and wondering where we were or what we were doing at that time, and I could call mommy up and ask.
5 April 2000
I just bought myself a dollbaby on ebay. I haven't had dolls since I was VERY little, but I found this one while searching for something totally unrelated, and she's crying and looks about the way I feel inside all the time these days, so I bought her. Plus she's holding a bunny. I'm going to name her Emily, which was one of my mommy's favourite names.http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=295783293
1 April 2000
There's a part in Motherless Daughters when the authour says she has an urge to tell everyone she meets immediately that her mom died, because she feels like that willexplain everything about her. Like "I'll meet you in the lobby at 7, I have dark hair, green eyes, I'll be wearing a black suit, I'm 5'7" and my mother died when I was 17". I so understand that. I come so close to just blurting it out to some random stranger who makes a passing comment to me.Yesterday at FedEx, this lady on a cellphone in front of me was trying to get off the phone and was like "Yes. Yes. I know. I have to go. Okay. Yes. I will. I will. I have to go. YES! I will!" and finally she hangs up and looks at me and rolls her eyes and says "My mother, yelling at me! I'm like 'hello, I'm in the fedex office!" and I was so close to saying "I miss that so much. I'd give anything to have my mother yelling at me on the phone right now."
But I didn't.
31 March 2000
The last few months of my mommy's life, she was feeling bad almost every day, and everyday I would talk to her on the phone and hope she'd be doing better that day & when she wasn't, I'd get frustrated! It just didn't make sense that my mommy, the most important thing in my life, could be so sick. After one particular phone call, I felt so guilty at not being more loving and sympathetic with her that I called back and explained that I wasn't angry or frustrated with HER, I was angry with the illness, and the circumstances and even God, but that I loved her so much and I was so sorry she was suffering. She said she knew that.The week before my wedding when she was here with me, she was REALLY in pain and I was so scared and worried about her on top of being more stressed out than I'd ever been in my life because my elaborate wedding was on saturday and everything had to go well...so I was irritable and frustrated, and in return she got frustrated with me because I kept getting totally freaked out and crying and when I cried and got upset it made it harder for her to keep her composure. She kept telling me just to relax and not worry about her and enjoy my pre-wedding plans, but how could I? We'd planned to spend the day in a spa together, and she couldn't go because she was in so much pain. She insisted that I go without her, so I did, but I didn't enjoy it at all...
Anyhow, I feel so badly now for not being more calm and sweet and loving with her, since it was the last time we spent together. I know she would tell me it was okay and that she knew I loved her, and not to feel bad about it, but she's not here to do that and it's so hard to forgive myself.
27 March 2000
I'm glad I was with my mom when she died. I don't know if she knew I was there. I hope she did.I'd been sitting with her, holding her hand and stroking her hair and talking to her for about 24 hours (I napped for about 2 hours somewhere in the middle of the night). I told her how much I loved her and how great a job she had done raising me. I told her she'd been the best mommy in the whole world and that I thanked God that He had chosen her to be mine. I told her if she wanted to go home to Heaven, she could. And that I'd miss her, but I would be okay, I could take care of myself. I promised her I'd take good care of all of her things and take care of her cats (she was *really* worried about finding homes for them if anything happened to her) and that everything would be handled.
At the funeral home. I couldn't believe they actually wanted me to look at a picture of my mommy's body to tell them if it was really her or not. Thankfully my husband did it for me. I would have been haunted by that horrible image for the rest of my life. I didn't even see it, but it still bothers me something thinking about it.
My mom's stuff is in a moving truck on its way here. It was really hard for me to leave my mom's house for the last time on friday. Even though she hadn't lived there very long, the knowledge that I would never be in a place called "my mother's house" again was really sad.