Here we go again...

A mom's hug lasts long after she lets go.  ~Author Unknown

Mother, RIP - May 19, 2011

Husband, RIP - May 27, 2011

I knew that this time of year was going to be very difficult to get through... but I really wasn't prepared for being slammed up against the wall once more with all the devastating feelings of loss again.  Then again what did I expect when I had placed all my emotions of losing my mom just one week before my husband passed away in a box to someday sort through as if I would be in better shape to handle it? Somebody's death had to wait.. I'm still processing all my emotions connecting me to my life with my husband & his death but as I experienced this my body told me that it was time to open myself up to grief once more, to the one person in my life who had the most intimate connections to my life than I could possible understand.

I work at a community newspaper and holidays are good for us, good timing for designing spec ads to encourage retailers/vendors to buy into the paper with. Well, the Mother's Day spec ad requested from my sales team started the ball rolling for me last week. I can't believe it's been a year since I've lost my mom. So many emotions surround losing her that I don't even know where to start to untangle my love and loss for her. My loss has always been mixed up with grieving for my husband in his sickness and death and it's been overwhelming. I have to ask myself... does a person ever get too old to grieve the loss of a parent? I lost my dad in 1996. That loss was probably the most difficult for me personally... a part of who I was lost forever and for the first time. Experiencing that kind of intimate loss was an identity/source crisis for me. Although my dad was never close with anyone I do know that he loved my brothers and I. BUT losing my mom... the one who always worried us, no matter how old we got, no matter how useless it became? Love? Devotion? Yeah, I think so. 

As a family we grew up in a time period of Ozzie and Harriet, Father Knows Best, Leave It To Beaver, Andy & Mayberry (you get my point). Perfect families existed on TV... but they did not exist in my house. I was devastated whenever our family situation couldn't live up to what I thought was "normal". Back in those days no one talked about feelings and it certainly didn't go outside the immediate family. 

I guess my whole point to all this is that it took me a long time to accept that is no one is perfect... ourselves included. My mom especially was not perfect but I grew to love her anyway. People come and go in our lives and it's not often we let some of them into our lives on the most intimate level (walls down). "Thank you, mom for always loving me, for showing me that no matter what rotten thing that might happen in my life that tomorrow is another day. Thank you for never forgetting my birthday. And as a mom, Thank you for all your support when I had Danelle, my one child and daughter. She is my world and my own lesson in motherhood."

It with great sadness that I will not be able to share with my mom that I am becoming a grandmother for the first time... this kind of sharing hurts in the most profound way. As I grieve for two very special people in my life today I also have every reason to smile knowing life does indeed go on.

The eldest daughter, Deb
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