Two years ago today...
Posted on 2008-Mar-25 at 02:43 in A day in the life..
My Mom died with me sitting by her side in some cold hospital in Oregon. It still feels like yesterday to me, and I told my daughter today that I think it will always feel like yesterday to me.
It is just a surreal feeling, knowing that the one person that loved you without any reservations is now gone. I know you might think me a bit nuts to still feel the pain of losing my mother but she was so much more than that to me.
She was truly and completely my best friend.
We could and did talk about anything and everything, from sex to the way we grieved over our lost pets. No one understood me the way she did and that never even happened until I was an adult and lived over 600 miles from home.
We were never close when I was younger and I always felt like an outcast in my family. Being the only one with green eyes in the family made me feel like I was adopted so many times when I was younger.
I know that isn't true now because when I look in the mirror I don't see myself anymore, I see my Mom. I feel like I am disappearing!
My mom would listen to me sob on the phone over the loss of my cat Scrunt, the end of my marriages, and the painful decisions I made putting down my 19 yr old cat Floyd and my 15 1/2 yr old dog Cameo. She cried with me on the phone and hugged me tight months later over the same thing when I finally saw her again. I didn't see them enough, that is for sure. They moved to Oregon in 1991 and it has never been financially easy for me to get up there to see them.
My Mom made it down here in 2004, bald as can be- to be here when my only daughter graduated from high school.
My son didn't graduate from high school (he got his GED afterward) so my Mom knew this occasion was very special to me.
She was ill and weak but she braved it not just that hot month in June of 2004 but back again to celebrate my 50th birthday with me in December. She was still bald but feeling a bit better.
I was so happy just to be with her. The funniest thing was that we were so used to talking on the phone for hours long distance and then when we were together we didn't seem to have as much to say, that we joked about calling each other while in the same house so we could chat!! I think it was because words were not needed the same way as the were when we were not together.
She was there for me when I had my first child- my son that decided to come into this world via an emergency caesarian that almost did us both in.
She and my Step-Dad, who has been my only Dad since I was 22, drove up in record time from San Diego. They got to hold my son the same night he was born, even arguing with a doctor who insisted that my 8 lb 7 oz boy was too big and beautiful to have just been born. He had a full head of hair that stuck out like a buzz cut grown long and so she had to show him the little tag on his bassinet that said “Hi I’m a boy and I was born at 12:55 pm.” It was quite comical.
They moved to Oakhurst the next year and stayed there until they left for Oregon in 1991. She was there when my daughter was born also- taking care of me once again now with a 7 yr old and a newborn. She taught me how to diaper a girl (I had no clue) and she was determined when the time was right to teach each of my kids in turn as they grew up to say the word s—t (rhymes with pit) because she thought every kid should learn it and I won’t say it. She was a pistol my Mom was.
She was there for me through every break-up, every divorce and every bad grade or detention my kids put me through. When I was so stressed over my last divorce and I would start to have anxiety attacks she could calm me down just by talking to me over the phone. She had that effect on me.
She would rejoice over every new accomplishment, new goal or new idea I would have. She (and Poppa of course is part of all of this) lent me money and encouragement when I was selling Nikken products (which she used until she died) and drove me to Portland and watched Jemma while I took the hardest test of my life for the Oregon Veterinary Boards which led to me being licensed in both Oregon and California. When I was selling a lot of my art she was sending me tip money she was making at the Sky Ranch in Oakhurst running the hotel part for art supplies.
She rooted for me the hardest when I started college in 2002 with a broken spine and spirit from losing my career.
When my best friend of 20 yrs decided we could no longer be friends without any explanation, my Mom was terribly hurt inside but she just kept telling me through my tears that “she wasn’t a true friend if she could do that to you.” She never understood why she would do that to me but I still don’t to this day know why or understand it.
She talked me out of the need for any anti-depressants because I never got that down knowing she was there for me to talk to. She wanted, more than anything on earth, to watch her baby graduate from college and give the farewell speech- the first one in my blood family to do so. Poppa has a PhD but on my Mom’s side of the family no one finished college. So I am the first. My niece has an LVN license from a vocational school- so she was actually first- but I am the first one with any degrees. I guess that is why I got three of them at once!!
I could go on and on but the point is that I didn’t lose just my Mom two years ago today. I lost my truest, most loyal best friend, cheerleader, guidance counselor and my Mom. That, my friends, is a lot to lose at one time.
Rest in peace Mom.. I love and miss you....
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