A Short One With Tears About Mom

It hits me like a ton of bricks when it's my first time in a few days that I'm alone. I'm not at work, I'm not with the kid. It's me in the house and I get sad that Mom is gone. So I talk out loud to the air, that I wish she was here. And then I get busy and get a bunch of stuff done even before I sit down to drink coffee and feel like I'm rocking this time before I go to work. And then I read this beautiful email from one of Mom's friends and she says,

"The world is a smaller place without her." And I just fucking lose it. Because it really, and truly, and most definitely is. 

I will always endeavor to be happy. I'm just never going to be as happy as I was when she was here.

There will always be light, it's just not as bright. And that's life.

Live every day with joy and happiness, like, totally. But we have a few key companions on this journey, and once they're gone, it can never be the same. We mustn't think it will ever go back to normal, because it won't. There is only the clichéd "new normal." But that's the only way to put it.

So that's where I am. I miss her. I want to call her and tell her about this amazing picture that the kid drew, and more than that, this ridiculously creative story she wrote that goes with it. My goodness, she's so bright and she's so creative and fabulous, and I so miss sharing that with Mom. Or sharing the silly conversations that the kid and I have, because when I made my mom laugh, like a really good laugh, oh my gosh, how I loved it. I loved laughing with her. I miss it and her hugs and knowing that she could always make me feel like everything will be okay.

And everything will be okay. So she let me know that enough that I know it's true.

But man. How I miss her.

Be good to each other. Be so good and positive in the world that you are ridiculously missed.

Mom

My mom passed away on Wednesday, January 29, 2014. She was my best friend. The first one I called for whatever. The good, the bad, the meaningless, the meaningful. She was my shoulder for crying, she was my arms for hugging. My cheerleader, and yes, the proverbial wind beneath my wings. All of these things and so much more. A beautiful person with a beautiful heart who was loved and enjoyed by so many.

I keep thinking of that scene in Four Weddings and a Funeral, at the funeral, when Matthew is eulogizing his beloved Gareth, and he quotes this part of the W. H. Auden poem, Stop all the clocks (Funeral Blues):

"He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong"

Mom was my everything. My kid is also my everything: Mom was my other everything. My other other half.

My compass, moral and otherwise. My tether. The thing helping to hold me to the ground, to a center. Right now I feel I'm floating.

Everything goes on... I mother, I cook, I eat, I exercise, I laugh with my friends, I watch TV, I sleep. But it all feels different. It doesn't feel normal. It feels like things about which I'd look forward or get excited hover just above the ground... I still feel the excitement but there is something hollow there, too. It's not as exciting. It's not as funny. It doesn't feel as special.

I know that this part, the part where I'm missing her, the part where I feel that nothing is quite right, that this part will hurt less and feel less weird. I'm not there yet. I'm heading toward new new normal. New normal started in October of 2012 when Dad died. So now it's new new normal.

There is no way to make this neat and tidy. No way to just get over this part that feels so sad and hollow and get to the other side. It's only time that will get me there.

I keep saying to people it's one day at a time. It's more like one hour at a time. One minute, even.

And my brain is like full of what I picture as ping pong balls, that rattle around and bounce up and down and I never know which one will come up. One ball says, "I had her for forty three years. I'm so lucky. Think of people who lose their moms when they're twenty. Or when they're little kids. I'm so very blessed to have had her for a long as I did." Another ball pops up and says, "Cancer sucks so much ass. It didn't even have a fair fight. What kind of bullshit is it that we found out about the cancer in October and it closed down her stomach in December so she couldn't even eat for the last month of her life? What kind of ridiculous unfair nonsense is that when she was the best person I've ever known?"  And yet another ball pops up that says, "I miss my mommy. I want to call her. I want to go to her house and just lay my head on her chest and hug her and stay there, all day and all night long. I want my mommy." No, I was not able to type that line without crying. Without sitting here at the computer, sobbing by myself.

It's my first day alone with my thoughts. The kid stayed home with me the day after Mom died. Then we had her field trip. Then the weekend. Then three days out of school with a head cold. So now she's back to school and it's me in my house at the computer, just me, the computer, some coffee and my brain. So I guess that's why I had to do this today. 

I cannot say how much my support people have helped me throughout all of this. My family. My brother in particular. My kid who fills me with love and joy and laughter always. My friends. My special best friends, my lovenet. My friends who have fed me, emotionally and literally. My friends who have been where I am. Who have lost their mommies or their mommies and their daddies and who show me strength and inspire me and make me know that I won't always feel so lost. I won't always feel as if I'm floating in a bad way. Without these people, I don't know what I would do. I just know this process would be that much harder.

I can only end this part of my journey with the way we ended most of our phone calls, with a back and forth that went something like this. Silliness that evolved, I believe, from my brother making fun of me and Mom for some kind of goodbye exchange.

I love you best.
I love you most.
Back crack big Mac.
Give your dog a bone.
Give YOUR dog a bone.

And I also told her I loved her to the moon. And back, and up and down and flip around.

And I always will. 

The One About How I Miss My Dad and the Good Things Left Behind

I can't believe it's been a year since we lost my dad to cancer. It seems like only yesterday that my brother called me at work and said I needed to come to care home where my dad was NOW, not after work as I'd planned. And I went and I held Dad's hand and Mom's hand and I hugged my brother and I told my dad how much I loved him and at least once early in the day he was able to tell me he loved me, too, and though it wasn't clear I know that's what he said.

That was for me. I'm not assuming you guys are crying or anything and if you are I'm sorry and I'll turn it around with some good stuff, at least I hope so.

So, last night I was on the way home from the hospital because my mom's in the hospital because either the universe has a HILARIOUS sense of humor or a really SUPER FUCKED UP sense of humor or you know, life is just nuts and shit like that, and the story of her being in the hospital is another story for another blog and not for today. But anyway. I was on the way home and I decided to have a conversation with my dad.

Yes, like, me in my car, in the dark, talking out loud to my dad who died a year ago. Because here is the thing, and this is what I told him in this conversation, I don't know how all of this works. So I figure what the heck, I told him I loved him and I missed him and if he has any pull with ANYONE who has any control over ANYTHING though I tend to believe all of life is just luck, good or rotten or in-between, but again, what if I'm wrong about that, so I'm like obviously go ahead and pull some strings about Mom so everything goes all smoothly with her and all that. That would be great.

And then I cried like a big fat crybaby bitch all the way to my brother's house to pick up my daughter.

What I have found, when you have a kid, and you are trying to hold it together for the most part around her, because hey, she's a kid, and she should get to be a kid as much as she can and not be worried or worried about her mommy etc. So I have found that the car is for crying. The car is also good for screaming if you need to do that. Roll up the windows first, but then scream your fucking head off if you need to, and in this past year, I have found times that I need to scream my fucking head off.

So I'm thinking I got that sobfest out of the way. So I am planning today when Dad crosses my mind (which will be a lot) to think about what he leaves behind, and not in the sad way, but in the good way.

one of my faves

my baby, my stupid cat, and my baby's Pop Pop



The things that come up in conversation that I call "JohnMoore-isms." Stuff that Dad would have said in response to certain situations. Loud SIGHS he would have made when he's like, what can I even say to that, or the look that he would get on his face. I look at my kid and her amazing  little brain and I'm like, damn, she's hella smart. Like Dad smart. The man was brilliant. And it's like, my brother and I wouldn't be here and wouldn't be us if it weren't for my dad and we're kind okay as far as humans go.

And then we have our wonderful fabulous precious beautiful children. And all of us loved my dad and he loved us and it's like, at the end of the day, when your number is up, and mothereffer, that is going to happen to all of us, like it or not, it's what's left here when your number up. It's who you loved and who remembers you and who walks around with a part of you inside of them.

my baby and my little brother's baby

That's what it's all about.

And Dad, if you have Internet wherever you are, like I already told you, I miss the hell out of you and I wish you were still here and I'm pissed that you're not but I'm grateful for all the pieces of you that are still here.

Newest Member of the Club No One Wants to Join

Sadly, a bunch of you are members of this club, it's the I Lost a Parent Club. And it's a really shitty club that most of us know we will join one day, sooner or later, if life takes its natural course. It's still shitty. The people in the club? Oh, they're fabulous. And they get it. Because no matter how empathetic or kind or loving you are, you don't get it until you join.

So I'm a member of this club and that's part of the reason I haven't written in a while (well, that plus my normal laziness, the lazy part has not changed with my club membership), because I figured the first time I went to write I'd need to write about Dad and I kind of don't like to talk about it.

I stalled on reviewing the obituary draft Mom worked up, I still have unread sympathy cards on my table (they're opened because Mom was at my house watching my kid and sometimes she gets in this mood to sort out my mail because I will literally let it pile up for weeks [see the lazy part above, plus I pay all my bills online], so she opened them and told me how lovely they were). But I still haven't read them. Because that sort of shit reminds me that it is real. My dad is really gone.

Dad, holding Kayla the day she was born

On the one hand, I remind myself to be thankful that the suck-ass part of his disease was relatively short compared to the way many have suffered with cancer. He was on this planet for nearly 70 years, while every time I turn around I hear stories of fathers taken from families when their kids were little. My dad at least got to see that his kids grew up pretty okay (yes, the jury IS still out on me). I got to see him blossom when he became a grandfather, Kayla's and then Morgan's Pop Pop, and we got to see parts of him that we hadn't seen before.

We got the chance to have beautiful conversations with him in the last six months, opportunities that so many people don't have when they suddenly become members of this club, and for that I am eternally grateful. There is peace in me because I felt like there was not a single word left unsaid.

Let me take this opportunity to remind you all, again, to tell people that you love them. A lot. As in, all the fucking time.



The other good points were the people I think of as guest stars on The Shit Show. Laura, the one who took me and Mom to look for care homes so we could pick the place Dad spent his last night (though at the time we didn't know it would be his last night because the end all happened so fast, except for that last day which was the longest and worst day of my life), is a beautiful special lady who will never be forgotten. She, too, was a club member so obviously she gets it and then she was just amazing. The lovely ladies at the care home, the one who stood behind me (okay, I wasn't going to cry when I did this, dang it all to heck) and held my shoulders while I held Dad's hand and just sobbed. The last nurse we had, who was with us and Dad until the end... Elmar. We'll never forget that guy. Yes, this is the best you can hope for, kind, caring guest stars on one of the worst shows ever. And of course, all the people who supported us throughout this whole thing. My friends who had to hear about it as often as I could manage to talk about it and who lifted my spirits and kept me sane... of course I'll never forget those guys because they're stuck with me.

And the very best thing to have is a family you love and like very much. Without them I'm sunk.

I think about him every day, several times each day. Like I told Kayla, even when people pass away, if we love them we keep them and our memories of them in our heart. And that's exactly what I'm doing. That, and laughing and living a lot, because you need to do a little extra to live for the one who is not here anymore, at least that's what I think. And every once in a while I cry. And every once in a while I get hit with this incredible ball of loneliness, which is the only way I can explain it, and it really sucks. I mean, I just keep saying, "This really sucks." There's no way around it. And to pull myself out of it I look at something lovely and amazing, like stars or the sun setting behind a hill, or leaves on trees rustling, birds flying, good nature stuff like that. And of course looking into the eyes of my lovely and amazing daughter and hugging on her is pretty helpful. Beautiful distractions, joyful distractions, finding these would be the best advice I can give to club members.

Lessons From the S#$t Show™*

*I stole borrowed the term "Shit Show" from my pal Stephy Poo. I know she will forgive me and I even threw her a bone by adding the ™ in the title.

Learn some stuff from this shit show my family and I are going through. Here I define shit show as knowing that someone you love is very, very sick and there is nothing you can do for them. Except to be there and try to make them comfortable if you can but mostly just be there and hold their hand and tell them that you love them. So here is the stuff I'm hoping to pass on to you because it makes me feel a little better to write it down.

 There is no such thing as saying "I love you" too much to people you love. Try to live your life so you have few regrets. And then if you do have a few, try to concentrate on the good stuff. Remember that part about telling people you love them. Hug a bunch. Hugging is great even if you don't have a rack like I do. Try to find stuff that is beautiful. Like, look up at the stars. Those are hecka beautiful. And they remind you of how small we are, which is trippy and amazing. Try to find stuff to laugh about. This part can be hard so have as many funny ass people in your life as possible. And you know, crying is okay and it's gotta be done when shit is just hella, hella, hella sad. And you're not weak, you're human, if you just have to cry. But remember all that other stuff because it's super important.