Five Years Ago

 Tomorrow marks the 5th anniversary of Mom’s death. Five years tomorrow at 11:40am. I can’t believe it’s been five years. Everything just seems like a blur to me these past years. I’m taking the day off work as I haven’t worked on any of the previous anniversaries and never will. I will be doing a certain ritual—a tradition, if you will—as I do every year at the time of death.

  My emotions are not so much sadness anymore, just anger and bitterness sometimes, directed at her for not trying to live and for secretly drinking herself to death; but also directed at myself for not seeing the signs and not doing everything in my power to keep her alive. It’s almost like some supernatural (re:evil) cover was put over my eyes, a malevolent pair of blinders that kept me some seeing reality and doing something about it. That anger turns into fits of rage every now and then, fortunately I keep it within the well-insulated walls of my house and is never, ever showcased in public.

  Not much else has happened these past five years, just work and sitting at home and going on little road trips to mountain cabins twice a year or so and visiting old friends up there while I’m at it. I got a promotion at work over years ago; Mom would have been proud. I’ve gained quite a bit of weight these past few years out of depression, I guess. I don’t know. I was involved in a car accident in Tampa two months ago, totaling my car of 13 years and causing me some injuries. I’m temporarily using Mom’s old car (seen in a previous blog). It would have been nice to have been able to call Mom afterwards and for her to be there for me as I went through recovery and all the mess of an accident, but I had nobody to call except for that father of mine. Life without your soulmate is empty.

  That’s all for now. I greatly encourage all of you to read my other blog posts over the past five years. Check them out!

Four Years Ago

 This is the fourth anniversary of Mom's death today. I have a certain ritual that I conduct every year at 11:40, the time of her death, and this year was no exception. I remember everything about that week four years ago, all the bad and the sad and the horrors and the shock. Some might say I suffered from PTSD from all of it; I would certainly agree. Living four years without my beloved parent has been a most unhappy time, one that I would never wish on anyone. 

The "thoughts and prayers" comments are always silly. The out of touch Baby Boomers think empty words and clichéd religious phrases are encouragement, but my generation is unphased by all of that; we see right through it, and it means nothing. Losing your soulmate, your loved one, is simply a personal experience, a matter that nobody else can help with. It's a one-person struggle, as lonely and isolated as that may seem. 

  So I check off another year. Nothing is the same anymore. 

https://www.bankspagetheus.com/m/obituaries/Carol-Collins-5/Memories

Three Years Ago

 Tomorrow is the third anniversary of Mom's death. No, it doesn't really get that much easier. No, I don't "move on" from something so traumatic and life-changing; I just try to make do the best I can until I'm ready to go. The "brain fog" is long gone. Crying and wailing all the time is also in the distant past. But the incredible lonliness and emptiness remains as nothing positive has supplanted it in any way. 

  In the past year since my last post, I spent thousands of dollars on a therapist via the BetterHelp app; it was nice to talk to somebody off and on for several months. I've been able to throw away lots of Mom's junk that I just kept in closets and sheds, unwilling to part with it; I realized none of it was needed or had any sentimental value to me at all. So there have been positive things that I've been able to do in the past year. 

  Ever since Mom's death, I've been on a Facebook group for people who have lost their mother. A woman on there took a picture of me and my beloved mother and made a cute painting of it. I'll share it here and bid you adeiou for now.

Two Years Ago

  Monday at 11:40am marks the two-year anniversary of my beloved mother and best friend's death at 64. It hasn’t been a happy two years. It’s nothing I would wish on anyone, and nobody can understand unless they’ve gone through the same devastating and life-changing loss. I’ve had people who lack empathy say things like “I’ve lost an uncle and a cousin one time.” Ummm…ok. Are you an only child, single, childless and alone, with a useless father and no other close family? Did you spend 39 years straight with your mother, side-by-side almost non-stop, together in practically every aspect of life? No? End of discussion. Go very far away.

   I’ve had virtually no support from Mom’s family during the death and afterwards. No cards, no calls, no condolences on Mom’s obituary page. Two of Mom’s siblings haven’t even acknowledged her untimely death, and one asshole uncle told me to hurry up and move up just hours after I watched the woman who saw my first breath breathe her last. And in less than a year, two longtime friends have died unexpectedly, and another has moved far away to another region of the nation. 

   My world has gotten smaller and darker in the past two years, and I’m not the same person I used to be. All one can do is just keep going on, I suppose. 

Some Minor Progress?

 I finally moved Mom's sick bed back from the living room corner to the guest room. It had been sitting there unused for two years this month as Mom was sent to the hospital and then to a nursing home, where she died soon after on August 16th, 2019. I rarely am in my living room, so I kept putting it off as I guess I wanted to hold on to any memories of my beloved mother as I could. My online therapist encouraged me to finally move it back, and I did just that this week.  I found lots of books and paperwork under the bed and I cleaned that all up. I then brought out Mom's clothes basket that had been sitting in another corner, and I went through that, throwing away most of the clothes but keeping some favorites she wore, as well as the last thing she wore before leaving my home forever. I feel that this was a bit of progress in my grief.

Where it stayed since Mom's death

What was underneath 

Time for the clothes basket 

Back where it originally was 

Her 66th Birthday

 Mom's 66th birthday would have been tomorrow. Every year, I would scour the greeting card section to find the perfect card for her. My birthday is exactly one month from hers, and she would do the same for me. We both kept each other's bday cards for life. For the second year now after her death, I still bought a card for my momma, and I'll probably do so as long as I live. I read it out loud and placed it on her piano on top of last year's card. I guess it's just a tradition I'll always have.

My Review of Cornerstone Hospice

 I wanted to post a review online for Cornerstone Hospice in Tavares, Florida, since Mom's death, but it was too painful for me to do. I thought about it and thought about it. I finally got around to it. I posted it on Google Reviews as well as Yelp, and will probably post it on Facebook Reviews as well. Here's what I wrote:

I don’t have good remarks about Cornerstone that so many on here have. My mother and absolute best friend, Carol Diane Collins, died on August 16th, 2019. Now a year and a half later, I feel I finally need to write a review. In her dying weeks, I was summoned to the hospital; the medical staff said that it was time for a Hospice consultation, and they recommended Cornerstone. I was met with Suzanne Pasco, who didn’t seem to want to be there, and seemed like this was almost of a annoyance to her to have to meet with me about putting Mom into a Hospice House for the remainder of her life, which turned out to just be a couple of weeks. She said that she didn’t think my dying mother was ready for a Hospice House, despite the doctors saying she was. She then stated that patients are only put into Hospice just 48 hours before they die, which I later learned to be a complete lie. Pasco put on a phony smile and left. I then had to scramble frantically to try to put my mother in a nursing home, as I am an only child with no family and no support of any kind, who works full-time and would not be able to give my precious momma the help she needed in her final days. Using her Social Security money that she just started getting, I was able to put Mom into Cypress Care in Wildwood. Within a few days, they called, saying I needed a Hospice consult. I was met with another representative from Cornerstone, saying that it was now too late to put Mom in a Hospice House and that she had no idea why this wasn’t done in the first place; she said Mom should have been placed there days before. 

 So my wonderful, sweet momma had to endure the final week of her life in a busy nursing home, surrounded by three other patients in a small room, one of them blaring Maury Povich and Jerry Springer filth all day, every day. No privacy, no peace and quiet, no dignity, that me and my soulmate deserved. Nobody from Cornerstone offered counseling, no help, I was on my own the entire time. I have no idea why I was overlooked. But those final weeks left me pained and scarred emotionally, and even 18 months later, things are still hurtful.